After the chicken bus..

Where did I leave off? Oh that's right, I was talking about how Ricardo and his chicken buses can go to hell.

The whole aim of that journey was to make it to La Fortuna for the weekend. A little about Fortuna. This rural town is primarily a tourist town with draw cards such as natural hot springs, canyoning, ATV tours, zip lining, an active volcano....AN ACTIVE VOLCANO?!?

That's right Arenal volcano is still considered quite active and I guess people's fascination with all things destructive (take the US media for example, if a person hasn't eaten another guy's face he isn't cut out to be on the news) draws them in. According to the guide on a walk Arenal was considered just another peak up until it destroyed the town of Tabacón in the late 1960's (guess that's enough indication) however the volcanic activity is decreasing.

So our group of five adventurers finally made it to La Fortuna, found a nice little hotel to stay and and considering we hadn't eaten on our bus ride (despite the offers of live chickens) we decided to head for one of Fortuna's draw card resorts, Baldi hot springs.

Baldi is a resort with accommodation, restaurants and 25 naturally heated pools. These pools were heated by drilling into the ground to tap into the volcanically heated waters. These pools range from "this is like my bath water" warm to "my skin is melting off me" hot. Before we decided to try and boil ourselves we hit the buffet which for all of us was fantastic (three meat eaters and two vegetarians), I think the common ground was the tres leiches dessert.

With this being a water themed attraction and me not bringing the scuba case for fears of being labelled some sort of pervert and Hayley leaving her camera in San Pedro I've had to resort to google images. Except for this one...

Jenny Grant this is YOUR daughter

Day two we decided to chill in the morning and explore the town of La Fortuna, it didn't take long. In the afternoon we were picked up to go on a walk around the Arenal national park. The tour lasted from 2pm until 8pm which included a guided tour, then a trip to a naturally heated 'river.' The tour took quite an impressive waterfall, views of the volcano, suspension bridges and attempts to see monkeys and sloths (we weren't overly fussed considering we had all seen monkey's helping themselves to some body's bag the previous weekend).

Once the sun had gone we all loaded into the mini van and headed back towards town. We stopped at a random car park with various other 'tourismo' labelled vans and were instructed to leave all valuables in the van and take nothing but ourselves. If at any point in the trip so far felt as if we were going to be buried in a shallow grave, it was now. We were led down a dirt road until you could hear running water and see torch lights illuminating steam plumes. We walked through what could at best be only described as a storm water drain (at best) which led to a small steaming river. All (most) doubts over the water quality were removed when our feet touched the hot water (somewhere between bath and face melt) and we were given a local vodka like alcohol. Not a bad way to relax after our walk.



The remaining familia with Arenal in the background. Hayley-Stew-Rachel-Roshni-Nimit

Day three started with an early and rushed breakfast before four of us headed off to go quad biking (or for our American friends, an ATV tour). Hayley and I both grabbed the chance for our own quads while two of our friends shared. We headed off towards a creek which you could swim at, then headed to the Arenal water fall. This water fall is quite impressive standing approx 70m high. You can apparently swim at the bottom of it however generally at your own risk because of the pressure of the water. From here we were taken to an organic farm for lunch (they never did say what they grew there-maybe best not to ask) and then headed back.

By the time we got back it was time to start thinking about check out and the bus home. All the positive thoughts and experiences of the weekend were then tainted about the prospect of another chicken bus drive home. The only logical idea was the rent a car home (FANTASTIC).

We stopped just outside of town at the Arenal river on the way out for one last swim. This place was more of a local spot however aside from a group of kids who have seen Twilight one too many times (trying to pose on rocks with their shirts off) it was friendly enough. The water was cool (evidence enough for me it didn't come from the same storm water drain we swam in the night before) but refreshing. It didn't take long before we joined the locals jumping off rocks into the water (for the mothers out there it was sufficiently deep to avoid spinal injury) and encouraging scared local guys to not pussy out. I mean if a gringo can do it, so could they!



