San Jose

I left La Fortuna Saturday morning.  I was told I would be picked up by Interbus at 7:30 am.  Instead, after two calls to the place where I bought my ticket, I was picked up by RideCR at 8:20 am.  Fortunatey from there the ride was all good.  (Yes, the driver knew the way...) 
I shared a new  8 person A/C van with a young couple from Toronto who were going to the San Jose airport to return home.  Of course my destination was the hotel in San Jose.  I made there about 11:30 am.  However upon arrival. I discovered there was no room at the inn (Hotel Aranjuez).  I guess other people must have been able to do all their strange reservation requirements.  Any way, no big deal.  I simply went across the street to Kaps Place.  This is another weird place - kind of like an upscale hostel.  I looks like a bunker from the street as you must go through two security doors to get to reception.  But it is rather nice inside and the rooms are small but well furnished.
I spent the rest of Saturday and all day today looking about San Jose.  I was hoping to take a commercial walking tour this morning but that didn't happen.  So I did it on my own using my tour books for all the information.  I discovered the most notable building in Costa Rica is no doubt the National Theater which was built in 1897 to compete with the finest in the world.  I got lucky there as they just recently began Sunday tours so I took advantage of the opportunity.  See pics.  I also discovered that San Jose was the third city in the world to be wired for electricity...after New York and Paris.  Who would have thought?
As for Costa Rican food, I'm not a fan.  Most of the people here like rather bland foods - just the opposite of my liking.  In addition, they have a "typical" salad here they serve with a lot of their meals.  This salad is made up of beets, mayo, etc.  In my opinion the only thing it is missing from being a complete mess is onions.  Maybe they could add that just for me! 
Tomorrow (Monday), I'm off by bus to the Caribbean coast.  I'll probably spend tomorrow night in the town of Cahuita.  Supposely this area, unlike the rest of Costa Rica, has Caribbean cooking.  Therefore I'm hoping for some good jerk food, maybe something spicy in coconut milk, etc.  I'm also hoping the food in Panama is much more inspired than what I've encountered so far in Costa Rica.

Kaps Place

Abandoned Railroad Station - Looks in good shape inside

Nice Name for an Inn - Bonny & Mike are you listening?

National Theater - Lobby

National Theater - Famous Ceiling Panting

National Theater - Intermission Room

National Part Monument _ Commemorating the defeat of American "Adventurer" William Walker

The Blue House - Use as home for several former presidents

Edificio Metalico - Iron Structure shippied piece by piece from Belgium in 1892

Costa Rican Supreme Court

This is the only type of street cleaner I saw.  Maybe that is why the streets aren't clean

Train Engine Built in Philadelphia 1n 1939 - Looks OlderÉ

National Theater - Stage

National Theater

Sorry, once again I'm frustrated as Blogger changed the order of the pics and their rotation.   

La Fortuna

I have been in La Fortuna 2 days now staying at the Hostal Rolopz.  I booked this place online as it had great reviews and A/C.  Although my room is fine (large but basic) this is really no hostal.  It is more like staying with a Costa Rican aunt that you never knew you had.  The only frustrating thing about this place is their wifi router is bad.  So my smart phone isn't so smart here and I need to use their pc to publish this blog.

Yesterday (Tuesday) I signed up to do the afternoon Hanging Bridge Tour but alas I was the only one that did.  So the tour was canceled.  As an alternative, I signed up for the Special Volcano Tour.  This tour took about 15 people up to the Arenal Observation Lodge.  This lodge offers some of the best views of the Arenal Volcano from its observation decks.  Unfortunately the weather at that time was very dark as a rain shower was coming so most of the volcano was hidden in the clouds.  From the lodge we then took a guided tour through a private part of the rain forest.  This trail had three hanging bridges and a waterfall along its path.  During the ealk the tour guide gave us a history of the volcano (It just became a volcano in 1968 and it built all its size since then) as well as description of many of the native vegetation.  This walk was over 2 hours long. 
The tour finished up in the dark at Baldi Hot Springs where we enjoyed a soak in a very rapid warm river of water.  This spring is apparently available to the public but there are literally no lights there.   So it is surprising that even I, who is not a big water fan, took part!

