What a day this was... we started off with an early morning wake up call and we did not slow down till we collapsed into bed not too long after dark. The rain has still not stopped so with bags covering the cameras we walked down to the pick up point at the entrance of the hotel and off we headed in the direction of the hanging bridges...which is slighly north of the town of La Fortuna which is the main little town near the Arenal volcano.
The first thing we saw at the entrance gate was a viper, a snake, right above the gate guard's head in his hut. Apparently it hangs out there and they let it be because its not aggressive and, well, everyone seems to like it there. The first bridge we headed over was definately a weird feeling - its very odd to look through the grating to waaaaay below, but the view was glorious and if Frank had stopped making it swing even worse, I might have got some halfway decent photos immediately. :) The bridges are really high up, pretty much in the tops of the trees and have absolutely magnificient views. There were two parakeets sitting on the top of that bridge, but I think they are a permanent feature there too - just like the snake.
And for the next two hours we wandered around the hillsides on a tiny, uneven, little path, deep in the forest. We saw many birds, amazing flowers and bright red poison dart frogs with legs that looked s if they were wearing blue jeans. The sounds of the rain dripping through the trees was lovely and at one point we heard a serious cracking sound, followed by a few more even louder...... we were all poised to run like heck and then saw a huuge tree fall right on the hill above us! Fortunately there were a good few other trees inbetween and it did not come rolling down the hill on top of us.
The leaves and dead trees lie thick all over the forest, with all colors of algae growing out of them, Spider webs are so abundant that they almost seem to be holding some parts of the hillside next to the path, together. We tried to entice a tarantula out of its burrow - but no luck. The insect life was not awake yet but the few that found us, bit hard and our legs soon turned into knobbly, red pegs that were quite releived to get out of there.
After finding some more bright red poison dart froglets, beautiful flowers of all shapes and colors, and walking over 5 long hanging bridges and many many other smaller ones, we found our way back at the starting point where the gardeners had the endless task of raking leaves. They told the guide of a pit viper laying beneath one of the trees - and yes, I was one of the three other weirdos that went to see and take photos. She had a slightly pink shade and a lovely pattern with the destinctive viper head. It was a good find.
We had bought pink rainjackets - yes, Frank got one too - thats all they had. He looks kinda cute in pink! Anyway - walking with them on was like walking in a sweatbath and I swear we both lost a good few pounds..... I could feel the sweat dripping down my back and legs, connecting the dots of insect bites on my legs as they ran down into my shoes. We gratefully climbed into the van to head to the next destination - the waterfall..... Cool waters and gentle sitting around. Or so we thought.....
After excitedly piling out of the van, we headed to the path - and the almost 500 steps down!! I swear someone added another 600 steps before we headed up again.... Hoo boy. We can do this... The steps are not even, they are not evenly spaced nor are they in a straight line downwards.. They were made of rocks and sand, winding around tree roots and some very deep and others short happy steps. We were very grateful for the chain they had strung alongside the path - most of the way. Its beautiful in the forest and the birds and butterflies flit by at odd times making us want to look around rather than at the steps. not a good idea. Many people coming up were seriously huffing and puffing, which sort of made us a tad nervous. But down we went. Down, down, down and then some more steps down.
The waterfall was beautiful - thundering into the pool of water with enough force to kill one if you managed to fight the force and get right under the falling water. There were a good few people swimming or hanging around the rocks, but the water was cold. I took some nice photos, found a tiny, tiny frog........ it was about 4mm long, caught some birds with my camera and then it was time to head up again. We listened to the people on the sip line as they screamed along the mile long line, many with their mouths wide open and lungs functioning very well indeed. We stayed down at the bottom for about half an hour, but we were all getting hungry and we knew that we needed to get a head start on the others back up - it was going to take us some time! And it did. Not that we got tired, ya hear - we just found sooo many things to stop and look at, photograph, or ooh and aaah about. Lots of things. We almost cheered when we reached the top again! But we did not feel all that bad - there were many much younger people who were having a rough time of those steps. This comforted us greatly.
