Oh Yea, this is the trip I’ve been talking about since before we left California in 2012. We arrived in Golfito on Monday evening.  Eric and Gary went off to immigration, customs and the port captain and got us checked into Costa Rica. Meanwhile Sandy and I pursued the grueling task of making travel plans, last minute, with slow internet, using a US phone in Costa Rica, and credit cards that only worked sometimes while sitting on the coolest porch at the club house which wasn’t all that cool.  By sunset it was finished. Tim at the Land and Sea marina/cruiser’s club would take care of Topaz.  The rest of us have four nights at two hotels, two adventure tours, a rental car, and then accommodations for Gary and Sandy near the airport on their last night.   Wednesday morning Alamo delivered the car, we packed the seven of us and all our gear into an SUV and headed down the road.  The highway leading up to and past Quepos was lined with palm groves, neatly planted in rows.  At first we thought they must be date palms, but then googled and found that they are palm oil trees.  In the 1940s a blight attacked Chiquita’s banana industry, but luckily they were replaced with these African palms.  Their berry bunch is about a foot long and 8 inches in diameter and when processed produces oil used for everything from lipstick to lubricants.

A little while longer on the road and everyone started getting hungry.  Luckily we didn’t pass any McDonalds or Burger King restaurants.  But we did see many small patio restaurants called Sodas.  At first we thought they were trying to lure in the tourists with a cold Coke or Sprite, but then we found out that a Soda is a Costa Rican restaurant that serves typical food at a reasonable price. Roy’s order included rice, beans, salad, hard boiled eggs and a piece of fried fish.  It was great.

Finally after 7 hours on the road we arrived at the Baldi Hot Springs resort and spa.  We were served a beautiful fruit drink in the lobby. Everything is open and airy. Everything is situated on multiple levels, some areas like the reception area and restaurant have roofs, birds fly in and sit on the beautiful flowers and plants, the hot pools wrap around everywhere and we’re excited to get in!  I like to choose hotels that offer free breakfast.  For my family that is worth up to $50 of the room rate, plus we don’t have to go out in town looking for a restaurant. At Baldi, desayuno was the best I’ve ever had.  Everything from cereal and toast to sausage, eggs, rice and beans, fruits, stewed beef, cheeses and meats, and plantains.

With the Arenal Volcano in the background we soaked in twenty-five different pools.

All the warm pools are filled with geothermally heated water, and that includes the water slides. The waterfall beating on your shoulders is a fantastic massage.  One of the pools specialized in extra steamy caves. Here and there you could find pools set at 68 degrees to cool off in.

Everyone wanted to try the swim up bar.  The kids had tasty smoothies with pineapple slices, cherries and umbrellas.

There were four water slides, at least three of them could be considered extreme.  This toilet bowl drops you through a tube from the platform above and whooshes you around until you drop out the bottom.  Gary said the pool below is too shallow, I opted out of this slide since I was sure I would get injured.  There were two other flume style slides that you fly through and after launching off the side, fly out the exit.  Roy ended up with bruises on his shoulder blades and Gary had a brush burn.  Maybe someone should make a few modifications to these extreme slides.

The volcano adventure included one day in the park.

We had a guide take us on a 2.5 mile walk across hanging bridges and down muddy paths. The whole place was green.  Ferns, vines and bromeliads grow on tree trunks and branches. It’s hard to see where one plant ends and the next starts. Did you know a pineapple is also a bromeliad?  We asked about the age of some of these bigger trees. Our guide said that it’s hard to date rain forest trees because there are so many variables that go into their growth, like how much sunlight it gets and how fertile the soil is as well as how much water it gets.  These variables change every year with bugs moving in and out affecting the soil and other trees growing or falling down affecting the sunlight. Also, without seasons, the tree has no rings so they can’t even count the years on a fallen tree. The fungus, ferns, and waterfalls were all beautiful.

Dirt paths put us right in the plants, but the hanging bridges had us walking along the canopy. Genny is looking down on a heart of palm which can be made into a salad.  The guide always kept a look out for animals, but she said it’s rare to see them.  First of all, with the many miles of forest available, most animals stay away from the paths in the park and secondly many of the rain forest animals are nocturnal.

One little guy easy to spot picking through the trash can is the coati or coatimundi.  These guys are related to the raccoon and fulfill the raccoon’s nitch of digging in the trash.

The bridges are awesome providing a view of the tree tops. I was hoping to see a sloth, jaguar or toucan, but had to be happy with lush plants.

We were under the impression that it was going to be chilly up here.  At the boat in Golfito we were dripping with sweat, Arenal was comfortable but still warm enough on the hike to wish for a dip in the waterfall.

There is definitely less light diffused through the trees down here on the ground. The sound of the stream is refreshing.