Today I took part in yet another tour.  This one is to Cano Negro (Black Canal).  We left town at 7:30 am for about a 2 hour bus trip up towards the Nicaragua border to the Cano Negro Wildlife Refuge.  The refuge is famous for all of its birds, bats, insects, reptile  and caymen.  Just in case you aren't familiar with caymem, they closely resemble a short alligator. 

Our tour company had a pontoon boat that went slowly down the river with two guides on boards spotting the wildlife.  This was all very enjoyable even when the boat broke down when the gas line developed a hole.  Obviously, no gas - no go.  The crew took this all in stride and fixed the line in about 15 minutes.  After the boat ride we all enjoyed a very nice buffet lunch back at the boat dock before the 2 hour ride back to town.  All in all, this tour was all done first class and was a bargain at $50.

During this tour I met a couple from Utah who were in Costa Rica setting up an upcoming tour.  It seems they have their own tour company for the past 10 years.  Although they have done many tours to Mexico, Belize and Honduras, this will be their first venture into Costa Rica.  I would love to be in that business...maybe specializing in Asia.

Tonight, I ate at the number one restaurant in town per TripAdvisor.  Believe it or not, it is the New York Deli who specializing in Philly Cheesesteaks.  (I'm not sure whay as the owner is from NYC and his wife is Costa Rican)  Naturally, I had to try the cheesesteak.  I ordered it so fast that I didn't read that they use ground beef!  Well as disgusting as that sounds, the sandwich actually was very good.  I just wouldn't call it a Philly Cheesesteak.

Tomorrow, I decided to upgrade from basis bus as I booked the Interbus service to go to San Jose.  Interbus is really a shuttle type service that will take me door to door with the hotel in San Jose.  Actually I couldn't get reservations as the San Jose hotels I'm interested had too many hoops to jump through.  They require you to download their reservation form and then fax it to them.  I went to 5 places here in La Fortuna and I couldn{t find anyone that had a working printer.  So I never even had to find a fax!!!  Since I am scheduled to get to the hotel tomorrow before noon, I'm hoping reservations won't be necessary.

Once again I noticed that Blogger rotated my pics so they appear to be misaligned!!!!

A Big Iguana on way to Can Negro

Pontoon Boat - Cano Negro 

Howling Monkeys - Cano Negro

One of the Hanging Bridges

The Crew Fixing the Gas Line - Cano Negro

Waterfall - Arenal Walk

Wood Stork & Other Birds - Cano Negro

Many Caymen - Cano Negro

Hostal Rolopz - My home away from home

The River - Cano Negro

Arenal Volcano - As much as was visible

Two Iguanas Suning - On way to Cano Negro

On to Arenal

Today I am in the town of La Fortuna which is the town associated with the Arenal Natural Park and its famous volcano.  Since the volcano has been dormant for only a year, there isn't much reason to do the hike up there.  So I am planning to do other activities.  I got here yesterday (Wednesday) via a jeep-boat-jeep trip from Santa Elena.  This 3 hour trip cuts off much of the time off the trip as the road between the two towns goes way out of the way.

The past 3 days in Santa Elena were very enjoyable.  The weather there was a good deal different from the first part of my trip.  The days were in the mid 70s with the nights in the high 50s.  No A/C was needed.  The first night there, I experienced an unbelievable wind storm that lasted all night long.  The second night saw winds were somewhat less intense but still very strong.  Then by the 3rd night (last night) no winds at all!  The funny thingis that there were no unusual winds during daylight. 

Okay now about the tours I have taken.  I made all the bookings through Andreas (see pic).











