Published on March 23, 2008

Costa Rica, La Pura Vida

It started pouring as soon as I jumped in a cab and gave the taxi driver the usual details they always ask for: where are you going, and once they realize you speak their language…where are you from, why are you here, how long and of course why are you alone.

Grape size raindrops were smashing into the car windows so hard I was having second thoughts about deciding to come to Costa Rica in the rainy season. Maybe I had underestimated what "rainy" really means in a tropical country. However, besides the rain in the first day that kept me confined mostly in a hostel that had mastered wordsmithing and offered far less than the comfort advertised, I didn’t get the "what was I thinking" feeling the rest of the trip.

La Fortuna and Monteverde

After spending only one day in San Jose, a city that holds approximately 50% (2.5 million) of the entire Costa Rican population but has no street numbers and names listed, or more than three buildings over 10 stories high, we jumped on a six hour bus to La Fortuna to see the Arenal Volcano.

Arenal Volcano

Besides consuming our copious lunch that due to our rushed arrival at the bus station consisted of some exotic fruits we weren’t sure how to eat, we gazed out the window as we made our way through quaint little towns with colorful house rooftops and lush green hillsides constantly changing shades.

Despite the pleas of the various self-proclaimed tour guides crowding the bus door as soon as we got off, we decided not to sign up for any volcano, horse back, waterfall, rappelling, rafting, cheese making tours and play it by ear when the sun came up. After all, we were on vacation and needed plans just at the extent we needed to figure out ahead of time how to get there. Once at the destination, "which beer should I have" was usually the biggest decision we had to make.

In Fortuna we ended up going to the 50m or so waterfall in the jungle, about 15 minute drive from the town itself and since the hike to the waterfall was more like a walk in the park we felt obligated to go a bit further. Cerra Chato is a volcano lagoon closer to the top of Volcano Arenal, advertised to be a beautiful spot with some amazing sights of the volcano.

Three hours later, dripping with sweat through the dense jungle, afraid to touch anything as it might "touch" back and running low on water, we thought "nothing can make this worth it." And of course, as soon as we reached the lagoon, the volcano was obstructed by a comforter like formation of clouds. It’s funny though how your current state of mind always clouds the experience and no matter how many times I’ve even told myself to take longer and just be, just enjoy the trip and don’t look for the destination, I forget sometimes and only later do I think 'gosh, that was a cool day."

Busy Ants.

The lagoon was indeed picture perfect as advertised: a deep turquoise surrounded by the dense, deep jungle and no breeze, no sounds except our voices bouncing off the surrounding hills and the occasional bird letting its presence be known. Another two hours later we made it back to the bottom, tired, dirty and thirsty.

Running a hand through my hair it felt as if the shower I had taken few hours before didn’t even happen, the air was as hot and humid as the steam of a hot cup of tea filling my nostrils. We managed to get a ride in the back of a pick up truck with a group of Spaniards surprised to see Romanians so far from the home continent and by the time we made it back in town, we couldn’t be bothered with making another trek to see the lava, especially since it had started to pour and it sounded more appealing to sit and take the rain in rather than trudging through ankle deep mud.

Between La Fortuna and Monteverde, the popular jungle adventure destination, you can travel by jeep (which in Costa Rica translates into 8-person van), jeep-boat-jeep which would take you across the artificial Arenal Lake or jeep-boat-horse-jeep which in addition works in a two hour horseback ride on the shores of the lake.

We chose the last option, followers of the "different is better" doctrine, and besides the padded chairs some of us had to use after the trip, it felt just like riding through the country side near my home town in Romania.

The only difference was that we were greeted with "pura vida" and not "health to you" as we passed people working in their gardens with machetes, that the orchards were of mangos and not of plums and that the horses did not respond to the Romanian "dee!"

After another hike through the jungle in Monteverde, this time on a semi-paved trail counting down the meters left, we opted from an adrenaline rush in the afternoon and went zip-lining and Tarzan swinging through the jungle instead. Most zip-line tours offers include zip-lining on 10 to 15 cables, a rappel, and one Tarzan Swing, which was by far the bravest thing I ever did.

Zip-lining in Costa Rica.

Zip-lining feels like a faster chairlift where the chair is just a combination of your harness and your right hand used as a break and optional balancing device. After the first couple cables I relaxed a bit and was able to take better notice of what I was zip-lining through, sometimes a green canopy you couldn’t see the bottom of, sometimes a sea of dense mist suspended at 100m over the valley.

For the Tarzan swing, they take you on a platform about 20m high, tie you to a bunch of static climbing cords, open the platform gate and say jump. The height must have made me dizzy and propelled me forward because I was sure the only way I would make it down that platform was the civilized way, down the stairs.

At four p.m. the rain started, right on schedule as we expected every evening and from our hostel terrace looking over the valley dotted with houses and advertisement panels, you could see the heat smoking through the trees.