First day after Costa Rica.

My first night was horrible, I was so tired in the afternoon after being over 36 hours up, but I kept awake. But after dinner I was physically tired but totally awake, I even open my work laptop and started to clean all my 900+ emails, by 5 am I went to bed, to try to catch some sleep which I think I managed by 5:30- 5:45, far to close to when the alarm was set at 8:00.

Filo.

A known and with jetlag Anonymous.

Costa Rica Day 16, All is coming to an end.

Costa Rica Day 16, All is coming to an end.

Last chapter of the trip. I should have wrote it earlier, but after coming back to Spain and work I found no time.

Last day in Costa Rica, 12 of of December, cannot be explained properly if I don´t explained first one thing that happend on Day 15 while doing Rafting. Doing rafting in Pacuare river the day earlier, after one of the last rapids, we went by a big 5 meter rock where the guide said we could Jump from it into the water, and there was no rocks in the river. So of course after that invitation, the 5 Australian blokes, Alberto and Myself decided to go for a try. Of course a "No hay huevos" was shouted.

So we all went up, no major incidents until the last jump, which that this time Alberto, but it could have been me, because I am the clumsy one from my friends. Alberto just one step before jumping he splipped, and he managed not to hit the big rock falling into the water in awkward position. It was not the awrward fall into the water which was the problem, although it would have been the a problem, but the slippery and the movements to not hit the rock. Alberto's ankle twisted badly, so when we went out of the boat again he could hardly walk.

Good thing, it was the last day of the trip, so the trip itself was not spoiled by the accident, bad thing was that we have the returned day to Spain, which consisted in going to San Jose first that same night, and the following day return the car, go do the airport, transfer in Miami with the long walk, picking up the luggage, checking the luggage in, the 8 hours flight to Madrid, and for Alberto he had to do few things in Madrid in the morning and have 4 hour drive to Murcia, Ouch....

We did a bandage to his ankle so he could walk, so Alberto was able to walk slowly, but awkwardly. The story of the day was in Miami. As I said, lost of walking there, but we only had 2.5 hours for the transfer. We were ok, because the first flight arrived 20 minutes ahead of schedule. We cleared pastport inspections fast, which was a good sing, so maybe, we could even have time to have a Samuel Adams in a bar I saw within the airport. The problem came after picking up the luggage and clearing customs......

I had the bulk of the luggage in a trolley, except for a small cabin bag. Alberto went first through customs, the inspector was the first inspertor or officer that was not Hispanic on the two trips. He had point out that I was carrying both luggages, she was ok with things, and told Alberto to follow the green dotted line out. Alberto didn´t understood well that he has to continue out following the green dotted line, so he did 3 steps, with his awkward walk, and stopped there. He was waiting for me, but his body language with the pain and the difficulties in walking was like if I was carrying something that he was worry about..... So you can now imagine, the customs inspector, who didn´t look at me onces, and was looking at Alberto all the time, call him back, wrote a number 8 in his card, and in mine, and told us to go through the yellow dotted line.....

This was the proper luggage inspection, that is they open the luggage, everything on it, checked everything on it, all the dirty clokes, all the medicine bag, first aid kit, etc, of course asking few questions, about where we had been, what we visited, etc to see if we were making a story. My inspector looks suspicious at me, when I was asked where did I work and what company, and of course I answered the truth that i was working in Telecommunications, and that the company was AT&T.... That sounded like a prepared answer, so he asked me the same questions 3 or 4 times. I though in showing a business card that I happen to have with me, but I though that would even looked more and more like a prepared story, cause anyone could find the AT&T logo in internet and make their own business cards.

Of course nothing was found couse nothing was to be found, but we lost the 30-40 minutes we had to be able to go get to the Samuel Adams bar I saw, so we had something to eat close to the exit gate because we were not in conditions to rush if we need to.

Well we arrived to Madrid, my brother was waiting for us. 15 ºC difference in temperature from the one we had in San Jose, (although it was not really cold), and Alberto in the afternoon he took the car and drove back to Murcia (he totally opposed my offer to drive him in, and go back to Madrid by train). Alberto is back recovering from his injured feet.

This is all this is all this is all folks....

Filo

A known anonymous

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AlberTICO.

Costa Rica day 15 4th time lucky. Rafting in Pacuare River

Costa Rica day 15 4th time lucky, and last post from Costa Rica




Yes we did it. We finally were able to do Rafting as planned and as we tried 3 times already in this Trip. And we really enjoied it .

The company that really took us out to the River Pacuare is called Tico's River Adventures, www.ticoriver.com and the guide Fabio was supper.

We had a blast going through class III and class IV rapids. Pacuare was rated 5th among the best 10 rafting/paddling locations in the world. http://adventure.nationalgeographic.com/adventure/searchoutfitter and the reason is that the views are expectacular, clean waters, good rapids. We really, really enjoyed. We had about 1 hours of video recorded, and also we had many of expectacular photos they took. I'll get those posted in the future.

