Costa Rica: Part 1

I know this blog is about Colorado adventures, but we went to Costa Rica earlier this year and I wanted to document that trip before I forget it all.  The blog is all about adventure, so the category still fits!

We went to Costa Rica over Memorial Weekend 2012 to visit Matt's high school friend, Mason, who is in the Peace Corps down there.  We flew into San Jose, which is the capital of CR. Mason met us at the airport which was super convenient since I speak little Spanish (I can count to 8, tell you my name and order cocktails).  Matt is pretty good at Spanish but since it was 10pm we were tired and just wanted to get to the hostel.  We took a 30 minute bus ride and got off near a grocery store next to the hostel we were staying at.  I wouldn't say San Jose is completely unsafe, but you definitely need to be aware of your surroundings and I would never go anywhere alone at night (at least as a woman).  We stocked up on essentials for the 12 hours we would be at the hostel: beer, water and avocados.

We stayed at Gaudy's Backpacker Hostel which was perfect for the night.  We had plans to get up early and get the rental car so all we needed was a common room to have a few drinks, a bed and a hot cold shower.  The one thing that was unusual to us was that all of the windows in our room were open and there were no screens or windows. It was SO humid there so the windows had to be open to get some air flowing since there is no AC.  The humidity in Denver the week we left was in the single digits and it was almost 100% in CR so it was quite an adjustment.

Looking out our hostel room window, tin roof after tin roof

Friday morning the guys walked a few blocks to pick up our rental car.  It's hard to find a SUV for 5 people that also fits luggage in CR.  Thankfully we found one and had no problems with it! We started our journey out of the capital city around 9 in the morning.

We drove from San Jose to Puriscal to Zapaton.  Puriscal was the closest grocery store so we stopped there since we had a car (typically Mason has to walk and take multiple buses, which takes several hours yet it is less than 50 miles).  We stocked up on more beer, more avocados and more water.  Plus some bananas this time.

Bus Stop 

The drive was beautiful yet very uncomfortable.  CR does not have the best infrastructure.  Most of the roads we drove on were all dirt and considering the rainy season started a few weeks before we arrived, there were many mudslides from earlier in the week that made it difficult to drive on some of these roads.  There are no lanes; two sides of the road do not exist.  You just drive.  If you look on a map, Zapatón, Mason's town, doesn't even exist.  According to google maps there isn't even a road near it.  I can assure you there is a road, although it is made of dirt, is steep and has many potholes.  Improving the infrastructure in Zapatón was Mason's main goal of living in the town for 2 years with the Peace Corp.

Pulled over on the side of the road near Zapatón to take in the scenery

Mudslide in the road

Driving up to the town was such a cool experience.  Zapatón is a small indigenous town of about 700 people.  Driving up in a SUV on the dirt road was shocking to the locals.  The children were so excited to see a car in the town, they were smiling and shouting. 

We got to Mason's by mid afternoon and decided to take advantage of the few remaining hours of sunshine before the rain came.  It typically rains pretty hard from 3-4 in the afternoon until sunrise. There is a large waterfall a few miles away from the house, so we drove most of the way, parked on the side of the road then hiked/climbed down about 100 feet to the bottom of the waterfall.  It was straight out of a movie - by the time we got to the pool of water at the bottom of the waterfall, the storm rolled in and it just started pouring.  I wish we had pictures of it but since it was so wet we decided not to bring the camera with us.

Once we got back to Mason's house, I took a nice cold shower to cool off.  Since the humidity was so high, it was nearly impossible to get my hair and bathing suit to dry entirely.  I swear things must get moldy before they are totally dry!  I was completely exhausted so I decided to go to bed at 8pm (hey, we were getting up at 4am) while the guys played a board game on the ground and drank chicha.

Side note: chicha (chee-cha) is a corn based alcohol that was homemade by a guy in Zapatón   It's super thick and has a lot of natural sugar in it.  I had a glass and it was good, but almost gave me an instant headache at the same time.  I have no idea how the guys went through 2 liters that night!

Side note 2: Zapatón is also the  name of the indigenous reserve in that area of Costa Rica