Monteverde is a beautiful small town with old world charm
1 horse power or 100 horse power…
and a modern life style with lots of shops and tourist adventures like zip lining, rock climbing, and hiking the nine hanging bridges. We opted to take the morning off and just walk around town.
Remember these Kodak signs…
We went in and out of the many souvenir shops and looked at the unique items.
Souvenirs abound…Butterflies of Costa Rica…
There is a lot of beautiful hand crafted wood furniture available in this area and they will make to order if you know what you want.
Wood table tops…Mango wood vases…
Suzi loved these hand carved mango wood vases.
In the afternoon we joined our other tour mates for a tour of the Don Juan Coffee plantation.
Don Juan Coffee, Monteverde, Costa Rica…
We saw the coffee plants
In the coffee fields…
and Cacao trees growing and learned about harvest techniques,
Coffee & chocolate drying…
drying, grading,
The coffee roaster…
roasting and finally
Which roast do you like…
drinking and eating.
Fresh ground chocolate…Suzi meets Don Juan…
We also got to see the process used to turn sugar cane
Hand grinding sugar cane…More grinding…
into brown and white sugar,
The syrup of their labor…
molasses and Costa Rican moonshine known as “Guaro”.
Our “chariot’ arrives…
One final treat was a ride in a true Ox cart.
Twin ox boost…The view from behind the tails…Seating for as many as you can pack in…
Who knew ox carts have no suspension?
Our hotel in Monteverde…
Our last day on the tour was a travel day back to San Jose, Costa Rica. We checked out of our hotel in Monteverde and boarded our bus back to the big city.
On the bus again…
Along the way, we saw beautiful vistas,
Costa Rica countryside…
and even some wild life just hanging out in the trees.
We awoke the next morning with the Arenal Volcano as our daily wallpaper.
Arenal Volcano…
After breakfast, we checked out of our hotel, boarded our trusty bus and took the short drive to the trailhead up the side of the volcano to the lava flow.
We were there…
Positioned within Costa Rica’s fertile northern lowlands, the Arenal Volcano, Costa Rica’s best known volcano, is an unavoidable presence while traveling within this part of the country. It is tall and imposing and has a reputation that precedes itself. Arenal’s perfectly symmetrical shape makes it a sightseer’s dream. Until 2010, it was Costa Rica’s most active volcano. Much to the enjoyment of its visitors, Arenal spewed enormous amounts of lava, gas and ash on a regular basis. That eruptive cycle – which began with the infamous eruption of 1968 – ended recently. In October 2010, Arenal entered into an indeterminate resting phase. For the time being, visitors will be unable to watch the much-loved explosions, although that could easily change anytime.
The trail…Blueberries, NOT for eating…Natural grasses…Whip Tail Lizard…Beautiful wildflowers…Another Whip Tail lizard…Tour friends walking the trail…Stairway to lava…Lake Arenal…Top of the trail, still that far to the top…
We then boarded our bus for the trip to Monteverde, Costa Rica, home to the Monteverde Cloud Forrest Reserve and one of Costa Rica’s major ecotourism destinations.
Just a short note here. On the way to Monteverde, our bus had a cooling issue.
Losing water…
Ricardo and our driver, Jose, tried everything they could think of to nurse the bus to the next stop. Finally, when it was to no avail, Ricardo called the Don Juan Coffee plantation
Don Juan Coffee…
and they arrived shortly with vans to take us on into Monteverde. A big thumbs up to Ricardo and our driver for all their efforts and a “thanks” to Don Juan Coffee for providing rides for us, NOT in the ox cart.
which first headed to Arenal, the home of Arenal Volcano. As we traveled through the countryside, one stop we made was in Sarchi, home to the Guinness Book of Records’ world’s largest ox cart
The World’s Largest Ox Cart…
and also an ox cart factory where ox carts are built and meticulously hand painted.
Artist hard at work…
Ox carts started out as a way to transport goods and people from town to town and from inland towns to the sea ports.
History, by the wheels…
In the early 20th century, families began painting the carts and the style of painting could be used to tell what area and what family the ox cart came from.
History on wheels…
As more modern ways of transporting goods and people came about, ox carts were used less and less but the painting got more elaborate.
A wheel being renovated…Work in progress. All done by hand….
Currently, ox carts are used mostly in parades and celebrations but are even still used for transportation for some local farmers.
Another stop on the way to Arenal was at a local school that Gate1 Tours has “adopted” and provides with some support. As we drove up,
Anxiously waiting for the bus to arrive…
all the kids were waiting for our bus. As we got off the bus,
Being escorted to class…
a child took each of us by the hand and escorted us into their school. We sat down and watched as the children performed local dances for us.
Tiny dancer…Even coaxed some of the Gate1 folks to dance…
They sang the Costa Rican National Anthem and
Singing for us…
God Bless America for us. Then, they showed us around the school,
The computer lab…
the computer lab, lunch room, and playground. It was obvious to us that they took great pride in their school. Our visit came to an end and we loaded back up in our bus and headed to our first overnight stay at the foot of the Arenal Volcano.
Arenal Volcano…
It’s much cooler in Arenal than San Jose and the cool air was a welcomed pleasure. We stayed in La Fortuna at a lovely hotel
Our “Hotel”…
with a great view of the volcano.