Now we are back in San Jose, and believe it or not we found it very hard to get to the hotel, because we in San Jose the festival of light again (remember Day 6 post). WE couldn't believe it why in San Jose the festival was today and in Santa Elena was 9 days ago!! Anyway we finally made it to hotel, and here we are, resting and preparing everything for tomorrow departure.....




I am afraid that this is coming to an end.....

Filo
A known Anonymous
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AlberTICO

Costa Rica day 13 and 14. (Puerto Jimenez)

The intangible

Cabo Matapalo

A guacamayo in Cabo Matapalo

We have been unlucky. We thought that we had enough time arriving to Puerto Jimenez on Wednesday night to be able to see Corcovado National Park and be back on our way to San Jose on Saturday. But we didn't realized that from Puerto Jimenez to reach la Serena in Corcovado it was 3 hours drive, followed by 20 km trekking, so we had to sleep overnight, and for that we needed to get a pass in advance. From Drake it would have been easier, but to get there we needed to cross a River, and if it would rain we wouldn't be able to get out, missing the flight back to Spain.

So the only option was really expensive, Fly to la Sirena, but that was over 380$ each. Not worthy for few hours.

Oh well, we didn't thought before departure we would be able to make it this south. So we changed plans again. First we would visit Cabo Matapalo in the area and go to Turrialba, closer to San Jose, and do Rafting (4th time lucky?) in the best place in Costa Rica.

We spent the Thursday in Cabo Matapalo, trekking through some paths, visiting a waterfall, and then wandering by empty virgin beaches. We were able to take good pictures of the Guacamayo Rojo, a beautiful bird you cannot see easily anywhere else.

Then in the afternoon we went back to Puerto Jimenez to re plan rest of the trip, had few beers, far too many before we meet Felix Menocal, "the intangible" Tour guide. So hard to describe him, he was a local guide, that invited us to some beers, even though he was recommending us not to go for a day to Corcovado, so he was not trying to sale anything. He speaks Spanish in such a way that you needed to have 6 or 7 beers on you to half understand. Felix started to tell us stories, like he could speak 4 languages, that he lived in Holland for 3 years, and he could speak Dutch like if he was native (we doubt it). He claimed that we had his agenda full for 6 months (but he was in a bar all afternoon) with lost of very important rich tourist, that he cared nothing about money that he only cared about family (his brother was killed 12 days earlier). That he owned about 140000 square meters of Forest land in Corcovado, that he found 350 kg of drug that a Colombian fast boat threw to the sea. And the most incredible was how he can use the word "intangible" on every third sentence...

How can a person say intangible 30 times in a single conversation, when an average person can find opportunity to use it 3 or 4 times a year.!!!!!

Friday we only did travelling to Turrialba, 7 hours, and book our rafting for Saturday. Looks like this is going to be the good one. And we also arranged the hotel for our last night in San Jose

Filo

A known anonymous

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AlberTICO

Costa Rica Day 12 Manuel Antonio National Park and the cyclist Shaman

Costa Rica Day 12

Today the main story of the blog is not going to be sbout what we did,
it is going to be sbout who we meet, the incredible Juan Carlos, a
bike rider shaman student. But that will be in a minute.

The plan for the day was visiting in the morning Manuel Antonio
National Park and then go to the Osa Peninsula, to try to visit
Corcovado National Park which meant to be the park with more
diiversity in the world.

Manuel Antonio was in the end a place to spend the whole day, because
it had 3 fabuluous beaches, and facilities with showers, bathrooms
etc. But had one mistake, no bars. So we stick to the plan and we left
Quepos by noon.

In our way we stopped for lunch in a "SODA". The was a bike fur of
luggage, which belonged to Juan Carlos.
He was a half Colombian half US american guy who was travelling from
Texas to Peru!!!!!, yes you haved read it right TEXAS-PERU. Which was
going to take him more than 4 months. His wife was back in US,and was
oing to fly to Colombia for new year so Juan Carlos had 3 week to
finish travelling through Costa Rica, go through Panama, and get to
the rendervouz point in Colombia. And surprising enough historia wife
was ok. But as we talked with him it got more interesting. One of the
reason for JC to do that trip was that he going to meet a real shaman
in Peru, learn about it and becoming a shaman himself, and stablish
himself in the Forest, leaving US. Appparently he sold a business he
had and that was what he had to start. The his wife was also going to
leave her job and move with him to the forest. Amayzing.

We couldn't fing a room in Drake, in a hotel we had it recommended, so
we decided to go to Puerto Jimenez, which was easier by car, at least
we didn't have to cross a River with no bridge. Unfortunately, when
we arrived we found in was not the best decision considering we are
leaving in 4 days. Oh well don't worry, well see few things even
though we might not go to the best spots. But that is more than we
initially expect.

