San Jose On the 15th of January 2005 I arrived late night at San Jose, capital of Costa Rica. San Jose is geographically placed in the center of the country and is by far the best connected city by the less-than-perfect road network, so I pretty much used it as a hub during my two weeks here in Costa Rica. Besides, I wanted to buy my flight ticket to Peru as soon as possible so I could forget about it and explore Costa Rica stress-free, so I decided to come straight to the main city. San Jose clearly stands out if compared to the rest of Central America's capitals I had visited: it's safer, cleaner, saner, etc. You can tell right away that Costa Rica is definitely better off than its neighbors up north. You see, Costa Rica has benefited from a cunning long-term tourism program based on the so-called eco-tourism, which means they are protecting, funding and baby-sitting their natural parks in order to allure tourists into the area (and charge them up with dear entrance fees!). I heard that Costa Rica is the world's leading country as far as protected land per square meter. Indeed, a high percentage of the national territory has been declared a biosphere reserve and thus no construction activity can take place within the boundaries. This has allowed Costa Rica to remain as one of the uttermost eco-diverse countries in the world and legions of tourists, biologists and nature-nerds come in droves all year round. Of course, the incipient tourism industry pouring and beating the land on daily basis is reflecting its negative impact upon the beloved environment, but Costa Rica government is trying to re-act by capping the number of visitors per day, banning tent-camping, etc. Good for them.
Alright, San Jose. Yeah well, I spent just a couple of days in San Jose. There's not much to see here despite of what I said above: it's just a functional city lacking on highlights. Costa Rica's beauty lie in the country side, not in its cities. However, here I found one of the best backpackers hostels I have stayed at during the whole trip, the Tranquilo Backpackers: clean, cheap, cheery atmosphere, free internet and free pancakes every morning woohooo! Unfortunately, it's erected in a street frequented by prostitutes after dusk. One night, as I went out to grab a bite, a bunch of prostitutes swarmed about me, touching me up and stuff. Anyway, so I kept on walking and few moments later I noticed that my money had disappeared from my pocket. Pretty pissed off I walked back to them to get the fucking money back. I had to get rough and shove one of them around violently (and to my surprise I discovered it wasn't a she but a he indeed) and finally one of them popped the money out and handed it back to me. As I walked away they shouted on my back "italiano bastardo!". Why does everyone think I am Italian? Picture on the right: The Morazan Park where the guesthouse was located.
I found a pretty sweet deal for my flight ticket: San Jose - Lima (Peru) for only US$300 with the student card. Unfortunately, my student card had expired 2 weeks before and I had to fork out the full fare at US$500. That sucked stinky ass. I should have bought the fake student card I was offered in Bangkok few months back. Anyway, nothing worth writing home about in San Jose to be honest, so the next day I took a bus to the village of La Fortuna, famous for hosting one the world's most active volcanoes: the Arenal Volcano. By the way, the 180 km took 5 hours because the damn bus would stop at every single junction on the way picking and dropping passengers and food vendors. These food vendors hop on the bus with basketfuls of side dishes like fried bananas, tortillas and whatnot. Funny thing is when a few of them get on the bus selling the same product, and they try to out-voice each other shouting out loud: "bananas, bananas, eat some bananas!"
La Fortuna Just as I arrived to La Fortuna I met two very special girls: Isabel and Mar (both from Spain). They were on a one-month vacation in Costa Rica and this was their first backpacking experience ever. Boy were they lost! but they would laugh their nipples off at everything. They seemed fun so I hooked up with them for the following days, and let me tell you: "bonkers" would be a mild way to describe those two! Picture on the right: Isabel (left) and Mar (right). So we were having lunch at a soda (local name for a budget restaurant), when this local folk called Andre began chatting us up, offering us a guided tour to walk around the cloud forest on our way to the volcano in order to watch the eruptions that take place nightly. We signed in and off we set in the afternoon for an easy two hours trek across the cloud forest, which was cool. He turned out to be a great guide fixing us up with heaps of interesting info about the trees, animals and the volcano itself.
