 |
|
|
The Hemingway Inn is a nice little place in San Jose near the center of town. We found it in the TICO TIMES which is the English language newspaper in CR we have been reading the last couple years. I have traveled a bunch around Europe, the Caribbean, and I did a semester abroad in Venezuela during undergrad studies, I have some good references to compare places to. The Hemingway is a simple B&B that would usually go down as a hostel or micro hotel with less than 20 rooms. The $45 a night we paid is probably a gringo price, I would think local places like this could be found for about $25-30. Around the corner was a Holiday Inn tower closer to the action for only about $65 a night with much more amenities, the all inclusive 5 star Barceló Palacio goes for $100. I'm ok with going simple to save some cash but the Hemingway was too in between for me, not a great deal & not the fanciest place either. We did have good conversations around the free fresh fruit, toast, & coffee breakfast in a courtyard area. The Inn also had this cute puppy, pato (paws), running around the place which was fun. From the Hemingway we went on a walk through the city center. The walking promenade was a former street turned into a pedestrian area, just about every building had street level storefronts. This was the most dense part of the city we saw, lots of people walking around & shopping. Stores were mixed between local and international brands & franchises, most prices here were at least as much as home. After a couple hours strolling through the city center we were ready to check out of the Hemingway & get over to our next Hotel which would start our 10 day all inclusive tour that would take us all over the country. This is the
first time for my wife & I me doing a tour like this for our vacation.
We did a Grey Line bus day trip tour around the lake Tahoe area a couple
years ago & really liked it so we figured we would be able to deal
with the drawbacks of traveling with a group in exchange for the good value
& great list of things to see that we didn't have to plan for.
The package was 10 days & included all rooms, meals (mostly buffet),
activities & transfers. Five nights were in all inclusive resorts
with free booze too! Our package was one offered by a US tour operator
Caravan Tours. The first couple days were spent in the central valley,
our group's hotel was the 5 star Barceló San Jose Palacio.
The Barceló San Jose Palacio is a great hotel on the edge of SJ near the airport. Its perched up on a hill that gives great views of the mountains and valley. All the meals here were primo buffets & all national drinks were included. The buffets were really extravagant meals similar to nice $20-30 buffets in nice hotels in the States. This place was really all inclusive, beyond free food & free drinks even room service was included. The first night we met our tour guide who would be with us the whole trip, he gave us our schedule for the next days trip to Poas Volcano. Elston was our guide & he is a real pro, he was extremely helpful and full of information. Caravan is lucky to have someone like him working for them, he is passionate about sharing his country and traveling with him feels like you are his guest. Many other guides we met at local destinations would do some talking to us (in varying degrees of English proficiency) but Elston was always with us & his English is perfect. I speak Spanish and enjoyed getting to use it but only about 5 or 6 out of the 44 person group spoke Spanish so just about everything was in English on the tour. The majority of the travel around CR was by bus, we had a bus driver and the same bus for the whole tour. Most road trips were only about 1-2 hours between stops, a couple days we had to do about 4-5 hours on the bus (total time, not all together though). It was very comfortable and Mariano, the driver, proved his skills many times backing up into tiny driveways & getting us over 1 lane bridges with no railings or room to spare on either side. The activities planned by Caravan are perfectly spaced among the longer road trips to break up the day & the length of the trip. Our day trip
from San Jose took us up through Alajuela to the Poas Volcano. Poas
is one of CRs many volcanoes. This one is not that active, but steam
& gasses are still being released. A small hike from the visitors
station takes you to an observation area that overlooks the crater.
The bottom of the crater is filled with water that takes on blue-green
colors from the minerals and acids that are in it. To the side of
the crater is Poas' path down into the mountain valley. Everything
is all green here so the grey moonscape is really out of place, it looks
like the volcano just ripped the ground out. It looks like a dug
out quarry on a mountain.
While up in the Poas area we saw a couple neat things. A Poor Man's Umbrella is the name given to a plant with giant leaves that each can get up to 6 feet across. Some still use them to keep dry if you are caught without an umbrella in a storm. We also saw a sloth (perezoso in Spanish, literally 'lazy one') while we were driving down the road. The sloth is kind of knappy looking critter with green algae in some of his dred like hair, all part of his camouflage in the trees where he would normally be. We found him on an electric wire next to a tree he was nibbling on. After one more night in the Barceló Palacio we were checking out & getting ready for a day trip that would take us across the country towards the Caribbean coast. On the way we stopped at a nature reserve in a rain forest where we did a canopy our on an aerial tram. This was a neat way to get to see the rain forests of CR up close. These trams are like ski lift gondolas & at different times in the journey they go high up in the tree tops and at other times they are very low within the forest. There are very different habitats & ecosystems at different elevations even within the rain forest so the tram tour tries to show as much as possible in a non invasive way. After the aerial tram we did a hike through a small part of the rain forest and saw lots of neat animals including cutter ants. They are called cutters because they cut off pieces of leaves & then carry them back to their hole. The leaves rot & ferment and then the ants eat the mushrooms that grow for their food. We also saw snakes, lizards, lots of birds, and more before getting back on the bus to go on to the Tortuguero National park area. Our lodge & the town of Tortuguero are just outside of the protected national park area which is about 30 miles south of the Nicaraguan border on the Caribbean side of CR. Tortuguero is far off the beaten path, it was a few hours away from San Jose on the bus to get to a little port where we got on covered boats for a 1.5 hour ride deeper in the bush. The area is a protected park because giant sea turtles (tortugas) come & lay eggs on the beach every year. Our hotel,
the Laguna Lodge, was the only place we stayed at during the 10 day package
that did not have air conditioning - a definite draw back on the Caribbean
coast. The food was also much more limited, one entree on a buffet
line and a couple sides & versions of salads. None of the food
was bad, but 1 entree is a bit harsh, we had chicken one night & fish
the next. I don’t do fish but I ate it anyway under a nice creamy
lemon sauce, It wasn’t bad at all, even for me. I felt bad for the
kids in the group though, no such thing as 'normal' food out here.