We were dropped off at the hotel to rest up and get some lunch, which we did. The starters was something to do with black bean soup... not sure of the name at all, but it arrived in a little bowl, looking like sloppy mud and hovering around in it was an egg! I think they cooked the egg in the soup but it did not taste bad - it just does not look very appetising at all. I ate enough and then a little more, to give it a good taste, but then let it find a new home. We were almost too tired to eat much apart from the lovely array of fruit they offered - but we did enjoy the apple pie and icecream :)
Soon afterwards we were picked up again for the hike on the Arenal volcano. We were told that the walk was a tad more strenuous than the hanging bridges, but not as bad as the steps to the bridge. That might be, but our legs were already screaming and the volcano was steep! There really were many reasons to stop and take a breather - the views of open green landscape stretching for many miles, liberally dotted with big trees - all the way to the Arenal Lake and Dam. This dam provides electricity for about 70% of Costa Rica. Its a huge man mad lake that drowned out two villages when they built it. There were a huge variety of different flowers and the most beautiful blue berries everywhere, little birds teased us as they divebombed us all along the path and leaf cutter ants marched up and down the hillside carrying their treasures back home.
Huge boulders lay everywhere along the sides of the volcano, the trees, moss, flowers and birdlife is so incredibly lush and interesting. There are the most glorious white flowers, about the size of my hand, that only bloom for a day and then they die. Each on of them had one single bug inside it happily gathering pollen while it had the chance. We finally reached the top and sat on some really rough lava rocks. Costa Rica is not like the USA at all in the tourist places...... there were not smooth benches, no handrails, no signs saying 'dont jump' nothing that gives you anything other than pure nature. The air is clean, the constant rain helped a lot with that! It has not stopped raining for days now. Well, it rains heavily at night and seems to lighten up during the day - mostly. Its no big deal though... Roads flood, people wait and life moves on. Time is not a serious thing here.. if we are told to be somewhere at 7.30am - we might get picked up around 8 or 8.15am. They might also be on time, like they were this morning, but then everyone sits and wastes a few minutes or more, so as not to be early or on time at the next pickup point.
So after the volcano walk we went to a lookout point to see if we could see the lava... but the clouds came in thick and heavy and we only managed to see a few boulders bouncing down the hillside from way above, firmly beneath the cloudy sky. We sat on a river bank watching the sun set and all blowing towards the volcano in the vain hope of chasing away the clouds. That did not work. So after it was obvious that we had not even a snowballs chance of seeing the lava, we headed out of there. The people standing on the bridge had to flatten themselves against the railings so that they did not get squished when the trucks came thundering by. The bridge was a very narrow bridge that seemed as if it had defnitely seen better days.. And then the van broke down along a tiny, winding, very dark and narrow road. Fortunately the guides all have radios here and the driver called in to get us new transport. Not long afterwards a van stopped alongside us and we were quickly bundled into that van with some words muttered in Spanish. Hmmmmm. And off we screamed along this road for another 30 minutes or so, not able to see anything, not knowing where we were or who was taking us there. It was quite fun :) But we got back to the hotel with many laughs along the way.
It was a tremendous amount to squeeze into one day and we are so glad that we had the opportunity to see it all....The countryside is beautiful, lush and the most amazing green.. The howler monkies scream at us from trees everywhere sounding like very a family full of very angry Bigfoot's, and birds with unbelievable sounds screech and twitter from every bush. The hotels and tours are largely empty which works very well for us on a number of levels. There are no huge crowds anywhere or lines to wait in or difficulty in going where we want to go. Good for us and other tourists, definitely not good for anyone working here. 70% of the people here work in the tourism industry in some way or another, and its been slow these past couple of years, but our guide today said that its not as bad as he thought it was going to be - and not as bad as he hears it is on the news... That is good news for them. The country could definitely do with an injection of money.
By the time we got to the hotel we were almost beyond tired, but we decided to have supper, although most of it was wasted on us, and we even passed up the hot springs for an early night. I have not been that tired before and Frank was asleep before I had even finished brushing my teeth!
Tomorrow, Tuesday, we have a river trip on the Cano Negro River which is right up on the Nicuaragua Border - Maybe I will learn to spell that... Maybe. We need a day of sitting and as few slopes and steps as possible, besides, I just love being in the forest and on the water - it has a special kind of peace and quiet.
Until then
love light and laughter
Especially U3
Annie
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