Blog 13 - La Fortuna: Orff-full Weather

A new day and off we went on the bus towards La Fortuna. The route was only about 50km to travel, but apparently it takes over 3 hours because the road is so steep and windy in places. As per usual we arrived at the changeover town of Tilaran high in the mountains at what we considered a fairly reasonable time (1pm) expecting to get an onward bus, only to discover they had already stopped for the day.

So we stopped for the night in Tilaran.  It’s a pretty quiet place and there’s not much to say about it.  To pass the time I decided I would have a shave for the first time on the trip, and try out different comedy beard styles on route.

The next day we got up early and continued on to La Fortuna.  The three hour bus ride was actually more enjoyable than you might imagine, winding from one mountain to the next and got some spectacular views across Lake Arenal, and spotted a barrel of monkeys eating fruit by the side of the road – and yes barrel is the correct collective noun for monkeys.

Now I’m sure La Fortuna and Costa Rica in general are amazing places but we encountered two fairly significant problems:

1.) A typical day tour in Costa Rica seems to cost around $100 per person. Now this probably isn’t a big amount in the grand scheme of things, but coming from Nicaragua where the equivalent tours cost only $10, it kind of felt like we were being asked to give up a kidney in exchange for a go on a quad bike.

2.)  It rained continuously the entire time. Maybe this shouldn’t have been so surprising to us, after all there must been some logic behind calling them ‘rainforests’, but our bodies had clearly adapted to the 30 degree all day sunshine of the pacific coast. Also almost all of the attractions in the area involve long walks in the outdoors, which are at best slightly less enjoyable when you’re soaking wet and can’t see any of the scenery, and at worst, as in the case of the ‘Celestial River’ downright pointless. This had previous caught our attention as according to the guidebook, after a three hour hike through the jungle you arrive at a confluence of two rivers, where due to the unique volcanic chemistry they combine to glow an iridescent blue, except however… when it’s raining when the river is instead a muddy brown.

One afternoon the clouds did briefly part so we made a dash for the nearby La Fortuna waterfall. The 3 mile walk was slightly more challenging than originally anticipated as it was almost entirely up a 45 degree slope. A friendly guy heading the same way in his car did stop and give us a lift, but only for the final 200 meters.

On entering the Catarata Rio Fortuna Park, and getting our first spectacular views down onto the waterfall, the walk was immediately completely worthwhile. We descended down steps cut into the side of the volcano to the base of the waterfall, and no sooner had we reached the bottom before Becki was bravely leading the way getting in for a swim.  

Falling down from 75 meters above us the water was icy cold and incredibly powerful.  The spray and waves nearly knocking us off our feet again and again. One woman did wander in too close, and got swept off screaming towards the rocks downstream.  Fortunately two of her friends and a local who was carefully overseeing the pool pulled her out before she got there, and aside from being a bit shaken up she was fine.  

After an afternoon of playing around in the plunge pool and the river further downstream, we made our way back up and had some lunch at the lookout point restaurant – definitely the best food of the trip so far. While we were waiting for our food to arrive, a monkey came to join us, coming out from the trees, right to the furthest branch overhanging the lookout point walkway. He didn’t seem bothered at us getting up close and even put on a bit of a show, hanging from his tail and pulling different poses.

The next day the weather returned to its state of continuous rain, so by the evening we were desperate to get out and do something, even if that something was only run to the bar down the road for some drinks. Becki set a new personal best in getting ready for a night out, from ready for bed to ready to go all in under 10 minutes.

Once at the bar we got chatting to this local guy, and what started out as an opportunity for us to practice our Spanish and him his English ended up with him taking us under his wing for the night and showing us the bars where the locals go, and finishing up at a late night café.

The next day with hangovers kicking in and yet more rain forecast for the whole of the rest of the week, we decided we would move on and keep heading south in the hope of finding some sun again.

Final Thought: You might think that La Fortuna’s claim to fame would be it’s views of the perfectly conical Arenal Volano or the dramatic 75 meter waterfall nearby, but apparently it is also home to Costa Rica’s International Mini-Golf Centre… although as this picture shows it now seems to be less 'world renowned attraction' and more 'location for an episode of Scooby Doo'.

