A Steaming Forest Adventure

Travel tip of the day: haul a sufficient amount of plastic bags with you all the time. They're handy for delivering laundry, storing the muddy shoes after a hike as well as for when you decide to open a beer bottle with a shampoo container, only to puncture the shampoo bottle so it starts to leak all over your pack.

A few days ago we arrived to Liberia, a sleepy small town in northern Costa Rica along the Panamerican Highway to see yet another national park. The plan was to stay two nights and move on either to the coast here or towards Nicaragua, but since it turned out the park was closed on Mondays, an extra night was added. The town has a convenient location, since both the national park and the coast are within one hour of travel; and the border to the north isn't that much further either. As for the hostel, I'd say that out of all the cold showers we've had this trip, this place sure did rank in the top 3, especially after a slight sunburn. The room is pretty much the worst on the trip so far by other measures too, with the whole place smelling like a swamp and the sheets being somewhat filthy. Well, at least this one provides towels..


So yesterday we were basically just killing time, and hopped on a local bus towards the coast, and after a good hour / 1.3$ ride we were getting our feet wet in the waves of the deep blue pacific. The bus dropped us off at the Playa Hermosa, somewhat developed but very low-key beach frequented by mostly Ticos (that would be Costa Ricans), and after a pleasant few hours of swimming and reading we hiked a sweaty 3km over the spine of the peninsula to the next beach of Playa Panama where we enjoyed some beers and Ceviches (basically a cold portion of mariscos - seafood - and vegetables), another dip in the sea and finally headed back to Liberia before the rain arrived.

After the somewhat "off" day we woke up at 0600 to a new day, excited about going to explore the Parque Nacional Rincon De La Vieja, a large national park around one of their active volcanoes, the Rincon. We had booked a roundtrip transportation to the gates of the park frlom our hostel manager a few days earlier. The price tag of 20$/person seemed quite steep (there are no route busses there) but seeing the road leading to the park made the price make sense; it would take a serious 4WD to navigate this one up during the rainy season, when the downpours would drill the surface into canyons a good half a meter deep. At 0730 we arrived at the park and after dishing out the 10$/person park fee (same price for all the national parks in the country) we were off to explore the first section, often referred to as the Yellowstone of Costa Rica due to its bubbling mud pits and fumaroles.

The second part was a 2.5h/one way hike to a striking large waterfall through somewhat easier terrain than the first hike. Still, with 31C in the moist forest, it didn't turn out to be any less sweaty leg of the trip. On the way we encountered numerous birds, from humming birds to really big black ones of unknown kind to us, as well as several dozen kinds of butterflies, of which the most exquisite definitely was the Morpho. With its wingspan of over 10cm and the bright cobalt blue color, it was not hard to recognize after seeing its picture in various nature publications. Too bad the flying creatures tend to be rather elusive and we couldn't capture any on the camera. Besides those there were an abundance of monkeys, lizards, snakes, insects and plant life.. worth the money/effort easily. We ended the hike by dipping in a cool whitewater mountain stream to rinse off the mud from clothing and to get a major dose of refreshing up after sweating like a pig for 6 hours.

Costa Rica recap

 Tomorrow we're leaving Costa Rica behind. So what were the pros and cons? Well! The best stuff obviously were the nature and scenery.. the volcanoes provide one helluva backdrop for jungle hiking. The country is making the best effort in conservation in the area too, so if you're a nature enthusiast, this is where you want to be. On the downside, CR is the most expensive country in the region (hostel room for 2 about 20-30$, a beer in a bar 2-2.5$), thus about double compared to its neighbors. Still, it's half of what stuff costs back at home with the addition of all the cool stuff to see!


See all our Costa Rica pictures!.