The hotel property was very nice; great pool & great common areas including
a shell like building that is a very neat concrete structure.
An American researcher a long time ago realized that this was a huge breeding ground for giant sea turtles, his research convinced the CR government to protect this area and make it illegal to kill turtles or remove their eggs from nests. This man's son still is in charge of the CCC which is a conservation foundation in Tortuguero that protects the turtles. Even going out on the beach at night is highly regulated to prevent disturbances to the turtles habitat. Only small groups of 10 with a guide are allowed to hike on the beach at night to find a giant sea turtle laying eggs - there are no guarantees of course, some take a 2 hour walk on the beach. We got really lucky & got to see it all. From one foot away we watched a giant green turtle (about 4 feet long) lay eggs into a hole she dug before we found her. After a while she buried the eggs for about a half hour, they lay up to 70 to 150 eggs at a time. A bit later she struggled to walk the 30 feet or so down the beach into the sea while we were just a few feet away. The CCC has learned that from here many of the turtles go to the northern Nicaraguan coast for some feeding to recharge their batteries before they swim to points all over the Caribbean including Florida and the Bahamas. No cameras or lights are allowed near the turtles so we only have memories of this special outing. The next day we did a little walk through the town of Tortuguero which has about 700 residents. The town is about a quarter mile long and is surrounded by the beach on one side of the town and the brackish rivers about a hundred yards away on the other side. The rivers are the roads here since there are no real roads or cars anywhere near Tortuguero. There is an airstrip that has little planes that regularly bring in tourists who don't want to rough it to get here. We took boat rides out in the rivers to get deep into the park, there we saw tons of animals including caimans, iguanas, bats, toucans, and some howler monkeys. From Tortuguero we made our way back to the bus for a ride on to our next hotel which was in the Arenal Volcano area. Along the way we stopped at a banana processing plant operated by Del Monte. It was pretty cool to see a little banana packaging area after we had drove for hours past nothing but banana trees on both sides of the road. After that stop we got back on the road & drove back to the center of the country up in the mountains. We stayed in the town of La Fortuna which was a nice small town that is at the base of Arenal which is the most active volcano in CR. At night you can see lava flowing out of the peak; its always a bit different but we saw sporadic bursts of lava that flowed & sometimes tumbled & made sparkles as it made its way down the side of the mountain. In Fortuna
we stayed at the Las Cabañitas hotel, it was a great little place
where everyone gets their own little cabin. They had great food &
professional service here too. The cloud cover in Fortuna covers
Arenal much of the time but we were lucky most of the time & had a
great view of Arenal from the hotel. We made a couple day trips from
here, one to the Baldí Hot Springs which was pretty amazing.
Six pool size hot tubs heated from the natural springs, many of them had
swim up bars. Very nice place to relax but the service from the bartenders
was horrible. Turns out their tips are automatically added to the
price so the service is guaranteed to be ambivalent; they are getting paid
big bucks either way. Our other day trip was to a CR public elementary
school where we got to see a performance and meet some young Costa Ricans.