Unfortunately we couldn't witness the eruption at its best technicolor display. It was a cloudy evening and the volcano's tip was annoyingly hidden behind the clouds. Oh sure enough there was an eruption, but we could only see the trails of glowing-red magma dripping down the slope as it slid bellow the cloud level, but not the cone's vertex itself where all the fun was going on. I have seen pictures of how it looks like and it's bloody glorious. Oh bollocks! Just for you to have a mental picture of what I am talking about, bellow on the left there's someone else's scanned picture taken another day, and on the right there's the cloudy volcano we were to face. So, when the eruption did occur, we only saw the lower-half (the boring half) of the show with an occasional brief glance at a lava trail sliding down to the hill base.
(*) This picture is not mine
In the end of the evening, Andre took us to a hot-water pools resort to relax and chill out after the hike. The hot waters are naturally heated up by the volcano's seismic power, and there are different pools with different temperatures ranking from an acceptable 30'ish Celsius to a downright balls-frying 65 Celsius. The good thing is that there was a bar at the resort so we could lay back and chill around with a gyn-tonic keeping us cool inside the hot pools. Life is beautiful! Picture on the right: left to right - an american girl volunteering in Costa Rica, Isabel, Laura (from US), me, Andre and Mar.
In the morning we visited a nearby waterfall set in the middle of the cloud forest surrounding La Fortuna. I must admit that Costa Rica is the paradigm of lush tropical jungles. I don't remember countries like Cambodya or Indonesia growing this outrageously-pristine vegetation. No wonder Hollywood has picked Costa Rica as the natural filming set for dozens of pictures like for example Congo. Anyway, this waterfall is impossibly scenic, peeping through layers upon layers of foliage. We enjoyed a nice morning walk taking pictures of the waterfall and the whereabouts.
The waterfall	The river stream
I love this picture. I should have made it a vertical panoramic	Cute little kids
At night, and since La Fortune is a quiet town as far as nightlife goes, the three of us walked to the church where a John Travolta impersonating reverend was playing the guitar, singing and shaking his hips left and right to a delighted audience. The reverend would sing on "praise the loooooord" and the chorus would replay "amen brotheeeer". Haha! they are all nuts I reckon, but it sure was better than the drop-dead boring mass we get back in Spain. Not like I attend either way...
Playa Tamarindo After a couple of days in La Fortuna, we took off to the Pacific Coast. Mar and Isabel decided to check out Playa del Coco for a day, while I headed right down to Playa Tamagringo, eeerrrr I mean Tamarindo. Playa Tamarindo is one of those places to shamelessly enjoy the pleasures of sunny beaches during the daytime and the booze after dark. Apparently, surfing is stunning at some of the Costa Rican pacific breaks and that's excuse enough for thousands of youngsters to fly down here, specially Americans. Other than that, Tamarindo is little more than a bustling touristic coastal town with seafront cafes, tanned chicks in bikini and Spaniards traveling around the world (!).
