We must have arrived to San Jose on 19th February 2006, but our flight had overbooking and we could not leave Madrid until the the next day. Our airplane made its entrance in the American continent by the north of Venezuela: an enormous extension of rivers and swamps that from the sky seemed virgin. Impressive. The Vesuvio hotel (which we had reserved for the 19th) was complete, so we remained in the Britannia. We won with the change. That night, the jet lag caused that I woke up at 4.30 a.m. (about noon in Spain). I left the room and I called our travel agency in Malaga. I said to them where we were. Shortly after that, somebody called from San Jose: we are going to go immediately to the Tortuguero National Park . Everything was starting being OK...

Tortuguero

… But the bus driver who was driving us to Tortuguero stopped the bus and said that he did not go ahead, because he knew that near there there was an obstacle on the road. During the long delay that follows, he illuminated us with his apocalyptic theories: he said that they was trying to keep alive the Pope John Paul II because after him the black Pope would come (the tsunami that recently had knocked down the south of Asia was not more than an advance of that would come to us). He said: “Everything is in the Bible”. Finally a microbus arrived and several travelers took it. Later, the rest of ours took a bus full of young American people who ate sandwiches and drank fruit juice. Soon we arrived at the obstacle announced by our driver: a true river crossed the road. We crossed the river, although the low parts of the bus hit some big stones. Later, during a long time, the road was a collection of lakes. The low parts of the bus hit the stones occasionally, but soon we arrived at the wharf in that we had to take the boat to the national park. The boat begins to navigate to Tortuguero through a series of channels, in whose margins we could see banana trees, pastures, farms… and, soon, the forest. The rain forest. Near the place where the river ends and the Caribbean Sea begins, two crocodiles opened and closed their jaws with a peculiar noise.

After a long way we arrived at Pachira Lodge, that seemed quite cozy. While we followed the employee through the footpath to our room, on the trees between the wooden bungalows the monkeys screamed. After lunch, we embarked again to go to the town of Tortuguero, and walked through its muddy streets, where young barefoot people was playing . The houses had been built over pillars. On the other side of the town the Caribbean Sea was roaring. Then, it started to rain.

The next morning, wearing rubber boots, we walk through the rain forest (really rainy). The footpath is all mud and pools that we cannot avoid to tread because of the fear to find a serpent on its margins. We see a basilisk, tiny red frogs, monkeys. In the afternoon, we cross on boat during a pair of hours the labyrinth of channels that form the park. The sun is shining now, and we see lots of birds (among them several little blue herons and a surprising tiger heron), monkeys, iguanas and caimans. And, of course, we also see a turtle. And an otter that swims near our boat. A really wonderful day. On the next morning, we had some rice and beans, fried bananas and scrambled eggs for breakfast and embarked again to leave Tortuguero. After two hours of navigation, we arrived to the wharf we had left two days before. While we were waiting for the bus on the muddy road, lots of women were waiting in queue with their children to receive their ration of milk. Finally the bus came. At noon we had arrived to the place in where we would get our rented car. While the clerk was filling in the forms, we ate some rice and beans, fried bananas and a small piece of meat.

Arenal Volcano

We go by car to la Fortuna. When we have arrived to the hotel, built under the volcano, we are welcome by this one with a big explosion that produces a good amount of smoke. On the following day, we go to the volcano observatory, located in the limit of the high risk zone (the zone devastated by the eruption of 1968). They say that, at night, the lava flooding can be seen from there, but now the sun is shining. What a pity! Later, we walk through a footpath that crosses the rain forest next to the volcano. We see birds and monkeys, and our guide smells the wild boar (at least she says that).

Monteverde

Later (we had lost a day of trip because of the overbooking) we left Monteverde through the road that goes along the edge of the lake, until which lots of coatis go to ask for food. Did I say road? Actually, it is like a Gruyère cheese of asphalt. It is necessary to drive on big holes. More ahead, the asphalt disappears and there are only sand, stones and enormous holes. Our average speed does not reach 20 Km/h, but after a lot of hours we arrive to our hotel in Monteverde. El Establo hotel is a luxury one. Through the large windows of our duplex room we can see the lake (and we would have seen the Arenal volcano if there had not been fog). The next morning, we contemplated the cloudy forest from the sky (like the monkeys) while we walk through the Skywalk (hanging bridges interconnected by footpaths). Later, we went to the Biological Reserve of Monteverde. After eating some rice and beans, fried bananas and tilapia in the annexed restaurant, we explore the reserve during two hours, accompanied by a guide. We see lots of monkeys. When we already think that we are going to have to leave the Reserve without having seen a quetzal (the Monteverde jewel), the guide finds a young male, that we can contemplate through his telescope. Soon, we will also see a female.

San Jose

The return trip to San Jose, the next day, is shorter than we thought: less than one hour of sand-and-stone road and we are on the Interamericana (that is totally full of heavy trucks). We drive until Puntarenas to have a glance of the gulf of Nicoya, in the Pacific Ocean. Later, we continue until the capital city. We park the car in the hotel and walk towards the tiny center of the city. Immediately, a police warns us against thieves. He suggests that I put my camera inside the knapsack. I do it. With the camera in the knapsack, we walk through the streets in grid system of San Jose. After eating in the News Cafe, we chat a long time with the clerk at Galería Namu and we buy there several objects,  an Indian wooden mask among them. Next day we are returning to Spain. Early in the morning, we drive to the airport to check the luggage in and get the boarding passes (our flight does not leave until the evening, but we do fear overbooking). But the counter of Iberia will not be opened until 3 p.m., and, since there is not left-luggage office in the airport, we will have to return to the hotel to leave the suitcases. Before that, we go to Heredia, that is in celebrations.

Later, in San Jose, we walked downtown. We had enough time to see the Museo del Oro and to go shopping before having lunch on the terrace of the Costa Rica Hotel, opposite the National Theater. A fence defended the terrace from walkers, street musicians, bootblacks and vagabonds. When we were eating, a waiter suggested that we moved our bags and knapsacks further away of the fence. It seems that Costa Rica is not anymore as secure as the travel guides say.