After dinner, I struck up a conversation with a nice guy from Germany…Markus. He lives about 100 kilometers north of Munich. We drank a lot of beers and talked about German soccer, German beer, U.S. Parks, camping…you name it.
At 10:00, everything pretty much shut down, so I was off to sleep in another nice and comfy bed.
Now…as for today…
Today was one of those days that could not have started out worse…or ended better.
When I wake up around 6:30AM, the sound of rain is loud…very loud. It’s not just raining, it’s pouring down in buckets. And the wind is so strong that the rain is blowing in sideways.
I head down the hall to the restaurant area for some coffee…and start thinking about “alternate plans”. First off, I won’t be hiking Tenorio Volcano National Park this morning…not in this downpour. And, if it continues to rain like this, I won’t be camping much either. So I start thinking that I might just scrap the camping plans for a few days and, instead, head over to the beach and hole up in some nice little hotel.
Just as I’m starting to check my guidebooks, Robert (the owner of the lodge) stops by to have a coffee with me. When I tell him that I’m thinking about skipping the camping, he immediately tells me no. Ten miles from here, he says, the weather will completely change. Where we are now there’s a gap in the mountains, and the weather blows in from the Caribbean side…that’s where the rain is coming from. But, ten miles away, the weather blows in from the Pacific side, and it will be warm and sunny.
Robert knows some people that have a nice little lodge near today’s destination…Rincon de la Vieja National Park. He calls them, and it turns out that they have both camping and rooms.
When I leave the lodge around 10:00, it’s still pouring. And now, I have to go back down the same terrible road that I came in on yesterday…only this morning, I get to do it in the mud.
It’s tough going even with four-wheel drive. Along the way, I have to slow down because some guy is running a small herd of cattle down the middle of the road. But, once I hit Route 6, it’s paved highway all the way.
Soon I’m on the Pan American Highway heading to the town of Liberia. Along the way, I stop twice for “agua de pipa” (coconut water) ice cold right out of the shell. Here, the people use something like a small pick ax to make the hole…instead of hacking off the end with a machete.
Around noon, I stop in Liberia to get cash from a bank ATM and some groceries (ice and milk) at the supermarket.
Just north of Liberia, I turn off on a dirt road for a fifteen kilometer drive to the small village of Curubande…and El Sol Verde Lodge. The owner, Peter is from Holland and very welcoming. He shows me the campsites but suggests a room at just $15.00 more since I’m only spending one night. I take Peter’s advice and get the room.
I’m planning on doing my hike of the Park in the afternoon but, just my luck, the park is closed. Peter suggests a morning hike in the Park tomorrow morning…and an afternoon at the local hot springs this afternoon…an excellent idea!
So I head up toward the Park. About five kilometers along, I come to a “toll stop”…some guy owns the property on which about fifty feet of the road sits. He makes his money by charging a $1.50 toll…the free market at work!
After a short drive, I’m at Rio Negro Hot Springs…I pay $5.00, get a towel and head down a trail in the forest to the springs.
At one point, I have to cross a swaying suspension bridge high over a river. Great…this combines my fear of bridges with my fear of falling and fear of heights…add the fact that it’s over water (fear of drowning), and it’s the “Perfect Storm” of phobias.
The hot springs are wonderful…a half hour in the springs, paint yourself with mud, let it dry, shower off…back in the springs. An hour and a half of that, and I am totally relaxed…which is good because I have to go back over that suspension bridge.
On the way back to the Lodge, I stop at this tiny little place for a beer…and run into my friend, Markus, who I stayed up late with drinking beers and talking about Germany. They are heading to the Santa Rosa Park next, like me, so I have no doubt that I will run into them again tomorrow.
Around 6:00PM, I walk a half a mile or so from the lodge to a small “Soda”…here the term soda does not refer to coke/pepsi, but a small family restaurant that serves very simple food. I had “meat in sauce” with rice, beans and salad…very good and all for less than $5.00.
So now I’m back at the Lodge where they power up the Wi-Fi between 7:00 and 9:00PM.
I’ll get this post up, enjoy a few beers and get a good night’s sleep. I’ve got a four-hour hike tomorrow morning.
After hiking, I'm off to Santa Rosa NP for three days of beach camping. No Internet, so the next post will be in four days from the "party town" of Jaco!
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