However, there is something that sets Tamarindo apart from the rest and that's the Baulas National Park, 10 kms north. This park is renown because the world's largest turtle, the leatherback turtle, comes to nest here every night, and when I say the world's largest turtle I mean it. These beasts weight up to 300 kg! I joined a night tour into the National Park expecting to see such spectacle. The rules are very strict in order to not disturb the turtle in her egg-laying titanic effort, and cameras, torches and white-color clothes are banned. This is because the turtle's sense of orientation is dictated by the moon's reflection upon the sea. They seek that waving glitter on the waters in order to find their way around, and any external source of light will confuse them and disorientate them. We gathered at midnight in the beach. We waited a bit less than an hour till the park rangers told us that the first turtle had showed up, so we got on the move. I cannot illustrate with words the magnificent animal I saw. The titanic effort these poor turtles go through to lay the eggs is mind-blowing: firstly they haul their massive body up the beach, then they dig a one-meter-deep hole in the sand with their clumsy back flippers, then they lay the eggs (we counted 55 fertilized eggs), then they cover it up with sand again and then finally, completely exhausted, they drag themselves painfully into the sea. The whole process takes two hours! It was a wonderful event to witness. Awe-inspiring!	Since cameras are forbidden, I have googled up a picture of the leatherback turtle for you to picture their size. Our turtle's carapace measured 1.5 meters without taking the head nor the tail into consideration! (*) This picture is not mine
The next day Isabel and Mar came to Playa Tamarindo and we met for a night out to a regee club by the beach. I got smashed badly, but we sure had some laughs. The night's main attraction was "Flash", a local surf-instructor and what's more important, Mar's toy-boy for the night. He was quite... peculiar... Picture on the right: Mar and Gorge of the Jungle (that's Flash)     I have to try one of those!   Tamarindo beach	Left to right: I-don't-know-who, me and Isabel   Sunset in Playa Tamarindo
After few days hanging out in Playa Tamarindo, I kissed good-bye to Mar and Isabel. They were traveling south along the Pacific coast while I crossed the country sidewards on my way to the Caribbean end in order to visit the Tortuguero National Park, pit-stopping at San Jose for the day. However, that day I stopped at San Jose I decided to do something productive and I took a one-day trip to the Poas Volcano, only 50 km north of the capital. The bitterest beef I hold against this country is that most buses leave only once a day and bloody early at that, like 6 am or so, which means you gotta wake up at 5 am to make it on time to the bus terminal. What the fuck is up with that? am I on holidays or what? Half of the days I spent in Costa Rica I had to wake up earlier than an insomniac rooster. Anyway, despite being the country's most visited attraction due to its proximity with San Jose, the Poas Volcano is a cool sight to visit with its one-kilometer-wide crater and its turquoise lagoon in the middle of it. On top of that you don't have to sweat your ass off to reach the summit because the bus drops you off less than 20 minutes away from the top. Picture bellow.
Tortuguero National Park I wasn't very sure whether I could reach the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica at all. The thing is that the area has been flooded during the past weeks due to constant and heavy rains and some towns had been evacuated, roads blocked, etc. I made a couple of phone calls around and I was told that it was still feasible to go there, alas the buses were taking longer routes to avoid a few un-operative roads, so I decided to give it a try. Yet again up at 5 am to catch an early morning bus... The Tortuguero National Park, just like the Baulas National Park, is famous for hosting hundreds of giant turtles nesting their eggs every night. However, the nesting season here in the Caribbean is different from that on the Pacific coast so I didn't get to see any turtle this time around. Anyhow, this National Park is also known for the myriad of interlinked rivers cutting through the jungle, which is precisely why it's been nicknamed as The Mini-Amazon. The Tortuguero town proper is a charming village (pop. 1000) set afoot of the very wide Tortuguero river. There are no cars or motorbikes here, so the only meaning of transportation is by boat. Imagine Venetia on the jungle and without all the fuss. Pictures of Tortuguero village bellow.
Kids playing marbles	Rainy day
I hired a local guide to row me around the biosphere reserve for few hours. He told me that the best time of the day to spot wild life is early in the morning... cursing on all that's above and beyond I woke up the next morning at 5:00 am for the 5th day straight and jumped into the guide's boat. We rowed into the Park and so began one of the most jaw-dropping natural show-offs I have seen in my life: crocodiles, monkeys, iguanas, tropical birds, sloths and the jewel of the crown, the elusive and endagered manatee (commonly named sea-cow) which I didn't get to see... all of them orchestring a symphony of nature-tuned cacophonies flying over my head from and to each direction. Trees abound encompassing the snake-twisted river stream forth into the horizon mirror-reflecting their branches and leaves upon the calm waters... Aesthetical perfection! In the afternoon, and since I didn't have enough of rowing up and down the canals, I rented a kayak and sailed off into the National Park by myself for few more hours. At one point, a howler monkey and I got into a deep conversation: he would positively claim hhrroooooo-hrooo-hhrroooo, to which I'd argue back hhroo-hrrooo-hhroooooo. He'd promptly snap back his replay hhhrrooooooo-hhhro-hroo, and so we ping-pong chatted with each other for 5 minutes. Thanks God I was the only human being in kilometers around or else someone would have called a mental institution to lock me away. Now seriously, the monkey was responding to my impersonations every single time. It was wonderful! After a couple of hours rowing up the stream, I lay back on my canoe and let the current peacefully rock me back to Tortuguero town few kms down the river, enjoying the free ride enormously.