Not quite the chicken bus

After this we headed home, not stopping for kids, not stopping for chickens.

Facebook photos of Fortuna/Arenal

Fuck Ricardo and this chicken bus...

There's always this one guy that people know that has a special skill. The guy at work who can fix your computer before you call IT support, the guy who can bring your iPhone back from the brink of death or the guy that knows where the best parties are at. Well we were recommended by our volunteer program company who could point us in the right direction for tours, travel and accommodation.

This could be Ricardo..

There's a small 'tour office' next to the volunteer office run by a guy called Ricardo. Supposedly he knew some of the best places to go in Costa Rica, the best ways to get there and the best accommodation. We used Ricardo for our first weekend away in Costa Rica headed to Manuel Antonio, suggesting and reserving accomodation at a hostel, organise the bus and courtesy bus to the bus station. I'll summarise the trip here:

• Ricardo said it would take between 3-4hrs to get there but it only took 2.5 (Ricardo gains points)
• Arrive at the hostel with nobody to check us in, and the people that arrived before us saying that they had reserved rooms with private bathrooms with AC which did not exist (Ricardo looses points). We decided to stay next door in a private room with private bath and AC for cheaper.
• The following day one of the guys that stayed at the original hostel the first night shows us what he believes to be bed bug bites (Ricardo looses points)
• The bus trip home takes 5 hrs (neither here nor there)

I guess we all decided that he had a pretty good time there so we 'forgave' the accomodation and decided to use his skills two weeks later for a trip to Fortuna and the Arenal volcano. We did the same thing and booked the direct bus and courtesy shuttle to the bus station. We had looked at some accomodation in/around Fortuna including hotels with hot springs to hostels with private bathrooms etc. Ricardo said that because it was low season we need not worry about booking accomodation and we would get a better rate if we just showed up. Here come those bullet points again.

• We were at Maximo to get the shuttle to the bus station 10 minutes before our pickup time. Pick up time came and went but we happened to run into Ricardo who when asked said that he forgot to book it. Cabs are called, we were told that he would cover the costs. (Ricardo looses quite a few points)
• We are split into two cabs, our cab arrives after the other one just as the bus is supposed to depart. We have to pay 5,000 colones (around $10) and rush onto the bus. (Ricardo looses more points)
• Our 'expresso' bus makes a number of stops before we reach the airport (around 15km away) taking around an hour. Over the course of the journey we average 30km/h making stops to pick up school children, farmers, onboard refreshment vendors (who are selling everything from chips to fruit to what I think are dried chicken feet), pregnant ladies, fat ladies carrying fat toddlers who decide to recline their seats in such a position causing crush injuries to my lower limbs. We stop to pick up so many people that this coach is now packed, I don't mean seats full, I mean seats full, aisle full, front and rear steps full. (Ricardo looses MAS points)



If we picked up anybody else I imagine it would've looked something like this

• After 5.5 hours of driving, stopping, driving, stoping we finally completed the arduous journey of 120km. (FUCK this chicken bus)
• We try to secure accomodation and find that practically everywhere is booked out on at least one of the nights we need (Fuck Ricardo and that chicken bus)

Not all is lost though, we find a little hotel called Luigi's and manage to squeeze 5 people into a room with 3 queen beds and have a pretty amazing time. I feel like I should cover our actual trip in another entry which isn't of as negative sentiment.

I might add we were booked to travel in the same bus but in reverse, so we could only imagine how long the journey would take climbing mountains to get home. Needless to say we sold our bus tickets and hired a car. Just on 2 hours after departing, we arrive home.

-Stew

Just a note, Ricardo has not been used since...

If you swear in the forest and there are people to hear it...

We're onto week three and we've had our second weekend of free time. I'll quickly cover the week day business.