Blog 12 - Boats, Buses & Liquid Cheese

This blog entry is a detailed summary of the events of one day:  Sunday 7^th December 2014 – The day we crossed over from Nicaragua to Costa Rica.  Although I’ve somehow managed to write an entire entry about a single day, we have not a single picture with which to illustrate the story.  So, instead we have an informative map of our journey so far, plus a selection of photos showing random things we’ve seen, which haven’t made it into blogs or photo albums.

It was time to leave Ometepe and head back to mainland Nicaragua, ready for the onward journey to Costa Rica.  Given how ill I had felt on the ferry ride over to the island, I decided that we should this time sit on the lower deck of the boat.  Our choice was rewarded with a screening of the original King Kong, played on a 14 inch television at the front of the cabin.  We were getting quite into the film and were just up to the part where (sorry, spoiler alert) the giant monkey has grabbed the woman and all her friends are on their way to rescue her, when we started to lose signal.  Rather than try to fix this problem by twiddling the aerial or whatever, one of the boat people just switched the channel to some really annoying Spanish pop music videos from at least 30 years ago.  Was not impressed.

A morose pig strolling along the beach in El Cuco, El Salvador.

After a great deal of negotiation on price, we took a taxi from the ferry port to the border town of Penas Blancas.  As seems to be the custom at borders, we were immediately accosted by a man who told us that by far the best way to get across the border quickly, would be to pay 12 dollars each to a coach company.  We decided to do this and gave our passports to an official-looking woman with a clipboard and an ID badge and all the proper stuff.  After filling in the immigration forms and handing over our money and our passports, we were directed to a coach and told to simply to wait next to it.  Mild panic started to set in when 45 minutes later, there was no sign of woman or our passports.  Eventually she reappeared and doled them out again, so all was well.

The stage door for the production of one of our favourite TV shows – Person of Interest, which Nick randomly found while on the hunt for food in Queens, New York.

So, onto the coach we went, full of hope of a swift, painless border crossing.  We travelled two minutes across the border and then had to get back off the coach and queue up in possibly the world’s longest queue.  Honestly, it rivalled the ones at Alton Towers during term-time.  Not that we ever went in term-time, as our mother would generally phone up the school and tell the secretary that all three of us had come down with a mysterious stomach bug (probably too much Sudafed), and we’d all have a day off to go to Alton Towers with no queues.  Those were the days.

Anyway, we had to fill out forms again on the Costa Rican side and then get back on the coach, which would take us to Liberia.  So, the “quick” crossing had taken just over 3 hours.  Well worth the money.  I think this would be a good point to mention that we had not eaten since breakfast, and as we reached a fairly substantial traffic jam an hour away from our destination, the time was approaching 6pm.  I was beginning to lose it a little bit, when Nick suggested we tuck into half a loaf of seriously squashed bread and a warm, old jar of peanut butter.  I declined the peanut butter, but munched my way through six slices of bread while waiting for the coach to get moving again.

Slightly offensively-named bread in Nicaragua.

Finally, we arrived in Liberia, which for an inland city was surprisingly sandy and windy.  Not the best combination.  We checked into our hostel and went in search of food.  As we were so ridiculously hungry, we made the mistake of just choosing the first restaurant we found.  We ordered nachos – one of our favourites, so imagine our disappointment when the plate arrived covered in LIQUID CHEESE.  This was possibly the most upsetting thing that has happened to me during this trip.  I refused to eat the nachos, Nick did his best but even his iron stomach was no match for this monstrosity.  Also, they cost us 14 dollars!!!  It turns out people were not exaggerating when they said that Costa Rica is a great deal more expensive than the other Central American countries.  We had a couple of pints, ate at McDonalds across the road, and then went to bed. 

The End.

Blog 11 – Ometepe Island: Always Brake for Pigs

Sorry it’s been a while since our last post, and we’ve got a little bit behind. Today’s entry goes back to the beginning of December, and we’ll try and catch some up over the next couple of weeks!

