Rainy Season BluesWell, I´m finally posting again after more than a week. The rainy season is in it´s peak here in Central America, also known as winter. It goes from May to November, and is characterized by generally unpredictable rains, some lasting the entire day, while most of them occur in the afternoon, and usually don´t stop until the late evening. As if Liberia wasn´t boring enough, in the rainy season I´ve found myself searching for videos on You Tube, squeezing in some sunshine time at the pool, and drowning my jobless sorrows in Costa Rica´s national beers. October is said to be the worst month, but in a way, reminds me of the autumn that I´m missing at home. Sometimes I sip coffee with Shirley the woman downstairs who owns a ceramic business, while we wait for the rain to pass.
Africa Mia
I have however found time to go out on a few excursions, including the zoo, Africa Mia. To my luck, on this day, the sun was shining brightly, and it didn´t rain at all until I returned home around 3:30. In fact, the sun was scorching hot, and I walked 15 minutes in the 90 degree heat to sit on the steamy bus, which took me about 10 miles outside of Liberia in a town called Salto, and there I found a young guy at the roadside restaurant who told me the zoo was ¨largito¨ (a little far) for walking. In front of us only about 150 feet was a sign that said Africa Mia 400 meters (about four city blocks). I decided not to argue, maybe for him this was far. I walked on, but little did I know it was 400 meters to the entrance of the park, and another mile after that. Now, this would have been perfectly fine if I wasn´t drowning in my own sweat.
I arrived and decided to take the $30 deluxe tour which included a personalized guide in an open jeep, which was a step up from the $18 walking tour. The $65 safari tour is the most expensive, and takes visistors within the fences of the zoos to be closer to the animals. I had to wait another hour for my tour at 1 oclock, and I had left the house at 11. Things take longer in Africa I remember. I waited inside a beautiful white stone building with a veranda cafe, and at 1 I boarded the jeep with a couple from San Jose, and their two young boys. The entire tour was in Spanish, on a long stretch of a gravel road, where on either side were groups of different herbavores (there are no carnivores in Africa Mia), behind tall fences. At the end of the tour we got the pleasure of feeding carrots to the ostriches, who are carrot hogs by the way, and things that looked like camels, but have another name. During the tour, we couldn´t help but to feel jealous of the folks in the safari riding amongs the giraffes, and practically kissing the zebras, as we sat jailed behind the fence. However, I did get some good shots of the young giraffes, as Africa Mia has built a stone wall, allowing you to walk across and get a better view of the animals. The guide said they plan to build more stone walls in future for better viewing.
All in all, Africa Mia is a work in progress, and progessive it surely will be. For some reason it kind of reminded me of a weird Jurassic Park experiment. It wasn´t like other zoos, but was it worth the $30, probably not. The best part was that the family from San Jose took me back to the bus stop at Salto, and turns out they speak nearly perfect English, because they had lived in Philidelphia for four years. I took the bus back to Liberia, and when I got off I felt that amazing moment before it rains, when a refreshing wind hits you. Never did the rain feel so sweet after my day in the sun.
Rincon de La Vieja National Park
http://www.liberiacostaricainfo.com/Rincon-de-La-Vieja.htm
Yesterday I took a trip to Guanacaste´s largest volcano park, which includes a marked trail with waterfalls, rivers, hot springs, and mud pots, about an hour ride from Liberia. Check out the websie for more info. Because many national parks in Costa Rica aren´t very accesible unless you have your own car (as you read about in Africa Mia), I arranged transport with one of the local hotels in Liberia, met the driver Ofi at 7 in the morning, and we picked up three more German tourists on the way. We made our way up the rocky steep incline to the park, and paid an initial $2 entrance to ¨fix the roads,¨ and arrived at the ranger stations. I said goodbye to the Germans, and decided to go on my own. They asked me if I was from California, because I spoke such good Spanish. Silly Germans. There were two paths to take from the ranger station, one to the waterfalls and the other to the volcano and mud pots. The ranger recommended I take the waterfall path first, and continue later with the path to the volcano, he said because the waters in the rivers will rise in the afternoon if it rains.
As I started on my way, the path was clear, but later I realized what the ranger meant by rising waters, because I eventually I had to cross both rivers by foot, one of which came up to my mid-thigh. As I walked on, I was sort of hoping to see the Germans and stick with them, because I nearly broke my ankle about six times on the slippery rocks. In the rainy season, the trails are a bit tougher, and I only had simple running shoes. I made it to the end of the trail to find a beautiful watefall cascading into a bright blue pool of water, where I sat and had a snack. I wasn´t hot enough to go swimming so I decided to walk the 2.6 Kilometers back to where I had seen a sign for Cataratas Escondidas, which means hidden waterfalls. I began the 2 Kilometer Trek, which was what appeared to me a steep 75 degree rocky incline above the treelines. By this time I was really hot, and decided my reward for such a tough climb would be a dip in the waterfall pool, and a chance to fill up my bottle.
As I walked higher above the treeline, the little white arrows disapeared, and I looked around to find breathtaking rolling hills. I was glad I had decided to walk it, and perhaps if it wasn´t so cloudy I could have seen the volcano. I also heard the sounds of the watefall, but they sure weren´t kidding when they said hidden. Ok, no more hide and seek, I knew it was somewhere in the valley next to me, but looked too difficult to get to. See the picture above, my look of desperation searching for the waterfalls. The chase was up. I was disapointed, and it was starting to sprinkle, so I made my way down the incline, followed the path, and met the Germans at the river crossing.
I crossed with my flip flops, but lost one down the river, and the Germans started laughing ¨Oh no!¨ they said. At this point, the rain started coming down in buckets, and filling the trails up to my ankles. I waved good bye to them (I would later find out they hadn´t made it 100 feet more). I walked for about 45 minutes, so soaked that even my rain jacket was competely saturated, and I reached the station once again to find a couple from Madrid I had seen on the way. They too, had not been on the volcano path, and even though the Germans didn´t think it was up to snuff, we decided to walk together on the path for only 20 minutes to the first mud pool. It was a faulous site, with hot vapors rising into the atmosphere. We took a couple of shots, and ran back to the staion. Ofi came to pick us up around 2, and I asked him if we could look for my sandal at the bottom of the river. He laughed.
Future Plans
After a little deliberation, I´ve decided to head up to Guatemala by bus to a city called Quetzaltenango, known to locals and visitors as Xela. Xela is known for it´s Spanish schools and volunteer opportunities. I plan to do both, and can do it all very cheaply. For $120 the La Paz school will offer me Spanish classes daily, a homestay family, and all meals provided. Not a bad deal. I´m taking what´s called a Tica bus, a well regarded bus company that travels daily from Panama City all the way up to Southern Mexico, making stops in all the major Central American capitals. The bus picks me up at 10 tomorrow morning, and I plan to arrive in Guatemala City several days later, at which point I´ll take a five hour bus ride to Xela. To be honest, I´m a little concerned about doing it alone, but I plan to team up with some gringos on the bus if I can find them, and search for hotels with them when we stop in the capitals. Typically there are hostels and cheap hotels close by the bus stations, and Tica Bus has given me a list of reommended hotels, and tips. I´ll blog once I arrive in Xela, and tell you all about the experience. Hope you enjoyed the post, and please check out my new photos from the link. I takes me too long to upload all the photos, but I did as much as I can today, and will add captions later.
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