Filo
A known anonymous
+
AlberTICO

Costa Rica Day 11 Quepos + Diving

Costa Rica Day 11

Today has been one of those relaxing days in the tropical Pacific coast. We are still in Quepos today.

It started with Scuba Diving, 2 dives in two locations in the Manuel Antonio National park. The first one called The Seastar Garden, and the second one El Acuario. The location was not as good as the one we did 2 days ago in Playas del Coco, which was full of fishes and far better. Visibility was not good in Quepos, sometimes only 3 meter, and maximum of 8-9 meters, but we were able to see few things we didn't see in Playas del coco, so it was worthy. We saw many sea stars (of course in the location called Sea star garden) and many many lobsters, some of them HUGE, I am sure the lobsters knew we couldn't catch them, since this was a national Park, and you can see them looking at you and you can guess they were thinking, " I know you can only look and not touch". The event of the day was that on the way back the ship engine broke, so we had to be rescued by another boat of the company.

In the afternoon, we decided to spend it in Manuel Antonio Beach, that is having a bath, sunbathing, sleeping a nap under the sun, drinking coconuts, and having a bear by the say while watching the sun go down in a fantastic sunset. Truly this is what the Ticos mean when they say PURA VIDA.



Filo
A known anonymous
+
AlberTICO

Costa Rica Day 10 the Costa Rican Police.

Costa Rica day 10



After such successful day that was yesterday, day 10 has been a low profile.



Since we were able to see turtles in Tamarindo, we decided there was no point in moving close to Ostional to see Lora turtles, specially since these ones are far smaller, and we had the gem of the crown with "Esmeralda" (please see Costa Rica day 9)



We decided to move to Manuel Antonio National Park, and in the way stopped by Carara National park, and continue our way through the pacific up to Corcovado. But Corcovado would be just the very end of our trip



The trip didn't start good because just few when we were only 20 or 30 km out of Tamarindo, the Police stopped us by speeding. They said we were doing 82 km/h on a portion of the road were it was limited to 60. They saw us the speedometer showing the speed, but no indication that it was our car, and not someone else. In fact it was impossible that we were doing that, because we the place they claimed we were speeding was a junction, and we had to stop, and turn right, so we for sure were not able to be doing 82 kmh there. All the same, there was no point in arguing, it was clear what they wanted. They said that speeding like that was a 400 $ fine, that we had to pay only in San Jose`s office of the Banco National, and also there was an additional 30% we had to pay as "charity" for children, So in total 550$. or we could't leave the country!!! and of course after some minutes, the Policeman said, that to help us, he could change it to a smaller fine of 160$ if we pay it on the spot,,,, and he actually accepted 130 we had cash with us if we promise that we would not speed anymore.

So I am sure that all of you already know where Alberto's and my money is.... don´t you.



Anyway, really angry we continue our way. Just before arriving to Carara National Park, we stopped by a bridge over the River Tarcoles, which was in our way and Lonely Planet said it was a good spot to see crocodiles. Oh yes,,,, they were right... just right there 21 one big crocodiles were there, sunbathing.... I repeat again 21 of them, it is sometimes difficult to see one.... but 21 of them is really weird.



The Carara National park visit was good. It was a short walk, 2-3 km, with quite a few number of birds. For the first time in Costa Rica we found a park with explanations of what we were seeing.



After that we arrived to Quedos, 6 km away from the Manuel Antonio National Park. We decided to do some more Scuba diving (as I said Alberto really enjoyed it, so I can take the opportunity to do some more), and we book it for tomorrow (Tuesday).

There city of Quedos doesn't have much to do, and being as tired as we were we decided to hang out in the hostel for a while before going to bed as again the next day we were going to be up early for the diving. I am not expecting a great visibility tomorrow, because just as I writing this blog it has started to rain. (pity, we had been having good weather in the Pacific till now). We'll see.



Filo.

A known anonymous

+

AlberTICO

Costa Rica day 9 (Scuba Diving in playas del Coco and Baula Turtle nesting)

Costa Rica day 9

Today it has been a really long day. It started as early as 5:00 am,
and it has just finished at 1:00 am.
But it was really, really great day, everything as planed.

We have being doing three things:
*Scuba diving.
*Hang around in the Playa Conchal and Playa Grande
*See Esmeralda, a Baula turtle, nesting 107 eggs.

We had to wake up so early because the first activity of the day was
at Playas del Coco, which was over 1 hour 15 minutes drive from
Tamarindo. We had to be there by 7 am because Alberto was going to do
the Discover Scuba Diving, and needed to be trained first in a
swimming pool. He was going to take a 20 min brief training and then
Alberto, the instructor Will and me were going to go down.

