Pura Vida, Costa Rica!

Crossing the "border" into Costa Rica.

We got to Puerto Viejo and checked into Rocking J’s Hostel. This hostel was very interesting. First of all it is completely covered in sparkling ceramic tiles, and this hostel is HUGE. There is a massive sleeping porch that resembles something out of a freshmen year in a frat house. The porch is covered wall to wall with about 50 tents where guests can sleep for $6. There is another similar room that is wall to wall with hammocks that you can sleep in for $4. Trev and I opted for a room with actual beds, we know we’re spoiled. Being rainy season in Costa Rica, the weather was kind of crappy. Had the weather allowed it, we probably would have spent a few days lounging on the beach getting a tan before heading back to the equally rainy Pacific Northwest, but instead we walked around town and spent a lot of time looking at the seemingly endless rows of Rasta men selling bracelets, jewelry, and other touristy goods. For dinner we made one of our hostel specialties, Mexican Food! We then hung out in the hostel and talked with some other travelers about their experiences. We then made it to bed pretty early in preparation for our early morning bus to San Jose. We ended up missing the 7:30am bus. The next bus left at 9 so we sat at a coffee shop near the beach. We ordered egg sandwiches with pesto and some café con leche. We then took the 4 hour bus to San Jose to find out that all the busses were either full or the roads were destroyed by land slides. So, we and our new Argentine friends were forced to book a taxi for the 4 hour drive. This set us back another 30 bucks a person. But, we made it to the highland town of La Fortuna and checked into a random hotel at around 6pm. We went out for pasta and then went back to our room to watch the food network and go to sleep. The next morning we checked into a cute little hostel called Gringo Pete’s, and quickly booked a tour to the nearby Venado Caves. The caves were amazing! They did have the same scary cave spiders as the last caves we tried to tour, but our experienced guide assured us that they were not dangerous or poisonous. We made our way into the first room of the cave. A cool river ran through us and hundreds of bats slept overhead, that is until our guide shinned the flashlight at them and they all frantically flew into other darker rooms of the cavern. Our guide led us through rivers, down into small tunnels, up slippery waterfall faces, and into more and more rooms of the caves. Every room had more interesting stalagmite/stalactite formations than the last. We were also shown huge walls of coral that developed millions of years ago when the entire cave was underwater. Some of the massive rock walls were completely made of shell fossils. We wondered through the seemingly endless maze of tunnels that required us to walk, slide, crawl, climb, and swim to get through to the end. I am still not sure how Trev managed to fit through some of these small tunnels in which we literally had to slide feet first through these tiny openings in the rocks, in the dark. Our guide admitted that Trev was one of the largest people to ever make it through these tiny tunnels. He also pointed out all the interesting rock formations and the endless number of scary cave scorpion spiders. After about an hour of making our way through the cave, we finally scaled an underground waterfall and made it to the outside. We also learned that these caves were privately owned by a Costa Rican farmer who ran a small dairy farm on the lands surrounding the caves. On the drive back to the hostel our guide pointed out a toucan, howler monkeys, iguanas, and a sloth. His ability to see animals from the road was really impressive. He dropped us back at Gringo Pete’s where we got into warmer clothes, made an omelet, and blogged about our adventures. We also met some people from Canada, Germany, and Maine and decided to go on a 7pm night tour of a nearby active volcano.  

Last day on the Caribbean coast!