|
|
Costa
Rica Adventure
March 5-20, 2005
We’d spent three nights in La
Fortuna and we were sorry to leave, but looking forward to the next
stop. After a quick breakfast, we
loaded our bags onto a van and drove to the lake near Arenal, where we
transferred our stuff and ourselves onto a motorboat.
Boat ride across the lake near Arenal (Photo credit: SHS) Crossing the lake by boat was
pleasant and scenic. When we got to
the other side, the bags stayed on the boat, and we disembarked and climbed
onto horseback. Now, we were ten days into the
trip, and we were all showing signs of wear and tear. Cathy had fought and
recovered from a cold but she’d acquired a migraine headache. Meanwhile, I
was in the process of coming down with a cold of my own (probably
Cathy’s). We were immensely sore from
the horseback ride, sunburned, bruised, banged up, and covered in mosquito
bites and heat rash. Despite all that, we were
determined not to let any of that affect our enjoyment of our trip. So we geared up for the three-hour
horseback ride between Arenal and Monteverde, in the sun at the hottest part
of the day. Painful? Yeah.
Fun? Definitely.
I’m back in the saddle again… (Photo credit: SHS) The ride started somewhat
eventfully, as Kirsten was thrown off her horse. She had the right attitude
and climbed back on again. We set off along the trail.
Kirsten (left) wasn’t about to let a little fall off a
horse faze her (Photo credit: SHS) Each horse had its own speed.
Mine seemed to like to be the fastest, keeping pace with the guide out front
and even trying to pass him. My horse spent most of the ride trotting, which
meant I spent most of the ride trying to post or else bouncing around
uncomfortably on the saddle. Cathy’s horse, on the other hand, was a bit
smaller than the others but very spunky, and kept trying to keep up with the
larger horses.
The Little Horsie that Could (Photo credit: SHS) The scenery during the
horseback ride was absolutely gorgeous. The path followed the lake, and it
was a beautiful day. I kept trying to
take photos while holding the reins, and even managed to change rolls of film
while riding – quite a feat if I may say so myself.
Scenic horseback ride along the lake (Photo credit: SHS) A few times, the horses really
got going into a full gallop, which was exhilarating but also kind of scary since
I kept feeling like I was going to fall off.
Especially as we neared the end of the ride, the horses knew they were
almost home and kept trying to speed up. It was an effort to keep them to a
trot. After the horseback ride, we
all loaded into two vans, for our drive up to Monteverde, stopping on the way
for lunch. Julie had warned us ahead
of time that the roads to Monteverde were very poor. She wasn’t kidding. The drive was disturbingly reminiscent of
the tractor ride to Rara Avis. The
roads wound up into the hills. They
were mostly unpaved and rocky and full of potholes and washouts, and they
curved dangerously without any guardrails.
One false turn or slip and I feared we’d be flying off the side of a
cliff. But amazingly, we made it to
Santa Elena without incident. After settling into our hotel,
a few people opted to go on a night hike in the cloud forest. The rest of us
headed into town to explore. We walked past the bank where the terrible
hostage crisis had taken place only a couple of days earlier. There were
still news cameras set up, doing follow-up reports presumably. And armed guards patrolled the outside of
the bank. It seemed so incongruous;
the town was so tiny and seemed so peaceful.
Most of the hostages were tourists just like us. It was difficult to fathom the horror of
what had just taken place. We decided to go to the
Serpentarium. Unfortunately, our guide was one of the most boring speakers we
had ever met, and his lifeless descriptions were enough to lull anyone into a
coma. But there were too many cool species of snakes to see, including many
poisonous ones, for the guide to be able to ruin it. We saw boa constrictors, harmless vine
snakes and lethal vipers, and everything in between. We also saw beautiful
poisonous frogs, including the dart frog and the “blue jeans” frog.
Snakes at the Monteverde Serpentarium (Photo credit: SHS) Since we’d eaten a late lunch,
I wasn’t particularly hungry for dinner.
I made it an early night in hopes that a good night’s sleep would
stave off the cold I was catching.
Unfortunately, it didn’t quite work out that way. The hotel owners had several dogs that
seemed to want to set barking records.
Then, distaste of cockroaches kept Robert and Mandy awake, and their
pacing in the room directly above us kept Cathy and I awake. I was starting to feel like I was back
home, dealing with noisy neighbours in my building.
I eventually gave up on sleep and just closed my eyes and waited it
out till morning. Next: Zipline canopy tour in Monteverde. |
