The bus ride was the most terrifying 7 hours of my life. I seriously thought we were all going to die. The driver didn’t seem to think that driving through mountains with no barrier at the side of the road was a good enough reason to drop below 70mph.
We did eventually make it to Heredia where we met up with a whole load of other people who had been on different volunteer projects to do the Costa Rica tour with. Our first stop was Samara beach which was another 7 hour coach trip away. We had a much better driver. I think his name may have been Ronald? He was our driver for the rest of the trip anyway and he was amazing J
At Samara beach I tried surfing for the first time. I can’t surf. That is all that will be said on the matter. I am not happy about it, lol. We also kayaked to a little island off shore and ate pineapple. I don’t think I have mentioned this before but pineapple eaten in Costa Rica tastes better than any other pineapple anywhere else in the world. I think it’s because it’s so fresh. But aaaahh, I want some now...
After Samara we moved on to Rincon de la Vieja, a national park in the centre of the country. We stayed on a ranch which was lovely. I could definitely live there! There were some lovely Aussie sheep dogs and their puppies. The puppies were sooo cute. I wanted to steal one!
At the ranch we went on a horse-y hack. My horse didn’t like me very much. He nearly ran me into a tree on several occasions! We rode to a little pool with a waterfall, which everyone decided to jump off of. It was a lot of fun but I got water up my nose L After that we went tubing which is the most fun everrrr! You sit in a little rubber ring and float down the rapids. I got stuck on the rocks a few times and had to wait for someone to come rescue me, lol.
In the afternoon we went on a hike through the national park. The NP is over a volcano, and in some places these “cauldrons” had formed in the ground where the mud was really hot and bubbling. It was very cool. Didn’t see an awful lot of wildlife because there was a big group of us and we probably scared most animals off. We did see a few agoutis and some pretty birds. I can’t remember what species the birds were though.
To end our stay in Rincon de la Vieja we went to a mud spa. We sat in the sauna for a while and then went and got covered in MUD. Which was fun. Not entirely sure what the mud was supposed to do though...
Our next stop was Volcan Arenal, another national park with another volcano. The Arenal volcano is active pretty much all the time. Unfortunately I didn’t get to see it erupting because it was very cloudy while we were there L
In Volcan Arenal we went zip-lining and abseiling. The zip-lining was quite fun, but I got stuck a few times! I had too much air resistance cause I am too big, I think! I have been abseiling before but this time it was quite scary. It was down a waterfall and there were lots of jagged rocks at the bottom. I made it though and then had to climb back up the waterfall via a ladder. It was a long way up and I nearly died a second time! While I was waiting for one of the zip-lines I saw a coati just ambling along. It was very cute!
We then drove to Tortugero, which was back on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. It reminded me a lot of San San which I liked! We stayed in some little lodges in the forest which were looovely. We woke up to lots of jungle sounds! There was loads of wildlife around too. The white-faced capuchin monkeys were so used to humans. They would sneak right up and steal food out of the bins. I managed to get some quite good pictures, although I don’t know how because my camera was so messed up by the humidity that I couldn’t actually see anything on the screen.
There were also lots of howler monkeys around which make a racket! I also saw lots of toucans, poison dart frogs, freshwater turtles, a caiman and a vine snake. We went on a tour down the river in a boat one day and saw a whole family of spider monkeys crossing the river. There must have been at least 10, and some of them were carrying tiny babies with them! Apparently spider monkeys don’t have thumbs. Isn’t that strange?
After Tortugero we went on our white water rafting trip! We were split into “aggressive” groups and “gentle” groups, lol. Unfortunately I had done something to my neck so I decided it was probably better if I went with the gentle group. It may have been a good idea because we still managed to lose people out the raft! White water rafting was a lot of fun. I would love to do it again.
Oooh, and we jumped into the rapids off a rock. That was fun! I remembered to hold my nose this time :D
The trip was split over three days. We rafted to a lodge in the morning of the first day, then the next day we explored around the lodge. We walked up the river bed to a natural water slide which was cool! It was so slippery climbing up to it though.
The day after that we rafted back to civilization and our final stop, the Gandoca-Manzanillo reserve. In Gandoca we met up with Andrey and Erick who were our leaders on the volunteer project which was good! I managed to leave my phone in the taxi back to the hotel though which was very sad L That phone had served me well and I thought it was pretty unfair to lose it in the last couple of days of the trip! We also did some more hiking and found a super cool cave. :D
After that we returned to Heredia to say goodbye to everyone :( Sad times.
I’m sorry this has been so long! I tried to keep everything short but I got a little carried away, lol.
Bye for now!
Lucy
