COSTA RICA - 'zip lining' through a Canopy Forest, an active Volcano and the Caribbean
After an action packed 3 weeks with both sets of parents, we returned to Costa Rica where our car was parked and continue our drive south...
After a few days in the capital San Jose, we decided to head to the northwest area of Costa Rica, home to the famous Monteverde cloud forest. After a satisfyingly bumpy off road drive through the mountains (Costa Rican roads being the worst we have encountered so far) we arrived at the small mountain town of Santa Elena. Maxed out on wildlife after Galapagos, we skipped the monkeys and instead tried out the infamous canopy zip lining tours that have become huge tourist business in Costa Rica. They may come under the guise of eco-tourism but really you just have a laugh and as the guidebook warns, the only chance of seeing any wildlife up there while your on the zip line is if one flies into your face.
great videos - click to load!
1. e-j displays very visible signs of excitement before we do the zip line
It's a series of towers and pulley system and you zip from platform tower to platform tower attached to cables with a harness. At times you are above the clouds and going extremely fast so its a lot of fun. The weather was pretty bad so we were covered in mud by the time we were finished.
The following day we arranged to take a trip to the most active volcano in Central America - Volcan Arenal. We left our car in Santa Elena and travelled via car and boat to the town of Arenal for the night. As our luck with the weather this year would have it.... we couldn't even see any of the volcano despite staring straight at it because it was so cloudy. Not only that but we couldn't even smell or hear it - both things which apparently everyone can, come rain or shine!!! No real disappointment though as we spent our evening there at the fantastic natural hot springs, a huge complex of around 15 different pools and waterfalls of varying degrees of heat as well as a large swimming pool of natural hot spring water together with a bar in the middle.
After returning to Santa Elena from Arenal we packed up the car and headed out of the area. Our route now was going to take us back through the capital and further east to the Caribbean side of Costa Rica, to a place called Puerto Viejo. The drive there and particularly the last bit along the coast was beautiful and noticeably different from what we had become used to. The famous Caribbean attitude and atmosphere was apparent almost immediately with the familiar smell of jerk chicken, reggae and reggaeton playing on every corner and the pace of life just that little bit slower! Puerto Viejo is famed for being a bit of travellers hang out place with not much to do other than swing in a hammock and lie on the beach, so it didn't sound like a bad place to spend a few days.
We ended up spending around 4 days in the area and ulitmately left because it started raining. However, the time we spent there was great and consisted of spending plenty of time on the beach, a very short amount of time trying to surf (we were not destined to learn this sport in Central America we decided) and some cooking chez Michael & E-J. Other than that, a day in an Internet cafe recording Michael's Congrats message for Nick and Lucy's wedding...
Having heard great things about Panama we got back on the road again for the short trip to the border only a few kilometres south of Puerto Viejo. Passing by miles and miles of banana plantations it was a fascinating drive again driving us back to the reality of life for local people in this area, a life so far removed from the laid back tourist areas we had just been staying in.
