Pura vida – Costa Rica Part 1

Being rather entranced by otherworldly Arenal, and the beautiful place we were staying (all for $40 a night), we opted for another night. Jenna was besotted with the owners’ dogs, and Rhys with the table football, so we hardly saw them in our downtime. While they raced around the tropical garden, we sat in rocking chairs on our terrace, smiling stupidly. The days were scorching hot, but every evening the powerful tropical thunderstorms raced over, providing spectacular skies and some relief from the humidity. The next day we went to the local waterfall, just a couple of kms from La Fortuna. Deep in the forest, you scale down a near vertical cliff with the help of several hundred rough hewn steps. The walk is hard, but well, well worth it. La caterata is a thin waterfall plunging 75 foot straight down, into a crystal clear pool full of fish. After the descent, we just had to swim, and swim we did: amid the fish, under the waterfall. Another utterly surreal and beautiful thing to be able to do.

We are learning however not to try and repeat the same experiences twice. Arenal, as well as providing such a spectacular firework show, also kindly heats a whole heap of pretty famous thermal baths. We had been blown away by Radium Hot Springs in Canada, so we didn’t even think twice about going. But, $100 and an hour later, we deeply regretted what we thought would be a nice re-run. The Baldi hot springs boasted about 20 pools of different temperatures … alas not one of them cool enough to get the kids in, and one – stupidly – above 67 degrees. Even I couldn’t do that one! Many of the pools were closed, and though its billed as an incredibly healthy, relaxing day, the central feature seemed to be swim up bars serving only alcohol and with ashtrays all along the edge. The few over fifties we saw there seemed to love it, but not for us. We let the kids have a quick dip in the coolest pool – only 40 degrees – and then we sulked out, pleased to note that the ratio of staff to visitor was about 20 to 1, so maybe business will be bad enough to force them to do something more … I don’t know, family friendly? Healthy? Sensible??!

Still, Arenal was overwhelmingly stunning. We moved onwards, and literally upwards the next day, headed for one of the only primary cloudforests in the whole of the Americas. Monteverde. We knew from the guidebooks it would be an interesting ride, described as “for 4 wheel drive nuts only” and “impossible in the rainy season”. Still, it was only 40 kilometres of a major red road, so how bad could it be, right?

Ha, ha, ha, she laughed hollowly.

This is where my definition of roads got blown out of the water. 40 kilometres off road … and over 3 hours offroad. The road we had chosen was closed, washed away, and signs were very few and far between. Still, we got by, stopping to ask the few barefooted kids and old ladies who grinned at us as the walked (often faster than I drover) “Donde es la via Monteverde?” and then later “Monteverde??” pointing optimistically up a hill. Well OK the first couple of hours were do-able, once you get used to dodging the potholes-come-craters and the boulders. But then as we got close to the final destination, the road was simply ridiculous. The rains must have cut into the roads so deeply that it was like driving on – if you can imagine it –rock hard, relentless, fossilized, giant sand ripples, you know, the ones grooved in by the tide? Even Joe couldn’t stop groaning as every internal organ got jarred and jolted for over ten interminable kilometres. Even when you got a kind of rhythm with that, it all got shattered by some ridiculous crater hiding behind the next hillock. There was no escape, left or right, only on. I began trying to sing “the road goes ever on and on” from Lord of the Rings, but was winded so badly from the bumps it was impossible. I began to feel sick, even driving. But … here’s the miracle … Jenna, who was sick without fail on EVERY journey to Brecon, on nice, normal, tarmac roads (sometimes making it to the car park at ballet before upchucking), didn’t grumble. She did come and sit on Joe’s lap for a bit, but not a hiccup, not the tell-tale wail that precedes the vom. She just shouted “bump!” every second or so, in delight. Rowan and Rhys behaved impeccably in the back, giggling, keeping quiet when they needed to, for hours and hours. I tried taking the roads fast, as some mad locals did, and dead slow, but it really made little difference. It was just bone bouncing, jaw jarring, body aching awful. And, of course, we chose the lodge closest to the reserve itself, and furthest from civilisation. While the scant other traffic turned off at Santa Elena and then the small settlement of Monterverde, we pressed on up and up the hill, with no signs or map. But it was there, the Trapp Family Lodge (no cracks about the Sound of Music please, I think we had them all covered) … a true refuge high up in the clouds, just as darkness fell, around 5. We had left at 10.00am. Costa Rica is only the size of Belgium, with a population the size of Wales, but to cross parts of it by road is either impossible, incredibly long winded, or just plain foolish. Monteverde taught us that in spades.

Trapp Family Lodge was quiet, friendly, very posh and for the first time this trip, the kids had a bed each!! It was great, if a little too quiet and posh … especially when, the NEXT day, Jen decided she had saved up her sick for long enough, and went for it all over the lobby sofa. She was OK, I just think she’d had enough travel, not enough drink, too much heat and too many bumps. Relieved for any excuse, I stayed watching Dora the Explorer with Jen languishing in bed for a morning. Jenna was back on form after just an hour, and we enjoyed the guilty pleasure of vegging and sleeping, while our brave and intrepid threesome headed into the cloudforest. Back to Joe, leading the real explorers.

To be continued …