Either instructor Will, a Colombian guy, was a good instructor or
Alberto is a natural born diver, or both, because we were 12-15 meters
deep in two dives, and Alberto felt really comfortable. We had to stop
him a couple of times because we was swimming away towards banks of
fish. Temperature was good 21-22 C, although Will said it was really
cold, but you know Will was very "smooth".
The visibility was not great, because it was windy, but we were able
to see a fair amount of things, coral, various fishes, manta rays, an
scorpion fish, eels, Octopus and few more I don't know like "morenas",
"camarón payaso" & "pez corneta" among others.

Alberto liked so much that he kept repeating how cool it had been, and
we are changing our plans a bit to dive again in Manuel Antonio or
Drake.

After the scuba diving and lunch we went to visit a couple of the
beaches recommended in the area. Playa Conchal was really nice and
also was Playa Grande, miles and miles of white sand beaches, next to
the Tamarindo Baulas national park.

We then went back to the hotel to rest for a while because that night
we had to be at 23:00 back in "las Baulas" center, where we registered
to try to see baula turtles nesting, and we might have to wait an
unknown amount of time. We had to wait in the center until
the first turtle arrived and that could be immediate, or wait till
4:00 am, or maybe none would arrived.

But we were lucky, very lucky, just when we were going to be receive
the briefing at 23:15, we were told that the first turtle arrived, and
the first 30 could see her. We were number 8 & 9. Apparently that night
was new moon which was the best time.

And it was indeed the best time to see them. The night was clear, full
of starts, we could see clearly the milky way, Taurus constellation,
Orion constellation, and the Polar star low in the horizon was so
bright that it was reflecting on the flat ocean. Amazing. There was
Esmeralda, a HUGE Baula turtle 1.5 m long, that could weight 300 kg or
more. When we arrived, Esmeralda was digging hole with the back legs,
very delicately, to then put in it 107 eggs. And then gently cover
them. Really really amazing.

We were back in the hotel by 1:00. So the next day we would be able to
get up early and continue our way. And we were not going to spend one
more day to try to see lora turtles in Ostional (the Lora turtle is
far smaller).

Filo
A known anonymous
+
AlberTICO.

Costa Rica Day 8 (Monteverde to Tamarindo)

Costa Rica Day 8

Today we left Monteverde, visiting the Monteverde Cloud forest
National Park first. The day today was not as good as the day before,
it was raining s bit, and was cloudy again, but it didn't matter when
visiting a dense forest like that.

Then we headed to the Pacific, actually to Tamarindo, where we booked
a hotel with American Airlines, so it cost us 0 $, for 2 nights. The
trip took us 3 h, through a much better road first, a a good rad
later.

When we arrived, we first went to register to try to see the Baulas
nesting. The number of visitors is limited so we had to register for
tomorrow, Sunday at 23:00.

We also booked scuba diving in playas del Coco for the next morning.
Alberto is going to do a quick lesson, and then he would go to the
sea, That will be again tomorrow morning at 7:00, With a 1:30 hour
drive. So tomorrow we are going to have a bloody long day, but very
exciting.

After all that planing the best thing was to go to the beach, the day
now was fantastic, have a swim in the Pacific, and see the sunset and
the girls go by. PURA VIDA !!!!!!

Filo
A known anonymous
+
AlberTICO.

Costa Rica day 7 (Monteverde, Canopy and night forest walks)

Costa Rica Day 7

What a grat day today has been. It is hard to be able to express
everthing, but I'll do my best.
First activity of the day was at last an adrenaline full one. We
booked a Canopy tour with "eXtremo Canopy". It was
!!!!!Cojonudo!!!!!!! Excuse my french, I meant absolutely fantastic,
brutal. Four lines were over 500 m long crossing a valley, with
heights well over 150 meters!!!! Fantastic. We had two special, a
Tarzan jump, and the gem of the crown, a 1 km line, hanging from
your back and feet, so you were looking down the whole time, unable to
break, over a 180 m high valley!!!!-!- We have a video we will try to
upload to youtube or facebook.

Then at night, as the weather remain good, we joined a night walk
through the forest with Selvatura. We were able to see and photograph
very good lots of things, I don't know the name of them in English so
I will we using most of the time the Spanish name, We saw a couple of
big talantulas, bigger than my fist, two finger perezosos, a poison
snake in an attack position waiting for a mouse or something to
eat/bite, many coaties, T.few insects that really looked so good like
leaves, that was impossible to recognized them, unless they moved,
Really good trip.

Pension Santa Elena was really good, good tico receptionists, that
knew how to advise, and they offered you few options and companies.
The people there were really nice, we meet few spanish, canadian,
australian people, that were travelling as well and were shared tips,
and advices. This is really the backpackers atmosphere I was looking
for.

Filo
A known anonymous
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AlberTICO