The Costa Was Rica (part one)

Something about the January and February doldrums makes me want to finally post about Costa Rica. For starters, I miss hydrangeas the size of your head.


And jungle hikes.

Any place in the world with hanging bridges is now on my top travel-destinations list. In Costa Rica, you can actually tour the rain forest on nothing but suspended bridge after suspended bridge.

This is at the Chorros de Grecia, one of our first jungle hikes.




You cross this bridge to get to the three waterfalls, chorro one on the right and chorros two and three on the left. You hook left and pass a cliff sheeted in flora and running water, then wade chest deep in a pool toward the falls until the wall of mist is too strong.

Chorro 1:

Chorro 2:


Pre-chorros, we toured Grecia, and I want to tile my future house just like Grecia's central Cathedral.
And the exterior (sorry for being too lazy to rotate):


And we did the Sarchi thing, the town famous for bright wagon wheels and handmade furniture (I'll post more Sarchi artisan stuff later):
And then we returned to hilly little Naranjo, one of Spencer's two favorite mission areas. We visited members, then walked down a very steep hill to the weco—the hole, where the soccer field is.

With all its hills, Naranjo is a Stairmaster.

Here are the mejengadors. The guy in the middle told us where to find free hot springs at Volcan Arenal, and the guy on the right has had a tracheotomy, and he still plays 90 minutes of soccer like a champ, breathing through a hole under that neck scarf.

This is our friend who took us to find helado:


And this is Alvaro, a man Spencer baptized on his mission.

And—oh wait—is that Spencer wearing a BYU T-shirt. Yes, yes it is.

Anyway, Alvaro and his wife, Irma, haven't been able to attend church since Irma encountered some serious health challenges a few years ago. Ward members haven't been out to visit, either—Alvaro and Irma live 40 minutes by car from the meetinghouse in Naranjo, and few, if any, of the members have a car. Alvaro was so warm; he even offered us a bed at his house. For being 80, he is strikingly healthy. He'd lost his Book of Mormon; Spencer had one on hand, in Spanish, to leave with him.

That's Alvaro's daughter in the back; she wanted to sneak into frame. We had agua dulce (sweet water) at her house before driving down a muddy embankment to the point where we couldn't drive any further—the Toyota Yaris, as we discovered, can only be pushed so far.

The next day we went to Volcan Arenal, the volcano being deshrouded here. When we arrived the volcano was hidden by a REAL Costa Rican rainstorm. Let me elaborate: during Costa Rica's rainy season (August–November), the clouds suck up the entire Pacific Ocean, daily, only to dump it over the course of an hour, or two, or three, or eight. We visited at the end of November—the end of rainy season—and had the ocean dumped on us only every other day. It's warm rain, though—like having your showerhead follow you everywhere.


This is Yaris no. 2, after the first one broke down on us. R.I.P. I'm not sure which would have been worse—getting stranded in La Fortuna (pictured here), a veritable tourist trap, or getting stranded where we did, 45 minutes outside of La Fortuna in a random roadside steakhouse.

Here is aforementioned steakhouse, though I failed to mention that this whole episode happened right after Spencer had printed out THE midterm—the one his professor wouldn't let him take early. He intended to take it at and fax it back to Provo from our hotel, another 45 minutes up the volcano. No such luck. He took it here, whilst I ordered fruity guanabana drinks, con leche, and read Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance—a read I highly recommend.At last we got to the Casona at the Arenal Observatory Lodge—my favorite place we stayed. Built in 1987 as a Smithsonian Institute scientific research station, the lodge sits a mile from the base of the volcano and is the only hotel located within the Arenal Volcano National Park. Two weeks out of the year it is overrun with scientists. I'm so glad they give tourists the other 50 (50.17 if you are talking to Spencer).

Here's the main structure:


And the pool:


They have miles of manicured trails as well as some real jungle hikes to old lava flows and waterfalls.
Driving to the Arenal Observatory is like driving to Jurassic Park. We did not see a T-Rex, but we did see lots of quati, montezuma oropendoa, howler monkeys, pitbull vipers, and tree frogs on the lodge's 870 acres of trails.



The Arenal Observatory Lodge's desk guys say they expect to see us back in 10 years with our kids. We concede.

Later we hiked the famed Toucan Trail to get as close as possible to the volcan, but not close enough to be nailed with the hot blobs of lava rock Arenal coughs up (the unfortunate fate tourists gone before).


The guy who maintains the trail lives in the little choza in the background here. And this little setup is his personal home theater . . .

. . . from which he can watch the pyrotechnic show Arenal puts on at night—explosions of glowing red lava. "Some nights I don't know whether to run or stay," he said. What a view.

And we had a lovely view from our room in the casona:

And our view on the other side:

Lake Arenal. I saw houseboats there; perhaps it's time to give up the Lake Powell gig and try this instead.

Entrance to the Toucan Trail:

After an amazing day of hiking, we went down to meet some new friends to find red-eye tree frogs in the trees by the river,




ate at a restaurant in the middle of the jungle, and soaked in a hot-tub temperature river, under the stars, surrounded by fireflies.

Some Tico teenagers also showed us a natural waterslide in the river.

Then we went back to jungle restaurant to watch the Ligistas win their first semifinal match, surrounded by Ligista fans, with ceviche on the house and CocaCola from a frosty glass bottle. Nothing gets better than this.