On Monay afternoon I did the Extremo Canopy Zip lining.   It is reputed to be the best in the area, if not the world.  There are 24 platforms with 15 cables - 5 of which are quite long - up to 3,280 feet.  The longest two required you to be teamed up with another person so the weight is distributed over a wider area over the wire to reduce the speed somewhat.  There were 2 real highlights:
1) the Tarzan Swing where they basically push you off a platform for about a 40 foot freefall before the ropes catch and then you swing like Tarzan.  and
2) the Superman where you get a second pulley on your feet and you go headfirst.
Fortunately, I made it through all these without any back issues.  In fact my back is feeling better every day.

On Tuesday, I did the Eco Trek in the morning.  This was a 4 hour and little over 2 mile hike with a guide who spotted wildlife , plants, etc. for us.  I saw various types of birds and 3 sloths.  The local sloths are the 3 toe type which are bigger than the normal 2 toe variety and their faces are a bit more dog-like.  Of course since it during the day,  the sloths were all sleeping near the top of the trees.  These sloths look to be about the size of a medium dog but they weight less than 12 lbs as they are mostly fur.  We also spotted two of the colorful keel-billed toucans.

Tuesday evening I did the Santamaria's Night Tour.  This was a very commerialized tour as there must have been about 8 groups out there in the same private reserve.  There were anywhere from 5 to 8 people per group.  Still with all these people, we did get to see some unusual sights - like the mother and baby sloth moving (very slowly of course) from one tree to another and the leaf ants with their 5 caste system and their huge colony.  I didn't get any pics here as it was night and my cameta is really a phone.

Yesterday (Wednesday), I did the El Trapiche Coffee Tour.  Really this both a tour of a family run sugar cane operations as well as the coffee tour.  All their operations are organic.  The tour guide was quite good in both describing the coffee and sugar cane operation as well  discussing and showing us  several of the local plants and vegetables.  See pics.  During the tour each of us got to make our own sugar candy which we got to keep.  It was pretty good but way too sweet to eat much.  At the tour's end, they provided a taco make with the cooked local vegetables and their oen coffrr and limeade.

I apologize for the photos being out of order and rotated incorrectly but blogger seems to have its own mind at times

The bigger type of all the Hemming Birds we saw

A Strangler Fig Tree

Inside the Stranger Fig Tree

Sugar Cane Field

The Boat part of the Jeep-Boat-Jeep Trip

The 3 Toe Sloth Sleeping

A Coffee Tree ripe ready to pick

A White Faced Monkey

Crushing Sugar Cane the old way

Arenal Volcano

The traditional Costa Rican ox cart

The Superman Zip Lining

The normal Zip Line

Cabinas Nora

Getting fitted up for the Zip Line

Cabinas El Pueblo

The Zip Line Crew

Santa Elena

When last I blogged (last Ftiday) I was on the island of Ometepe in Nicaragua staying at the Cornerhouse, a coffee house/b&b run by an Aussie and his Canadian wife.  I had a rather restless night there due to not having AC (very few hotels on the island have AC or TV) and having a 4 am rooster wakeup call.  The redeeming thing about my stay was their breakfast - part of the b&b.  I had what they called eggs benedict with a light lemon cream cream sauce.  Together with the fresh grapefruit/mandarin juice and roasted potatoes, it was great - not at all like the eggs benedict I had before.The best breakfast by far on my trip and it turns out the highpoint of my day  After breakfast I got the 9 am ferry back to the mainland.  I was with the Brit I met the day before.

From the ferry station, we got a collective taxi to the border.  We got there a little after 11 am.  First in Nicaragua, there was a short line to pay a $1 processing fee, then a mess (supposely 3 lines) that were to pay the $2 fee & get the departure stamp and finally two very young guys - with no uniforms of any sort - checking to be sure all the payments and stamps were present.  It was now about 12:15 and we were in Costa Rica.  I didn't much from Nicaragua so things were bound to get better in Costa Rica - right?  No way!

