Costa Rica Trip - Part 1 The Highlands

Back in April a friend of mine randomly asked if I would like to go with a group of people to Costa Rica. He was hoping to get about five people to go with him. I couldn't say yes fast enough...I love to travel and being asked to go was awesome. He was able to get the cost of the trip down to about $830...even more awesome. The trip was planned for the end of July...two weeks in Costa Rica.

I had fun getting supplies and things ready for the trip. I didn't let grandma know I was going on it until about two weeks before. Didn't want her to worry.

Finally July 24th arrived and my friend Matt and his friend Cari picked me up and we all drove to the airport for our 10:30 PM red-eye flight to Panama City, Panama. We met up with Jeanette and Becca at the airport and our gang was complete.

The flight took all night and I tried to sleep on the airplane but it was pretty hard. But we made it to Panama City and had to run to catch our connecting flight to San Jose, Costa Rica.

First sight of Costa Rica....so many hills and valleys

At the San Jose Airport, we got through customs and found our luggage. Then we exchanged some money for the Costa Rican Colones...it was about $1 to 500 colones....it was kind of fun having 20,000 bills which was about $10. We found our rental car guy outside and he called us a shuttle to take us to the car lot. Matt had got us a large SUV 4 wheel drive to travel in...fully insured.  On the flights we were fed very well so we weren't hungry at all. Our first goal was to try and find the San Jose temple. Our directions told us that it was close to the airport so we took off to find it....and experienced the confusion of Costa Rican roads...they don't have road signs and in the city there are a lot of one way roads. We made the mistake of almost going down one. But after some wrong turns we did find the temple.

It was a cute little one, smack dab in the middle of a small suburb.Our next challenge was then to try and find the highway 1 that would take us north. It seemed more difficult then first thought. We ended up getting on it heading south instead of north and couldn't find an off ramp for many miles. When we did get turned back around we hit a toll booth....sigh...but finally we were heading north out of the city and into the countryside.

Eventually we exited the Hwy 1 and got onto a very curvy windy road that drove along some mountain tops. Valleys on both sides of the road. The views were amazing.

All along the road were these small little restaurants called Sodas. They served typical Costa Rican food. Around lunch time we stopped at one and experienced our first taste of comida tipica....and it was amazingly good.

After lunch we continued on our way to La Fortuna and the Arenal volcano. If anything the road seemed to get more curvy and windy.

All the bridges were one way crossings

 

Arenal Volcano

Finally after driving all day we made it to La Fortuna and the volcano national parks....only to discover that the house we had rented was in Nuevo Arenal...about another 40 minute drive from La Fortuna on a small curvy road along the edge of Lake Arenal. By this point in the trip we were all exhausted from being up for so long and my stomach was really starting to ache from sitting in the same position for so long.

We made it to Nuevo Arenal...a beautiful little town on the banks of the lake. The house's caretaker met us in town on a red dirt bike and guided us up a gravel dirt road to the house.

 

It was the biggest house we stayed at our entire trip. We each got our own rooms and we took advantage of that and took naps for the rest of the day. That evening we went back into town and bought some groceries for breakfasts and had dinner at a pizzaria.

In the morning the rains had come down. Matt made us breakfast and we had a nice lazy morning.

When we were all ready we headed back towards the volcano and found a national park to go hiking in. We heard lots of animals but didn't see very many. We saw some giant trees and walked along an old lava field. Got rained on and had a blast.

Road back to Nuevo Arenal from our house

 

Sign says Beware Active Volcano Zone

Our new little friend

We ate some Peanut Butter and Honey sandwiches for lunch out of the back of our car. Then we explored the surrounding area. We saw a sign that mentioned a zoo. So we drove up into the hills to a small village atop the mountains. It turned out to be just a snake and spider museum...the owners didn't speak very good English and the fee for a tour was $20 each...so we decided not to go in and continued up the road. Matt wanted to see how high it went. We soon ran out of gravel...and houses...and the road became a rich powdery dirt...and soon it was washed out. So Matt tried to turn around and we got a tire stuck.

 

We were stuck up on that hill for about an hour....but after much creative thinking and a lot of pushing we got the beast out of the hole and turned around. On the way back to the house we saw a German Restaurant and decided to come back for dinner after we had gotten cleaned up.

The food was amazing and it was a great end to our first day of adventuring. We went home and headed to bed. I had a slight headache that night so didn't sleep too well but it was okay. The next day we had an appointment with a hanging bridges tour. So we were up and out of the house early. We stopped at a small cafe and got a cinnamon roll to eat in the car.

The hanging bridges tour was a lot of fun. We saw so many animals and our guide was pretty cool. She took some great pictures for us. Lets just say at the end we tipped her very well.

 

 

 

 

Afterwards we went into La Fortuna and had some lunch. I found a place that made Pupusas and introduced them to Matt and Cari. It was so yummy.

Lake Arenal

 

After exploring La Fortuna a little we decided to head back to the house. But before we got into the car we noticed that one of the tires had a nail stuck in it. So using my broken Spanish I helped Matt find a mechanic. They took one look at the tire and chuckled....the nail didn't even break the tread...so they didn't even charge us for pulling it out.

 

We drove back to the house and relaxed for the rest of the day. We ate leftovers for dinner and then played some card games before heading to bed.

Before bed we started packing up....the next day we were driving to our next destination. Out of all the places we visited this first area was one of my favorites. It was so pretty. Hope to see it again some day.