This whole working Monday to Friday 9-5 is weird! While we may not be 'working' we're actually quite busy! We wake up and have breakfast with the Tico family, then walk down to Maximo for Spanish classes with La Professora Anna. We spend two hours in class, then head down to our usual cupcake meeting. After that Hayley and I would jump on a bus for an hour trip each way to our project, finish around 5 for the return to Maximo, pick up some of our Tico family then head home. While it doesn't sound like much it's really made me appreciate the weekend!

This brings me to the new business! Adventure time! 

So this weekend which just passed we decided to do a little adventuring while some of our Tico family were living it up USA style at an all inclusive resort with yes, other Americans (Nimit you're still cool don't worry).

Saturday morning we grabbed the shuttle and heading around an hour South East of San Jose, outside of a town called Cartargo to go white water rafting. After around 10 minutes of safety instructions in broken english (arm waving and laughing gets the point across right..right..) we jumped in! I've never been rafting before so the technique of shoving your foot as far under the set in front of you as possible was refined as much as possible before the first rapid.

Cries of right side forward, left side backwads, adelante, backwards, all in and "OH MY GAWD" from the back of the boat, the occasional spanish phrases made the morning very interesing.

I've uploaded the photos to facebook so if you're a friend jump on and check it out.

After our little rafting session they provided us with lunch, a traitional lunch plate called a casado (a mixture of gallo pinto-rice and beans with chicken and salad with your own addition of hot sauce) with a fantastic juice which I feel like they picked the ingredients at random. After we'd finished lunch it was back on the bus to zip lining!

For those that have never heard of zip lining (for god sake what's wrong with you, I recommend you try spending time outside of your house) it's basically being put into a harness, attached to a cable then 'flying' through the air from point to point. This reliance on gravity general requires you to start somewhere high and zip line down. There's only one problem with this concept, the bus only takes you half way up the mountain!

Our group consisted of four members of the Tico family, a group of 3 volunteers (one of which will be refered to as the Columban douchebag or CDB) and a mum, dad and little girl. Half way up the trek one of the other vlunteers starts huffing and slowing the group down. The nice people that we are decided rather than help him up the hill we'd over take him and step up the pace. After around 15min of walking we get to the top and start gearing up.

After yet another safety briefing in broken english (this one was a little better), the main points turned out to be;

1. You have to break yourself
2. Don't put your hand in front of the 'pully'
3. Don't fall off the mountain

We ended up trying 14 different cables ranging in length from "why even bother" to "where the hell is the other platform?!" The views were pretty impressive from surrounded by jungle to jungle 20-30m below you and a view of the surrounding cities. I'd recommend the adventure to pretty much every body.

There was a little surprise about 2/3 of the way through, we all ziplined to a platform basically made out of wire and suspended in an enourmous tree (you could peer down to what could be your death). After some of us may have decided to 'bounce' a little at the direction of the guide (much to the dislike of one girl) the guides hooked us up one by one and belayed us to the ground. It was a tranquil slow ride to the ground, allowing you to view the surrounding canopy and trees. Unfortunately for me I was the last of our group and unknown to me my 'friends' had been in discussions with the guide at the bottom of the tree. I guess the video says more than I could type...

We boarded the bus soon after this and headed home. Sunday was a little more sedate exploring a nearby town called Cartago. I wont write a blog post about Cartago except that it used to be the capital city however due to volcanic earthquakes regularly anihilating the place they decided to move the capital (good idea).

Take care guys.

-Stew

Tres Semana

Hola amigos!

This is my first entry in Stew's blogging experiment, so sorry if my writing isn't as entertaining as his! It's the start of week 3 here in Costa Rica. It's been a busy few weeks, this whole 9-5 workday thing is really helping me understand why non shiftworkers go nuts on a Friday - the weekend rules!

This weekend just gone, we (and 2 of the girls in our "family") decided to try the ultimate Costa Rican tourist attraction - Zip Lining! The verdict is...it's awesome. We also threw in some white water rafting, just cause we're badass ;) I've put a video of it on facebook, and I believe Stew is uploading some photos as I type.

