We flew back from Miami Airport on January
10th and headed back to Costa Rica. What
we had seen of the country before going to
the Bahamas had not totally satisfied us
so we felt the need to see more. We first
headed towards Monteverde and after nearly
a full day on buses we finally arrived there
in the evening.
The following morning, nice and early, we
visited the Don Juan coffee plantation where
we learnt a lot of information not only about
how you make a coffee but also about its
history. The surroundings were beautiful
and we went through the plantation, following
each step of the coffee production, before
sipping some delicious coffees while contemplating
the magnificent views of the Golfo
de Nicoya.
11/01/2009
As soon as we finished the coffee tour, we
got on a van through the Monteverde mountainous
area and then onto a little boat on the Lago
de Arenal. The views of the volcano were
simply spectacular!
From there we took another van that took
us to La Fortuna, a little town at the bottom
of the volcano. We searched for Mr Lava Lava's
hostel as he apparently guaranteed his guests
they would see lava!
The following day, we booked the tour with
legendary Mr Lava Lava who first took us
to a natural hot spring... Well he actually
dropped us out on the side of a main road
and told us to walk a little past a bridge
and there we were... It was a cool place,
in the sense that it was not touristy and
the water was hot... But you had to close
your eyes and your ears in order to ignore
the cars passing by... We felt a bit scammed
but tried to keep our spirits high.
A couple of hours later, Mr Lava Lava came
to pick us up and we drove to the bottom
of the volcano. We were quite surprised as
we were expecting to see some lava from close
but we soon realized it was not possible
to climb the volcano. So the new plan was
as follows: wait till the night falls and
it's dark enough to see some lava eruption
from miles away! So we waited and waited...
Mr Lava Lava did his best to keep us entertained
for a couple of hours at the end of which
we had seen... absolutely NO LAVA... He did
offer us to come back the following day for
free, but we felt scammed again and frankly
had enough of the gringo atmosphere and high
prices of Costa Rica...
So we left the morning after back towards
San Jose, through the beautiful Costa Rica
countryside. We arrived in San Jose quite
late and were lucky to find a room in a little
and cheap hotel. We went to an excellent
Asian restaurant nearby before having a few
hours sleep. Our next bus left very early
the following morning to David, in Panama!
14/01/2009
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