Yes we came to the rain forest to see the pretty plants, but also to ride the ZIP LINES!  The Sky Tram carries 15-20 guests and a hand full of guides up to about 2500 feet.  The temperature is still in the 80s with mild winds just right for soaring across the canyon.   The longest cable is 2400 feet, highest 656 feet above the valley, and fastest is 50 mph, with no ride longer than a minute.  The guides were very friendly, joking around and trying to make the guests comfortable before they push us off on a wire that you can’t even see the other end of.
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Arenal Volcano National Park and Baldi Hot Springs were both impressive, but it’s time to move on to the next adventure.  Monteverde is a three hour car ride over rolling hills on dirt roads around the lake. As soon as we left town, we began seeing signs advertising restaurants and services.  The one that sparked everyone’s interest was the German Bakery.  We all began fantasizing about the favorite treat we hoped to get there.  I had a big block of gingerbread topped with ice cream on my mind.  At the counter Marie spotted her favorite pretzels and I spotted this thick apple strudel. When the lady asked if I wanted it heated with a scoop of ice cream, we all cheered. On the way out Eric spotted the Bumfuzzle.com sticker in the window.  This is a blog about a young couple, now with toddlers, that gave up the corporate life to travel the world in a bus, boat, and motorhome.  If you want to learn how to live their life of adventure, just buy his book, I hear he’s a financial wizard.  Continuing down the road the wind started to pick up right about where this wind farm is strategically planted.

Pura Vida – pure life is the national phrase.  People use it as a greeting or farewell and it’s on all the t-shirts, hats, magnets, and glasses.  Monteverde is also very eco friendly.  Our accommodations at Los Pinos Cabanas didn’t use any plastic, provided recycle bins and compost bins, and earth friendly soaps and paper products.  They also had a huge hydroponic garden that supplies vegetables to many of the local restaurants.  Los Pinos guests are encouraged to fill a bag for their evening salad.  We had a beautiful three bedroom cabin to share with Gary and Sandy.  It came with a fully equipped kitchen, cable tv and a couch and of course WIFI.  It is a treat for us to have unlimited free fast internet.  Genny brought her blue tooth keyboard for me to pair to Eric’s iPad and complete my Panama Canal blog post.

It is considerably cooler, windier and wetter in the cloud forest.  A fine mist of cloud mixed with sun made for spectacular rainbows.  We were signed up for another canopy walk and zip line adventure here. I thought the rain forest had a lot of growth, this place was thick with green. The paths were so wet, the park paved the walk way with extra grippy paving stones.

 

The plants were similar to those in the rain forest. I’m guessing that more plants would be in bloom after the rainy season which starts in the summer.

Here we are ready for another zip line adventure.  While the Arenal zip lines were exciting, the ones here at Selvatura Park in Monteverde were fun.  They weren’t as long, high or fast, but there were more and the lines went through the trees.

Rather than have the tram take us to the top of the mountain, a bus took us part way up and then after each zip line we would hike a bit uphill to the next one. The gear was slightly different and I could bring my camera plus for a reasonable fee they gave us a disk of nearly 200 photos taken by their hidden cameras.

We zipped on a very windy day.  Apparently that slows down the momentum so the light weight kids would ride together and sometimes the adults would get stuck just before the next platform.  When that happened the guides would pull them selves up from the end and pull each guest back.  No wonder these guys are lean and strong.  They really got their workout bringing in 20 guests.

 

The views were great and the lines lower to the ground were protected from the winds.

The kids have been requesting zipline adventures whenever they are advertised.  I’m glad we waited until Costa Rica, this is a great place to have a first zip line experience.

Toward the end we had the option for the Tarzan platform.  There we stepped off the platform, falling many feet and then swinging out over the forest. I screamed the whole way, the kids were more reserved and Eric opted.  He said he needed to be the photographer on this one. The last zip line offered a Superman option.  We didn’t do it but some of the people in our group were fastened into a sling so they could fly through the air on their belly like Superman.

The last day was the road trip back to Topaz and Makai.  We dropped Gary and Sandy off in San Jose to catch their flight the next day and then continued down the road.  When we were sad about leaving the Bahamas I offered fruit stands as our consolation.  Costa Rica has these fruit stands up and down all the roads. We bought 5 of the biggest juiciest mangos we’ve ever had, three small watermelons, avocado (which is super healthy and everyone should eat them), cashews and a cashew fruit.  We haven’t opened the cashew fruit yet but will get to it tomorrow.

You know you are south of the border when you see a horse riding in a flat bed truck. Now we’re back home on Makai with our Pupaz.  Tuesday we’ll check out of Costa Rica and make our way toward Mexico.  Keep an eye on the winds in the Gulf of Papagayo, that will determine when we will be able to make it to Chiapas, Mexico more than 600 miles from here.