Costa Rica greeted us with a single line about a block and a half long.  At 1:30 we has barely moved a third of the distance.  Then suddenly about 2:15 the line started to move rapidly.From there we finally got through it and ended up with the passport entry stamp by 2:45 just in time for the bus to Liberia.  Funny thing is there was no one at the border that would prevent someone from not getting the entry stamp.  I thought that was odd but then about 5 miles into the bus ride we were stopped for passport inspection.  All in all very weird.  Once in Liberia I wanted to find a hotel I had read about on the Internet.

In its writeup, Hospedaje Las Delicious (see pic) stated it was a 15 minute walk from downtown.  Therefore once I found someone to point me in the right direction, I headed off.  But after about a km I knew something was wrong.  I stopped at the first public place (a police station) to inquire.  The un-uniformed guy there had to call someone to find out where this hotel was.  Then he advised me to get a taxi, so I did.  Two miles out of town later, I made it to the place.  It was off the road among homes with one small sign.  Nevertheless it was rather new and the room was nice, so I stayed that night - even though the woman owner spoke no English.  We communicated mainly via sign language.   I think I was her only guest.  Of course, I needed 3 more cab rides (I had to go back downtown for dinner and then return on Sunday to the bus station) before my stay ended.

The next morning my English friend and I started off towards Monteverde/Santa Elena. We had checked with everyone how we could best make the connections necessary to get there.  We found a good dral of confusion but finally decided to take the bus towards Puntarenas and get off a junction called La Irma.  From there, there was  scheduled 3 o'clock bus to Santa Elena.  We also understood there may be additional local buses.  Any way we got to La Irma just before noon.  A young backpacker couple also from England got off the bus for the connection.  A local lady there said that there was a bus about 1o'clock into the nearby town where it might be better to wait.  So that is what we did.  In fact another backpacker joined us now.  She is from Chicago and had taken a local bus to get to La Irma.  She also spoke more Spanish than the rest of us.  But of course that doesn't make her fluent.

We made it to the town of Las Junas at about 1:45 but found most all the busineses closed as it was Sunday.  With nothing rlse to do, we sat and waited...and waited.  About 3:45 a local taxi driver came and announced that the bus broke down in La Irma.  He claimed the next bus would be at 9 am on Monday!  We all were skeptical about this news since he wanted us to hire him.  So we declined to negotiate.  Sure enough we were right.  At 4:15 a bus came with Monteverde on its front.   However when ee tried to get on it, the locals wouldn't allow us.  From the best we understood the bus had to turn around.  So the bus left us and it didn't come back.  About 20 minutes later we all felt betrayed.  But just about then, lo and behold, a different bus appeared going the other way with Monteverde also on its front.  So in hindsight I guess the first bus had on the wrong sign as it going the other way! 

Any way, we all made it to Santa Elena about 6:30 and went our separate ways.   I was worn out after another day waiting so I quickly checked into Cabinas El Pueblo (see pic) as it was rated number 1 in TripAvisor.  My room was okay - big and bright - but seemed overpriced for the market.  Then to add insult to injury, they put onions in my omlet the next morning.  Thus I knew I needed to look elsewhere.  The first place I spotted was Tina's Casinas.  Although it turned out they didn't have any vacanies, I met up with their manager, Andreas.  Andreas speaks great English.  It turns out he went to highscool in Mercersberg, PA - having won a full scholarship at Mercersburg Academy.  Any way, we chatted and he suggested Cabinas Nora which was only a half block away.  I looked and liked Cabinas Nora (see pic).  Nora herself seems nice but her English isn't good so communication could be better.   Nevertheless, I booked two nights at Nora's and went back to see Andreas. Using his recommendations, I booked 4 tours with Andreas over the next 3 days.  As this post is way too long already, I will report on my activity tours tomorrow - hopefully with more pics.

The Isle of Ometepe

When last I blogged on Wednesday, I was in Granada, Nicaragua.  on Thursday, I took De Tour up on their free bike offer (due to the fiaso tour the night before).  However this turned out to be a mistake of my part. 

