The hardest thing in Costa Rica is not the language barrier - it is remembering to not flush the TP down the toilet. Every so often you can hear me say, "oops!" as i remember as i hit the flusher. Sorry CR if i have caused any country-wide plumbing issues.. i'm just a Gringa!
Yesterday, David's 40th bday BTW, (19th thank you very much) we drove to one of the active volcanoes, Irazu. The GPS said we were 11,000 feet above sea level. We were climbing up and up and up for a long time. We could feel it when we got out of the car. It was cold and we felt dizzy. We were so high that we were amid the clouds but we could see down to the crater where water had pooled. The other volcano, Turrialba, is too active for tourists so it is illegal to go to it. There was this cute animal that looked like a racoon and an ant eater called a Pizote and was quite the crowd pleaser as all the tourists were taking her pic.
After the volcano we drove back down and stopped 14 km from town to bike the rest. We flew down the turrialba hills. It was awesome! I had a slight blow outof my back tire, and Yulian was nice enough to give up his bike and ride in the follow car the rest of the way. David asked me on the way if was nervous and i said no. He said, "i dont understand you. You get nervous on rivers you've paddled before but won't get nervous about plummeting down hills." (or something to that effect) and i said "yep!" i'm a mystery.
We got to the tour office, had a quick lunch and then set off on a 3.5 hour ride to Puerto Viejo. We passed out of the Turialba region into Limon. The scenery changed to flatlands with big palm trees. We saw miles and miles of banana farm. The roads got worse - full of pot holes. The pot holes were so bad, they knocked the headlights on the SUV out of alignment. We passed through the town of Limon and you could tell it was a poor area with the shacky houses and general upkeep (i waited until after we passed limon to ask to pee). Once out of Limon we were riding along side the Caribbean sea! The sun was going down fast but we could see the waves crashing and the palm trees on the beach before we turned more inland and were again surrounded by banana trees. We slowly made our way (dodging pot holes bigger than those in philly) down the "Class five road" to our hotel. We checked in to our air conditioned bungalow and headed to dinner. Puerto Viejo is a cute little strip of shops, restaurants and street vendors. Reminds me a bit of New Hope, but with a Carribean flare. They have pizzarias here which is curious to me. i might have to try one. There are alot of shops with cute dresses that i am sure Michelle Kessler would love but i was too tired to look around for some cute attire.
The remaining posts will be added when we return to the US. We didn't have internet for the rest of the trip so the document will be added this evening hopefully. Another sad note, the camera did not record our last day here - the zipline day!
No comments:
Post a Comment