The volcano from our casita…
Our first full day by the Arenal Volcano, we hopped aboard our trusty bus and headed toward the border of Nicaragua and Costa Rica to the town of Cano Negro for a boat ride down the Cano Negro river. As we headed across the green country side, our tour guide, Ricardo, said we were going to stop and see some of his “family”. We stopped and he went to the fruit stand and bought some bananas. As he came back,
Did you say bananas???…
several LARGE iguanas
We LIKE bananas…
appeared from the bushes and began clambering for the bananas.
Bananas good…
A real feeding frenzy.
Just hanging out…
Back on our bus again, we made our way to the Cano Negro river. Once there, we got on the boat, said good bye to our fans on the dock,
Our fans…
and headed down the river. Our guide, Ricardo, was excellent at pointing out all of the various wildlife along and in the river…including a crocodile with babies, bats on a tree, lizards, turtles, monkeys and even a water cow!
Momma and the “kids”…Crocodile…Great American Egret…Can you spot the bats?Here they are…Long Nose Bats…I’m flying…NOT…High up in the trees…Montezuma Oropendola…The border…
Time to turn around…
Sitting in the shade… Cormorant…Hanging around…Howler Monkey…Watching for food…Boat Billed Heron…Laying in the sun…River Slider Turtle…Drying the wings…Colorful lizard…Basalisk LizardMore wing drying…Anhinga…
Once we arrived back at the dock, we boarded our bus and headed back to our hotel, looking forward to the next adventures on this tour. Oh, here’s the picture of the water cow…
As our time in Boquete came to an end, we grabbed a school bus to David
Our “decked out” school bus…
and then, with a little help, found the Tracopa ticket office
Walked right by it…
and purchased two tickets to San Jose, Costa Rica. One note here, Tracopa buses are not air conditioned but they DO have internet,
Our big bus…
but since we were heading to Costa Rica, we didn’t think it would be a big problem and it wasn’t. We hit the crowded border check point and got stamped out of Panama and then walked, with our suitcase and backpacks, to the entry check point of Costa Rica. We got our entry stamps and then were herded into a cage with our luggage and told to wait.
Yes, really a cage…Cage entertainment…
About 45 minutes later, 2 guys from immigration came into the cage and did a search of our bags. Then, we were back on the bus and headed to San Jose.
Just because the timing was right and the price was good, we signed up for an 8 day tour by Gate 1 around part of Costa Rica. We got to San Jose a few days before the start of the tour to give us a chance to look around. San Jose has many museums and we were able to visit two of them, The Gold Museum which contains a lot of pre Columbian era gold and was a fascinating place.
Exhibits at the Gold Museum…Yes there was gold too…Lots of it…Very pretty…
We also went to The National Museum
The National Museum…
and had a wonderful time visiting the exhibits
Ancient Artifacts…The Spheres…Lots of Spheres…
and learning more about the fascinating history of Costa Rica.
We visited the market in downtown San Jose one day
The Central Market…
where one can buy anything from chicken feet
mmmm Chicken feet…
to hand crafted items
Wooden ox and carts…
in rows and rows of vendors
Tight aisles…
selling food,
Fish for sale…
clothing and miscellaneous.
There is one avenue that is opened to
Lots of foot traffic…
pedestrian traffic only
Someone dropping of products…
and is lined with stores of every kind and many restaurants.
Arriving in Panama this time on November 1st, 2014 and planning to stay until June or July, we thought that while we were up by the border in Bocas Town, it would be a good idea to reset our passports and make a border run to Costa Rica and back. We contacted a company called Caribe Shuttle in Bocas Town and told them we we wanted to go to Costa Rica and back. Since you can’t, as far as we know, just go across the border, get your stamp and come back in the same day, the girl at the desk suggested we stay at Banana Azul just outside a town called Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. We paid our 30 dollars each for the shuttle and made reservations at the Banana Azul.
2 days later, we took the water taxi to Almirante
Water taxi to Almirante…
and boarded the waiting shuttle to Changuinola,
Suzi on the Caribe Shuttle…
a small town right on the border of Panama and Costa Rica. We were directed by our shuttle driver to the immigration office and we received our exit stamp that shows we left Panama. We then paid the exit tax, yes you need to pay to leave, and we walked across the river on the train bridge
On the bridge, over the river…
into Costa Rica. We stopped at the immigration office and got our entry stamp, and were directed to another Caribe Shuttle van for the ride to Banana Azul. We spent the night at Banana Azul,
Hotel Banana Azul…
had a wonderful meal
Another little traveler…
and even saw our very first wild sloth
Our first wild sloth…
before the Caribe Shuttle picked us up for the ride back to the border. Once we got to the town of Sixaola,
Sixaola, Costa Rica…
we reversed the process. We paid our exit tax to Costa Rica, took the receipt
Exit receipt from Costa Rica…
and got our exit stamp, walked back across the train bridge
On the bridge…
to Changuinola, paid our entry fee, got our entry stamp resetting our passports and got back on our Caribe Shuttle BACK to Almirante and the water taxi back to Bocas Town.
Just a few notes. The drivers of Caribe Shuttle in Panama and Costa Rica were wonderful. They made sure we knew where to go, which office we should go to and they were on time and waiting for us at each location. As to the “taxes” we paid to leave and enter both Costa Rica and Panama, it’s just part of the process at this border crossing. If we had to pay a few bucks extra to leave and enter the two countries overnight, I’m not going to worry about it. It’s really no different than paying more money to get a FBI Background check overnight instead of 12 weeks later (story to follow at some point).