Not only did my  first bike's crank break completely away from the pedal but the second bike didn't fare much better.  It's rear tire went completely flat when I was about 2 miles outside of town.  Although the third bike seemed okay I was worn out by then by all the trips back to the shop. 

Nevertheless,  I did get to see the museum at the San Francisco Convent.  They have very interesting stone carvings of idols that go back to about 800 AD.  (see pics)
Thursday evening, I also had a very good dinner at the Garge Resturant.  They feature fusion cooking - a little Mexican, Indian and Italian.  Also this resturant had its kitchen right in middle of the people- kind of like a very nice home kitchen.  It turns out that the owers are from Toronto.  They moved down here 3 years ago and converted a large home into this resturant.  Now, they live in the rear.
All in all, unusual and good!

Today I left my hotel in Granada and took the chicken bus (so called as they are often have chickens onboard being carried back from the market) to a town called Rivas.  From there, I took a taxi to San Jorge where I caught the ferry to the Isle of Otemepe.  On the bus I met Phillip a 33 yo Brit backpacker.  He is on whirlwind tour of Central America where he plans to spend 3 days each in Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Panama before flying onto Columbia.  He then plans to visit Brazil for the Carnival, see Buenos Aires, take the cruise about the tip of South America, see Chile and finally tour Peru all before returing home to England in May!  Is this unbelievable or what? 

Any way, Phillip and I got the taxi and ferry together today.  Then guess who was on the same ferry?  It was the nice German couple from the fiaso tour!  Then just about this time my back started to act up.  Suddenly it was very painful for me to stand up.  I attribute this to the bike riding of yesterday.   Apparently this pain was obvious to others as I was offered some pain/muscle relaxer pills by the Germans.  They claim to occasionly suffer the same type of problem.  I took them up on their offer and am glad I did.  I felt much better afterwards.

Okay when we arrived on Ometepe in the town of Moyogalpa, the Germans were off to a remote hotel as they wanted to be away from any town and the Brit was off, in his words, to find the cheapest place he could.  I guess I fit somewhere in the middle of things as I wanted a decent room nearby.  I ended up at the Cornerhouse.  (see pic)  It is primarily an upscale (for this area) coffee shop that rents a few rooms on the side.  The room has a nice queen bed, free wifi and a private bath but little else, that is no AC, TV, hot water, etc.  Since I'm only planning to stay one night here, hopefully that won't be much of an issue.

After I rented the room, I wanted to see as much of the island as I could in my one day here.  Although the island is made up of two volcano I havr no desire in hiking them thus I contacted a motorbike driver/guide for the afternoon for $30 plus gas.  Danny (see pic) is about 18 and speaks very good English.  He took me all over the roads on the island.  I saw the Tourtist tree - its bark peels just like the tourist skin (see pic), the Marriage tree - its has beautiful red flowers for 3 months but nothing but ugly pods for the other 9 months (see pic) and many anicent petroglyphs (see pic).  Also the cows here have a relationsip with an local bird.  The birds eat the parasite that gets on the cows.  So you see these birds all over the cows feasting.  The cows obviously enjoy it too.  (see my pic but remember I took this after I scared away most of the birds).
My tour ended after a brief tour of the oldest church on the island.  It seeems they have some anicent idols too (see pics) along with a large Jesus doll sitting in the middle of the old church (see pic).

Dinner tonight consisted of a  dinner sized pizza and a beer - as the choices here are very limited.  However the surprising thing was that the pizza was very good.  Who would have thought that since 95 % of the time pizza is so poor.

Any way tomorrow I hope to retrace my ferry ride then find a chicken bus to the Costa Rica border.  Next I want to go to Santa Elena in Costa Rica but I doubt I'll be able to get there tomorrow as I need to transfer about 5 times as well as go across a border.

BTW, I'm learning all the ins and outs of this blogger app.  Since I can't rotate pics in it or in Pogoplug, I need to do the rotation in a separate app before I do the blog.  It sounds doable, so let's see if I can accomplish that next time.