Vegetation doesn't often get this exuberant	Tony and his guide. Tony is an Austrian biologist working on a research assignment in the Park. He was staying at my hotel
Do you understand now why they call it the Mini-Amazon?
A sloth or oso perezoso in Spanish Geeez what a fairy-tale forest That's a 3 or 4 meters long crocodile	There is something jurassic about this biosphere reserve   Ambushing the prey. You better not fall off the kayak
Is this the Bible's Eden?
Mirror-like reflection over Tortuguero river	Take me home baby
One of the most heavenly sweet days of my entire journey around the world. Enough said!
Back to San Jose and out! The next day, I woke up at 5 am (no shit!) to start the long trip back to San Jose. I had only two days left in Costa Rica and I had already decided what I would do with them: to wake up at fucking noon haha! No really, I didn't do much those last two days: Mostly, I hung out with this cool Australian girl I met at the guesthouse called Nicole, who was traveling for a whole year herself, sipping an evening beer, going out to the cinema and getting seriously wasted on Argentinean red wine till 3 am. So, after one hour of sleep, I woke up at 4 am to catch my early morning flight to Peru. Now, if you'd excuse me, I need a nap...   And so concludes the Central America leg of my journey around the world after two months overlanding across this beautiful region. If I had to wrap Central America up in a single sentence, I would say that this land basically offers the visitor the following key-features: XVI and XVII century colonial towns settled nextby towering volcanoes, wonderful cloud forest-hiking and wildlife-spotting possibilities, shitty capitals, Caribbean beaches, splendorous Mayan ruins, lots of backpackers, and easy going and welcoming (alas poverty-strike) populist societies. I have enjoyed Central America quite a lot to be honest and it's proven to be a rewarding destination to the independent traveler such as myself. And now, ladies and gentlemen, it's time to fly right into the heart of South America to Peru, the land of the Incas...
The Tortugero National Park. What an another-wordy place for Christ's love
Arenal volcano if you don't get a cloudy ass day like I did. The hot water pools are not to be missed by any sybarite worth his sake Watching a 300 kg turtle laying eggs at midnite. Beautiful animals! Isabel and Mar are your best bet to laugh silly 24/7. Flash comes included in the package! Posterior entry: I met Isabel again few months later in London after finishing my journey around the world! Ticos, as Costa Rican people call themselves, are friendly and helpful to no end. They use the expression "pura vida" constantly (literally means "pure life"). They use it to say hello, thanks, good bye, cheers, or whatever well-meaning attitude you might think of. Basically, it's their particular way of saying don't worry - be happy! Do you like trekking in jungles and cloud forests? look no further, this is your dream destination
Road network and public transportation are horrible for a tourist country such as Costa Rica, which forces you to commute back and forth San Jose Entrance fees to tourist-related things like guided tours or National Parks are overpriced. There are two set of prices: one for locals, and for foreigners 10 times pricier Weather: Costa Rica is very wet and I suffered of hairy weather half my stay here. But then again we cannot forget that this is a tropical country Costa Rican cuisine: rice and beans for breakfast, lunch and dinner during two weeks gets kinda bloody old quick Fucking 6 am buses!!!!!