Is This Paradise?

On Monday, 5 March we took what I considered to be a grueling, stiflingly hot, bus trip to Manuel Antonio National Park, about three and a half hours south west of San Jose on the Pacific coast. The road was narrow and winding, through very hilly country, but the main problem was the heat. However, the trip was forgotten as we walked into our hotel’s reception area. Set in lovely gardens was the most welcoming sight of a cool looking blue swimming pool. As we walked down the steps to our room overlooking the steep hillside covered in jungle leading down to the ocean, I thought “This is paradise!”. Our comfortable room was the last room on the hillside, and it felt as if you were in a treehouse in the jungle - really, really cool. A refreshing dip in the pool restored my spirits, aided and abetted by a cocktail of the national spirit called casique, mixed with lime juice. Yum, Yum.

We had dinner at a restaurant next door which turned out to be a bad choice...basically a bunch of Americans trying to do American food as if it were Costa Rican. Expensive and not very good. Live and learn I guess. At least on our way to this American place we were amused by a family of monkeys crossing the road...but not on the ground. They skillfully walked across a telephone or power wire suspended high above the road. I guess they are used to doing the tight rope thing! The secret to good food here, like everywhere, is to find where the locals eat, so we did that the next evening, finding a small "soda" as the local eateries are called, where we had a great meal. Robb had a fish fillet with rice and veggies and I had the "casado de pollo" and they were both delicious. The casado (marriage) is rice, beans, fried plantain, coleslaw/salad and some vegies, with your choice of beef chicken or pork. This particular place was called Angela's and was great value as the meals were about $3 each. Just as our dinner was served, the power went out- a reasonably common occurence in Central America. The waitress was a bit slow lighting the candles but we had our little flashlight with us so we carried on, though it wasn't long before the power clicked on again and we were able to see the food as well as taste it!

The next morning and after breakfast at Villas Nikolas, we paid our 25 cents for the bus ride to Manuel Antonio Park, arriving there at 8:30. The day was already stifling and we weren't sure we'd hold up for a long day in the park at this temperature and humidity. But regardless, we set off across a stretch of beach towards some jungle-covered hills and the park entrance half a kilometre from the bus stop.

Manueal Antonio National Park is a small park bordering the ocean and is reputed to be excellent for viewing wild life. It was very pleasant walking through the rainforest, the huge trees providing ample shade from the glaring sun. We declined the guided tour at $20 each, though from what we heard as we passed several tour groups (and eavesdropped a little for free!), the guides did provide some good information. They also had powerful telescopes that they set up on tripods to view animals in the trees, though our binoculars served us well in that respect. Along the way we saw several slow-moving sloths hanging upside down from branches and many cute spider monkeys. We were disappointed not to see many birds - just a few and they were not very colorful. We did see lots of small red and purple crabs. Apparently in the wet season the beach is covered with them turning the white sand to a sea of red.

We climbed to the top of Punta Catedral, an interesting rock fromation and had a view over the Pacific with a number of little rock islands jutting up from the sea just off shore. Climbing through the hot and humid rainforest was something of a struggle, though thank goodness there had not been any recent rains and the paths were dry. Some of the steep climbs and descents would be very dangerous on a wet, slippery path.

We stopped at one of the several white sand beaches in small coves stretching in a long curve along the shore. We had a swim which was nice, though the water temperature seemed about the same as the air, so it wasn't all that refreshing. We completed our tour of the park around 1:00 pm with a climb up to a viewpoint to look out across a gorgeous bay where the sparkling blue water and white sand coast line stretched south to the horizon.

After taking the return bus past our hotel into Quepos to buy our bus ticket for the journey back to San Jose the next day, we returned to Villas Nikolas and spent the afternoon relaxing by the pool. It was very peaceful and we certainly enjoyed our break from tourist activities that afternoon.

Our return bus to San Jose didn't leave till noon, so following breakfast at a local coffee shop (which we got through before the power again was turned off in the whole region for most of the day) and a quick browse through an art gallery full of beautiful wood bowls, carvings and paintings (all for sale at rather high prices as this was a "quality" place) we set off on a walk down the hillside in hopes of finding the ocean. The road down through the coastal jungle was the only local access and as we found, was busy with big trucks and pickups going back and forth to the many construction sites dotting the hillside towards the ocean. It was a very hot walk, even at 9:30 am and the unpaved, bumpy road was almost perpetually covered in a cloud of dust from the passing vehicles. We persevered and eventually we did find a side path through the forest to the ocean. The coast line here is made up of a series of small pretty secluded coves lined by white sand beaches. (No wonder there's lots of development going on!!) and we walked through a couple of these, scrambling over the rocks that separated them. We met a couple of guys from New York who had also found a path down a different route and we followed their instructions for getting back to the road up to the main highway cutting off at least a little of the dusty construction road this way. Anyway, back at the hotel, we had time for a quick dip in the pool before heading for a nearby bus stop to get our bus back to San Jose.

The bus was a large and fairly comfortable touring bus and we were soon traversing the miles of palm plantations covering the coastal plain. We weren't sure if these millions of cultivated palms were fig palms or oil palms but the row upon row of trees mile after mile were certainly an impressive sight. As the bus climbed from the coast to the higher altitudes of the Central Valley we could feel the temperature drop to much more comfortable levels. Four hours later, we were checking into the Hotel Don Carlos. It felt like going home and I was very happy to be there. The young woman at reception what had been so helpful when we first arrived, greeted us warmly. I think she was quite taken with Senor Palmer!

I think part of my delight in returning to the Don Carlos was due to it being a familiar and known quantity. When you are on the road, constantly changing locales and hotels, it is nice to occasionally have somewhere to serve as a bit of a base and I think I had been craving this for a while.

On our way to the hotel, we encountered our first attempted rip off of the trip. We had been grabbed by a guy saying "Taxi...taxi?" at the bus depot and as we needed a cab to haul us and our packs to the hotel, we jumped into his waiting cab. Official taxis in CR have a yellow triangle on their doors, but in our haste we hadn't checked to ensure this was one such cab. Although the cab did have a meter, as Robb later told me, he noticed it had an extra zero on the end. Instead of starting at 365 colones, the meter read 3650. Robb assumed there was decimal place between the 5 and 0 and thought nothing of it till we reached our destination. As we approached the hotel, the driver said that he would avoid a longer trip around the block to avoid some one way streets, and drop us at the end of the street where the Don Carlos was located. This was fine with us and Robb handed the fellow a 1000 colon note ($2) as the meter read 9000, assuming it was 900. Robb had taken a regulated taxi to the bus station to get our tickets before we left San Jose, so we knew the fare was around 1000 colones. The "taxista" immediately said "No sir, it's 9000 colones!". Whereupon Robb said "No way!" and began arguing and shouting with the taxi driver. He became very irate and threatened to go to the police. Robb said, "fine" and then "Let's just go to the hotel and ask the concierge what the fare is!!". At this point the taxi driver said "Get out!" (he obviously had no intention of going near the hotel) and started yelling about Americans who come to Cota Rica to rip off the locals!! (We didn't bother to point out we were Canadian...let the gringos take the heat!). Anyway, he put on a real show of indignation, but by this time we were walking back to the hotel, having left him with the 1000 colones.

That evening we returned to the restaurant we'd been to when last in San Jose and had another of their excellent salads and large pizza with 3 or 4 glasses of Chilean wine...all for under $16 including tax and service. San Jose is a pretty cheap place actually, except for accommodation, so we were able to give our strained budget a bit of a break in this city.

The next day we were off to La Fortuna and the active Arenal Volcano....stay tuned for the next blog entry to read about our adventures there.