Pura Vida Costa Rica - April 2016

With our speedy trip to the border we were over it in no time and on a bus headed for Liberia.  We stayed the night in a hostel just around the corner from the bus station so we would have an easy commute the next morning.  Hospedaje Dodero is clean, secure and with a great outdoor kitchen.  Security for a hostel so close to the bus terminal is not to be taken lightly as it tends not to be the safest part of town but when you just want a bed for the night to carry on travelling the next day you also don't want to be hassling with taxis.  Run by an American guy who is very personable you can only get in AND out by ringing the bell.

We had decided to head for the hills to cool down and Monteverde seemed to be the place to do it.  However, figuring out how to get there by bus was no easy task.  The bus schedules in Costa Rica are even more of a mystery than Nicaragua!!!  Also, in CR you pay for the whole journey regardless of where you get on and off.  Bit of a rip off compared to the rest of Central America :-(

So we took a bus from Liberia to Puntarenas and asked the driver to let us of at La Irma, which is really just a cross road .... and voila! just around the corner was the bus shelter on the road to Monteverde.  We got talking to a couple of guys and next thing, a local from Monteverde stopped in a van and offered us a lift up the hill for $5.00 each.  We accepted immediately as this would save us a couple of hours waiting for the public bus.  Oh man, that road, what a stunning piece of ungraded potholed rock laden piece of  ..... took an age to get the 30 odd kms up to the village but the views were amazing.  It was so good to be in the hills where it was a little bit cooler.

We had booked at a hostel which was a little way out of town but a guy from one of the local businesses kindly called them to come and get us.  People are so helpful!  Turns out we just loved Chillout House and ended up staying longer than we planned.  We had a whole house nearly to ourselves.  There were two rooms but we hardly saw the people in the other room.  They were proper tourists intent on seeing all the sights and eating out each night.  Not just a couple of travellers looking for a place to rest.  The fact that the hostel was some way out of town was off-set by the owners, a brother and sister duo, who were happy to take you in and out whenever you wanted to go.  And this was no mean feat given that the local roads were the same as the road up the hill.  Dreadful.   Edwin even got up at stupid o'clock the morning we left and took us to the bus station. The photo below is of Charlie, the hostel dog, fare-welling us at 5:15am.  One of the problems of sleeping was that it got so light in the mornings.  The other, of course, was the heat. At this point in our CA travels we have yet to come across hot running water or air conditioning.

We enjoyed Monteverde.  We bought some vegetables, lentils and chicken and cooked up a big pot of stew which we dined on for a few days.  Chillout house not only had a full kitchen but breakfast is provided (and it was always VERY good, something different each day) and they even supply tea and coffee whenever you want it.  The coffee makers in Costa Rica are a bit interesting.  Just a material sock hanging on a wire.  Works a treat.

Seeing as we were staying in the Cloud Forest, it seemed churlish not to go and see it.  We went for a walk in the forest one day and a quite expensive walk in the canopies another.  The canopies are a series of high bridges that allow you to look into the tree tops.  We were surprisingly underwhelmed by this experience.  There was hardly any activity of even bugs and butterflies which is disappointing when you consider this to be a relatively untouched part of the world.

Hmmm, not so sure about this!

Nest of hummingbird chicks

MOVE OVER DAVID ATTENBOROUGH!

On the public bus back down the hill we were just surprised to make it without any problems!  The bus dropped us off at Puntarenus, a coastal village which is as touristy as CA gets.  At the bus stop the police were waiting to ensure the tourists weren't getting ripped off or being fed false information by the touters.  They were also giving out Travel Safe booklets.  Good on them!

We caught the next bus to Quepos where we had booked a night in an AirBnb.  It was really hard to find as the instructions just said at the entrance to the Muscle Gym - a typical address in CA.  A guy was finally able to take us to the house, down a very dodgy driveway but the house was really nice .... and we had air conditioning!  We wandered out for a local dinner and slept for a very long time.  I suspect because we were finally cool enough to do so.

We had been slightly mis-informed regarding the next leg of our journey.  We were trying to get down the coast to Palmer Norte as we had arranged to call into the house we will be staying in at Costa Rica in a few months time .... on the River Sierpe.  The locals in Quepos kept telling us you couldn't take a local bus from town.  We still rather suspect you can.  It's just that the Gringos don't ... They don't know that we love local buses, being time rich and cash poor.  So be it, we paid a small fortune for our ticket (again the full fare even tho we weren't going far) and made our way to our next bus stop which required a taxi ride out of town.  The bus was really late but this allowed us to experience our first tropical down pour.  Bliss.  Fortunately for us the Central Americans take pride in the quality of their bus shelters.

Palmer Norte turned out to be great place.  We had a really great big room with AC (sounds flasher than it was!).  We were just about the only guests while we were there as there was a lot of rebuilding going on.  There is always a lot of noise in Central America.  Dogs are always barking, cocks are always crowing, carts clanking along, horses snorting and someone is always hammering or banging.  There are no zoning rules so you can run a business from anywhere.  And everyone does.  It's quite fun to see what goes on around the place.

 There was a fabulous fruit stall where we found some quality tropical local fruit.  We bought tonnes and ate it solidly for a couple of days.

We took a bus down to the river and were met by Lori and Adam, the couple who are house sitting there before us.  They took us up the river in the boat - which will be ours for a couple of months - and we spent the day at the house.  We had an awesome time and are really looking forward to our own sit there .... but that can wait for another blog post.

The border between Costa Rica and Panama at Paso Canoas is a most confusing place.  You have to back track from where the bus drops you to find the exit office so you can get stamped out of CR.  But first you need to find somewhere to buy your exit tax.  You get directed to a bank which doesn't exist.  There is a bank machine too but, oh,  that didn't work either. So you get re-directed to a van with a couple of women and an eftpos type machine.  All seems quite dodgy but it works.  You then need to find the office to get stamped into Panama.  Such is Central travel.  You get used to it if you really want to do it.  And everyone is so helpful, even if they don't know what they're talking about!  It's their desire to help that counts :-)