So on from our adventures at the lake, we jumped in a taxi, the driver of which chased and then flagged down what at only lunch time really shouldn’t have been the last bus of the day. Getting on it was obvious we weren’t the only ones who had rushed to make this bus, and were in for our most packed ride so far, barely enough space to breathe, let alone move, as we headed south. Of course this didn’t deter the usual parade of people squeezing their way through selling various random things, including some kind of delicious peanut flapjack.

About an hour or so later and we were getting on a ferry from the port just outside Rivas mid-afternoon. The boat ride was pretty choppy in parts for a lake, although admittedly a pretty huge lake.

We just managed to snap this cheerful shot before things took a turn for the worse and Becki came down with a case of sea-sickness (or I guess lake-sickness in this case). Perhaps in hindsight climbing up to the very top deck of the boat where the swaying was most severe was a mistake.

It took about an hour and half to cross the 5 mile stretch, and as we drew closer we were treated to one of the most impressive sights of our trip as the twin volcanic peaks of Ometepe loomed larger and larger on the horizon.

Arriving in the town of Moyogalpa, our first stop was at a pizza place on the main street where we could sit and watch the sunset. Refuelled and with Becki recovered now her feet were firmly on the ground, we wandered off to find Yogi’s Hostel which a passing friendly guy on a moped told us was the best deal in town (although it would later transpire he was also the owner of the hostel so possibly his review wasn’t entirely unbiased).


Waking up the next morning, our plan had been to rent some bikes and explore the island, but unfortunately Becki woke up unable to move her neck, so perhaps bouncing our way over semi-paved streets wasn’t going to be the best idea. Instead we took it easy, and explored closer to home, getting to know the town. One thing we discovered; in Ometepe old tires double as bus stops.

The next day with Becki needing to give her back and neck another day to recover, I inevitably set off to climb the main volcano: Concepcion. Probably the single hardest climb I’ve ever done, starting at sea-level in tropical humidity we climbed pretty steep tracks cut through the jungle, using tree-roots and vines to pull ourselves up for over two hours, before the route levelled out to our first view-point. Well I say first view point, it was in fact the only view-point the rest of way up, as from here on we entered the layer of cloud that near-perpetually surrounds the top of the peak.


Unfortunately we couldn’t make it all the way to the summit, the winds had picked up too much and as almost sheer slope the last few hundred meters was completely unclimbable. We tried to encourage our guide to let us try but when he spotted his friend coming back down accompanying two Swiss rock climbers complete with climbing gear all saying it was impossible the decision had been made.

So back down we went, taking a longer but more gradual path down the other side of Concepcion, a nice path cut out for us by a dried up river of lava from the most recent eruption. There were plenty of sights along the way; we passed by a family of howler monkeys playing in the trees, and walked through a swarm of 30-40 white butterflies that swirled around us, before coming out onto a ridge and getting some spectacular views across the whole eastern side of the island. Due to poor internet, I’ve had no luck uploading the video of this view, but it will appear here and on Facebook as soon as we get somewhere with a relatively decent WiFi.

The next day, and with Becki fully recovered we got ourselves some bikes and set off to explore. A few km along the road we saw a turn that my volcano guide yesterday had said leads to a little beach which almost no-one knows about so we decided to check it out. He was right, 2km down this dirt road we came out onto a deserted spit of sand. With no-one about we took the opportunity to leave the bikes and jump in for a swim.

After our swim we cycled around some more, stopped in a place called Los Angeles which I have to say is a lot less showy than TV had led me to believe. Then we got into a game with a truck full of kids where we kept overtaking each other, and they found it hilarious to shout ‘hola!’ to us, and when we replied with the same, for some reason it was (as Becki would say) “lols all round”.

One last bicycle adventure, after dropping Becki off at the hostel I found a massive hill, which although an absolute mission to get up, meant on the way back down you could go ridiculously fast. Like when you were 10 years old and no human being had ever cycled as fast as you were right now. 

One Final Thought: You know how when you’re taking driving lessons, your instructor will tell you that if an animal runs out into the road in front of you it’s dangerous to try and swerve to miss it, so the correct thing to do is just keep going and run it down. Well there should definitely be an exception to that rule when you are an 80kg person on a bike, and the animal is a 200kg pig.