The trip to the Escuela San Francisco is a new part (not on the schedule yet) of the Caravan tour. It was a very fun part of the trip, the kids were dressed up in colonial era outfits & they sang & danced some CR folk songs. The kindergarten kids did a little show to teach us the names of the 7 states of CR and what they are each known for. After the performance was over the kids each took 1 person or couple around to show us their school. A little girl in kindergarten, Maria Laura, was our guide, and she was very cute. She took us straight to a class room, gave us each a piece of chalk & then drew a tic tack toe board on the board. We each played a couple games with her before she got out a puzzle to show us & then we moved on to another part of the show in the covered pavilion area. It was a lot of fun to stop by and meet these kids & see their nice school. Our group left a nice donation behind for the PTA type group at the school, and they gave us addresses so we can send the student we met a photo or regalito (little gift). This was a lot of fun & definitely should make it to the permanent schedule of Caravan. Our next place we would call home for 2 nights was the central Pacific coast, we stayed in Jacó (pronounced ha-ko). Jacó is several hours away by bus from Fortuna so we visited a cloud forest lodge along the way for a nature hike & to have lunch. It was a high elevation (about 4,500 feet) forest that is almost always in the clouds & so a moist rainforest climate is there but because of the elevation its much cooler so there are unique animals & plants in this ecosystem. We saw many interesting things here among them some tropical plants that looked familiar. Birds of Paradise, or haleconia, and many other tropical plants that end up in bouquets abroad are just growing in the wild all over CR. There are also very big farms here growing ornamental flowers and plants for export. Impatiens grow all over CR and are like weeds. In some places there are tons of them on the side of the road and along fence lines. Just before we got into Jacó we stopped for one more break on the Crocodile bridge. Several huge crocs were hanging out under the bridge waiting for someone to throw them some chicken scraps. This was a typical CR bridge with about half the railings busted off so you really wanted to be safe here. Jacó is a simple beach town (no fancy resorts/marinas/golf courses here) but it is the closest beach from San Jose (where most Costa Ricans live). The town is just a few blocks long, we stayed in another Barceló resort, the Amapola, just beyond the downtown area. It isn’t 5 stars like the San Jose Barceló but still a very nice & all inclusive resort. Nothing like a swim up bar with free drinks. The buffets here were like in San Jose though, very nice & vast choices. The Amapola resort was getting some upgrades done to it while we were there too which means its only getting better. Our big day trip from Jacó was to the Manuel Antonio Natural Park area. Our destination was a famous beach that was about a 40km drive which took about an hour and a half because of the 3rd world roads & bridges. This beach was amazing though, white sand, lots of great views of the coast. We hiked into the Manuel Antonio National Park area to get to Playa Blanco which comes up on some of the 'top 10' lists of beaches in the entire world. It really was amazing, nice soft white sand, plenty of trees overhanging the beach so you can sit on the sand or a log in the shade, the water wasn’t cold at all but not warm either. This is what we came for, paradise on the beach. Another bonus was that there were tons of animals all around because we were 20 minutes walk into a national park. We had a White Faced Monkey that was hanging around the group for almost 20 minutes. These monkeys normally would never come near people but in the park they are used to people breaking the rules & feeding them. This guy came within 4 feet of what looked like a press pool of 20-30 tourists with cameras flashing and camcorders rolling. He was going up & down working the trees eating leaves & hoping someone would feed him, nobody did. There is a ranger station right at this beach to prevent that. We also saw a huge raccoon walking down the beach past people & their gear. I didn’t have a mask & snorkel but I heard from some folks who did that the fish were colorful. This beach really was great, perfectly clean & natural. After another night resting in comfort at the Amapola we were ready to go back to San Jose for our last night in CR. On our ride back to San Jose we stopped at the famous Cafe Britt Coffee Plantation to take their tour which is among CR's most visited tourist attractions. This tour was very fun & was more of a comedy or theatrical experience. The 'tour guides' are definitely actors, the 'tour' is more like a show, but it is a lot of fun. At the end of the visit you end up in their gift shop which has all their coffee & more available to take home with you. Café Britt is a very nice place, good coffee, and a great entertaining way to learn more about coffee production. We had a nice final dinner at the Hotel Barceló Palacio San Jose with our group, took a group photo, said good bye's, and then we were on our own until we split the next day. After another night of taking advantage of the Barceló's generous free drinks & room service we were ready to go home. Caravan also took care of getting us to the airport the next day. We had great weather (almost no rain) during what is the rainy season in CR. But that wasn't true on the last day of our trip. The rain was coming down so hard that our inbound plane couldn't land. After circling a while it got diverted to another airport (Liberia,Guanacaste,CR) to refuel & wait. About 3 hours later we got on & on arrival the entire plane found out that we missed our connecting flights in Dallas. We went to the Motel 6 and got a 5am wake up call for Monday. We got home (San Antonio) and my wife was at work by 9:30am, our daughter was on time for her first day of school. We enjoyed CR a lot, the natural beauties are amazing but the cities and even some of the small beach towns were kind of disappointing. Litter and graffiti and a general uncleanliness is the norm, the 'clean & green' campaign doesn’t seem to be taking hold in the cities. The country really seems to get it with regard to keeping the countryside beautiful as they have almost 25% of their land protected in national parks. The problem is you can’t just see the natural beauty, tourists have to stay in the towns & cities and those areas still have a long way to go to make CR as competitive a destination as it can be. The Caravan Tour package was an unbeatable value and the amount of action we crammed into 10 days was way more than we could have ever done on our own. It would have taken tens of hours of effort and 3 times the money to set up a similar adventure. This kind of travel is a no-brainer for busy people & we're now looking at the Caravan catalog at some of their other trips. Elston, our guide, helped make this a great trip where we learned a lot & had a lot of fun. I would definitely recommend the Caravan package to anyone looking to see a lot of Costa Rica in style. To contact
Josh Click Here
|
Copyright
1996-2004 EscapeArtist Inc. All Rights Reserved