Back to Work...

Today we started at the volunteer project we will be on for the next 6 weeks (6 weeks of free work? This seems familiar somehow...). It's a private ambulance company based here in San Jose called "TrasMedic". The last 2 weeks at the hospice for AIDS patients was eye opening and challenging, but I'm not going to lie - I'm excited to be back on an ambulance! The language barrier is difficult, but the crews seem really nice and the work is exactly the same, albeit the equipment a little more dated and the protocols a little less rigid!

I'll report back once we have more stories.

H

Dos semana

It's late...again but here goes.
We're into week 2 of our Central America journey and it's been surprisingly busy so I'll try to give you a run down of whats been happening.

Our host family is now complete, our Tico mum (or Mama Tico) is Denia. A very animated motherly come crazy woman. The things you shouldn't be learning in a Spanish class we learn from Denia (eg: puta). By Tuesday night last week all the volunteers had arrived including the two Australians, a Canadian and three Americans (a couple and a solo traveller). The dynamic of the house is pretty chill and we all get along. Four of us (excluding the couple) all walk to the same Spanish class in the morning, then have lunch and disapear to our respective projects.

Spanish class is taught by yet another crazy Tico Anna who's ability to teach to a room full of english speakers in only Spanish impresses me! We've got four weeks of her making random noises to get the point across so time will tell (like I need a reason to make random noise).

Our project is around 40 minutes away on the bus just outside another town called Cartago. Our project is a 'hospice' for people with HIV/AIDs and various other developmental/mental problems. There are two patients who I'd deem as requiring active care but we smash through what we need to do in less than half the time we're there (think we should slow to tico time). The other residents may have AIDs however they're permitted to leave the hospice basically whenever they want with some exceptions. There are a few residents who have drug/stealing pasts and we've been told to keep an eye on them if we go out with them (they're mostly gone by the time we arrive anyway).

There's talk about our project being changed to actual work on an ambulance service (stay tuned).

FINALLY the fin de semana (weekend)! A big group (the family and more volunteers) around 16 of us left Friday for Manuel Antonio. It's a national park on the beach around 2-4hrs (depending on the driver) away on the Pacific coast. The drive out was near death experience after experience but we made good time.
The main public beach is okay, surf able waves (albeit small waves) and black volcanic sand mixed with rocks however the beaches inside the national park are more reminiscent of home. Only thing that really differs from some of our tropical beaches is that we don't have monkeys foraging through your stuff! We've got a couple of pictures of a baby monkey playing in a tree with some body's t-shirt (I'll work out how to upload more than one photo at a time from my iPad soon).

That's basically our week in general detail. Almost time for another weekend with zip lining and rafting planned for Saturday (Sabado) but it's time to catch the bus!

-Stew
Google pictures of Manuel Antonio

Little late..

It's our second night in Costa Rica so I feel like I'm starting this late but this little travel diary is a little tedious given today's technology!

For a quick introduction my wonderful girlfriend (oh god we're one of THOSE couples) Hayley and I decided to fly from Australia to the small Central American country of Costa Rica to learn Spanish and volunteer. Prior to this we spent around 3 weeks traveling through the USA. We made it to Las Vegas, Houston Texas, New Orleans Louisiana (think we were both suitable impressed), skipped back to the west coast to San Francisco then drove down the Californian coast to Los Angeles. In LA we boarded our aircraft and are now in my first non English speaking country!

Now you've mostly been introduced to our little jaunt we can talk about what happening! This is our second night in country at our host family's house following our first contact day with the Maximo Nivel staff. So far so good.

Tomorrow will be our first day of Spanish classes and first day at our project however time to try to catch up on some more missed USA sleep. Remind me to tell you the one about our host mother and surprise gay sex. Updates to come!

-Stew