Central America Adrenalin
Wow! What a day to start. After the long haul flight in to San Jose with Iberian Airlines, we overnighter in San Jose and rose for an early start for the 1st road trip to La Fortuna. Giving us our first views of Costa Rica's landscape. Very green and very hilly. Taking the road through the valley to the beautiful town of La Fortuna. A journey of around 4 hours. The early start meant we saw the glorious sunrise and the colours of Costa Rica unfolding around us.
On arrival at La Fortuna we went straight in to the action. Famed for its glorious waterfalls, where better to start than with Waterfall Canyoneering. After a safety check with our guides off we set in the 4 x 4 to the top of the waterfall. Not for the faint hearted – I was to discover – but what an amazing experiences, abseiling down the waterfall in 3 big drops and walking and swimming through the river. Adventure all the way, with a dramatic storm to finish with! This was the first and as I discovered not the last Adrenalin rush of the week!
Once we were all dried, fed and watered and laughed over the photos taken we set off for the visit to our first volcano and lava field, with spectacular views of Lake Nicaragua which would be crossing on day 2. Our knowledgeable guides explaining all about the now dormant volcano, the flowers, fauna and wildlife that surrounded us, including snakes, frogs and spiders – eek!
Can you believe we are still on day one of our G Adventure when we head of the much needed and wonderful sight of the hot spring pools and lagoon to spend the rest of the evening swimming in the pool with the odd cocktail form the swim up pool bar.
Day 2 : A more civilised start! Leaving La Fortuna at 8.30, we took a short journey down to the lake for a crossing which took about an hour as we headed up out of the valley to Santa Helena and the Monteverde region on rainforest and clouds. We headed along the untarmacked roads, which added to the fun, and arrived after a couple of hours of travelling to the small, colourful town. Taking in a properly filtered Costa Rican coffee is a must, the technique of pouring the water through the coffee is an art in itself!
Activities today were more slow paced than the adrenalin of the waterfalls, but no less fun. Horseriding – you don’t have to have any experience – Tim! As you ride around the hills, and forests and coffee plantations taking in the sights and sounds, I was finding that this was a beautiful and friendly country.
After being totally wiped of the floor in the nightclub in La Fortuna – had left that embarrassing episode out, Our CEO, who knew a man that taught Salsa arranged for us to have an hour of Salsa Dancing classes, to build up our appetite for dinner – I don’t think you will see anyone on Strictly Come Dancing anytime soon!
Day 3 : The day started with a walk through the Cloud Forest, the rain forest with ancient trees and plants, Jurassic and beautiful. Our guide took us through the pathways explaining the diversity and the importance of the rainforest to us and the planet and showed us many things that only the trained eyes could see – stick insects and bugs and even a rather large - and so he says harmless - tarantula. Hmmmm.. will take his word for that!
The Adventure was then back with the zip wiring through the rain forest canopy. By 'through', I think they meant 'over', and by quite a considerable height! With our harnesses on once more we zipped our way through (over) the forest starting small and leading up to the longest zip wire in Central America of 1620m. A must for any adventurous adrenalin junkie finishing with the Tarzan Swing – need I say more! For those of you that have not had enough of an adrenalin for one day you could then head off to try a Bunjee Jump – needless to say I headed for the Coffee! Saint Helena – Ometepe. Another pre-dawn start for our longest journey from the clouds back to sea level to cross the border leaving behind Costa Rica and enter Nicaragua. This journey would take around 5 hours with stops for breakfast and refreshments along the way. A journey of beautiful scenery and winding roads, it really did not seem to take anywhere that long.
The border crossing had to be done by foot, so it was off the bus, bags on and walk through the border agencies of both countries separately. Extremely busy and all a bit mad, and very glad we were with Allan our amazing CEO to guide us through the hustle and bustle and take us through to join our bus for the last leg of the journey. Apart from one of our group having a slight temperature and failing the Ebola checks in place! All ran smoothly – they let him in eventually! As we had a wait for the ferry that would take us across to the Volcanic island of Ometepe Island we headed for the beach for lunch overlooking the Pacific Ocean in the busy town of San Juan de Costa.
On a normal Gtour you would stay for a couple of days, but we only had a couple of hours before boarding the ferry across the Lake to our next destination of Ometepe and finding out first hand about GAdentures Planeterra project, supporting the local communities with home stays and funding for local community projects, to better the lives of those living here. On arriving at the Island my first impression was that it was a lot busier than I imagined, but this was only in the centre of the town and around the port, we were soon leaving that behind on the short ride to where we would stay. We were met by our hosts, and taken to their homes and shown were we would be staying for the next 2 nights, very much like bed and breakfasts, we ate one evening meal with the family of which you were staying. It was a great way to really absorb the culture and way of life and learn immersed into the way of life.
Day 4/5/6 After 2 nights here we took the ferry back across to mainland Nicaragua and onto the colonial city of Grenada. This was a great journey on our first sample of local transportation. The bus station was colourful and vibrant with people selling absolutely everything you could think of! The buses are called Chicken buses and are used by everyone to get everywhere. Called chicken buses as on some parts of the journey it stopped and picked up and dropped off everyone from school children to pensioners and people just getting on the bus to try and sell you some sweets or fruit to shampoo! Hooting horns as they passed other buses was just great great fun, and got very crowded. Certainly no quotas on people seating and standing on these buses. If you squeeze on, you could get on. On arrival of Grenada we walked the city visiting the Cathedral tower to get views across the whole city and I must say I think we all feel slightly in love with the city. A small city but amazing. The main square was awash with people lined by horse and carts and amazing buildings. It was a city that was awash with colour and the sounds of Latin music seeping from buildings, you get the feeling that the city has not changed much over the centuries.
Day 7: We finished our journey through Central America with an evening trip up to one of the 260 active volcanos through Nicaragua, Masaya. What an amazing experience. Looking into the Volcano as the sulphur sent continuous plumes of smoke into the air and after a walk through the darkest of caves! We got as close as close and saw the active lava lake bubbling below us.
We come to the end of our whirlwind trip through Central America and how we fitted so much in such a short trip I will never know!