A Walking Tour in Costa Rica by Mary Novakovich
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It was hard to avoid a slight sense of panic in the arrivals lounge at San Jose airport. Scores of taxi touts swarmed round us, making it difficult to find our guide who was to look after us during our walking holiday. I know it’s a typical scene in many airports, but the lateness of the hour and the unfamiliar warmth of the night were having an unsettling effect.
Bewildering Contrasts
Finally, I spotted Juan Carlos, who quickly took charge and deposited us in the Hotel Buena Vista in nearby Alajuela. Daniel, the barman, ignored the late hour and gave us free beer. “You’ll want to drink this while you’re in Costa Rica,” he said, introducing us to the loveliness that is Imperial. “we call it Aguila, because of the black eagle logo.” I speak the barest minimum of Spanish, so the addition of “dos Aguilas, por favor” to my meagre vocabulary was very useful.
We also learnt the Costa Rican catchphrase “pura vida”, meaning pure life. Costa Ricans say pura vida to mean “hello”, “cheerio”, that’s great mate” – whatever you like. It’s one of the many beguiling things about this small country that is full of bewildering contrasts and some of the most unreasonably beautiful and bizarre scenery I’ve ever seen.
Many Volcanoes
Alajuela was only a stopover, so we set off the next day to Lake Arenal, home to one of the country’s many volcanoes. But we had a few mini-wonders to experience along the way first. There was the small café in Mirador Cinchona, for example, which is a lookout post over a vast garden that resembles a compact rainforest, complete with toucans, hummingbirds and a huge waterfall in the distance. It also had a pet tarantula, whose six-year-old minder offered us to hold. I was the only one to take her up on it. It felt deliciously creepy.
Back on the road, Juan Carlos braked abruptly and skidded over to the kerb. “Sloth!” he called out. We scrambled out of the car and looked excitedly up in the trees. Sure enough, a three-toed sloth was making its leisurely way down the tree. What a delight.
After another few hours over Costa Rica’s atrocious roads, we made it to the Arenal Observatory Lodge. Arenal last had a major eruption in July 1968, when 80 people died, and new mountains were created by lava flow. It’s still active, and on a clear day you can see steam blowing out of it; on clear nights, a stream of red lava can be seen flowing down. It would have been an astonishing sight had it not rained solidly for the two days we were there.
Head in the Clouds
Our first walk was through cloud forest to the crater of neighbouring volcano Cerro Chato. It’s a steep enough climb when the weather is dry, but the relentless rain had turned the terrain into rivers of mud. The forest lushness could not be hidden completely, however, and now and then, a flash of vivid orange ginger lilies would appear. We even saw a baby boa constrictor that had choked to death eating a lizard, the greedy little thing. The reward for climbing a kilometre to the top should have been a view of Cerro Chato’s lake, but we had to make do with the admittedly rare experience of eating our packed lunch with our heads literally in the clouds.
Juan Carlos had promised us hot springs, a bonus that comes with staying in a volcanic region. The most famous in the area is Tabacon Grand Spa Thermal Resort, which is expensive and usually overcrowded. Instead we soothed our aching muscles in the more intimate Eco Termales Hot Springs in La Fortuna, which has four large pools descending into each other. Mercifully, it had stopped raining long enough for us to lie in the steamy water and watch the bats swoop madly as dusk fell. There was a restaurant, too, which served an extremely good version of the Costa Rican national dish casado: rice and spicy refried beans with various extras such as chicken and beef, palm heart salad and fresh fruit juice.
Monkeys Hanging About in Trees
I had thought that Arenal was determined to stay hidden during our stay, but the volcano emerged from the clouds long enough to show off about two-thirds of it. What we missed for views at the lodge we made up for on the road out of Arenal and around its enormous lake. Not only of the lake itself, but also groups of howler monkeys hanging about in trees and gangs of cuddly coatis venturing out into the road.
We didn’t have too much further to go before we crossed the continental divide into another climactic zone. The change is abrupt: lush rainforest turns into hot, dry savannah with more volcanic mountains in the distance. We were heading towards the Nicaraguan border for Rincón de la Vieja, another of Costa Rica’s national parks that in total make up more than a quarter of the country’s land mass.
Working Cattle Ranch
It’s amazing what a bit of dry heat will do for the spirits. I knew I was going to like the Hacienda Guachipelin, a working cattle ranch with an open-air restaurant, bedrooms in rows of single-storey lodges, an especially relaxed atmosphere and no rain. The walking wasn’t any easier because it was dry. However, if it had been raining heavily we would have missed walking through primary forest filled with spider monkeys trying to aim a stream of urine directly on us. Or walking over a hanging bridge over a ravine. Or looking at impossibly tall trees with enormous buttress roots that looked like dinosaur tails. Or walking through vegetation that wouldn’t have looked out of place in a 1960s episode of Star Trek, where cacti looked like giant spider plants and orchids grew on dead bark.
I would have missed the chance to climb through a forest, walk across savannah, descend through forest again and emerge in front of a waterfall called Catarata la Cangreja. And then swim in the refreshing water before having lunch on the rocks. Admittedly the walk back through 38C heat was a bit of a killer, but it also included the sight of a dung beetle hard at work pushing its dung-covered egg, as well as numerous iguanas sauntering about.
A Wrench to Leave
It was a bit of a wrench to leave Rincon, but at least we had the Pacific Coast to look forward to. Juan Carlos was to leave us at El Ocotal Resort, on the Golfo de Papagayo, where we were to have a day and a half on our own before returning home. We did nothing more strenuous than swim, read trashy novels, eat wonderfully fresh seafood in the cliff-top restaurant and watch the sun go down.
It was the perfect way to wind down after days spent climbing volcanic mountains, but I couldn’t help but feel a slight sense of sadness. What I was looking at resembled the Costa del Sol before foreign investors turned the coast into concrete. And it’s already happening in certain coastal regions of Costa Rica, probably the most stable country in Latin America. Then I remembered all those potholed roads that cover so much of the country and felt grateful for them. If you want to get close to Costa Rica’s riches, you’ll have to work to get there.
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