Around Costa Rica in 20 days

David: Our December expeditions have continued and the goal of reaching every corner of Costa Rica in one month is not far off. That really is not our goal and even if it was we wouldn’t be close, but, it sure seems like we have been traversing back and forth across the country and enjoying almost every minute of it.

On December 15^th we set out with Dad Hille, Mom Hille, and little sis Jenna to breathe in the fresh air of the Orosi Valley and pickup up some national history along the way. We visited “las ruinas” (the ruins) and Our Lady of Angels Basilica in Cartago, as well as the ruins of the first church in Costa Rica in Ujarras. The end of the driving tour left us with miles of driving through sugar cane fields to get to our night destination, Turrialba. From Turrialba we enjoyed great views of Irazu and Turrialba Volcanoes.

The volcanoes were not what lured us to Turrialba, it was the world class white water rafting that did. On the morning of the 16^th we embarked upon a world-class challenge led by our friends at Tico River Adventures. Our destination was the town of Siquirres down on the Caribbean slope and the only thing between us were the breathtaking and gut dropping class III and IV rapids of the Pacuare River. The Pacuare River is ranked in the top five for the most beautiful rivers in the world. It lived up to its hype. It was about 5 hours of virgin rainforest. When we weren’t loving the scenery we were holding on for dear life and getting drenched by pleasantly warm rapids. It was awesome and a huge thrill.

After a few mishaps and “advice” from the locals we ended up staying in a small little community called Parismina down on the Caribbean ocean. We thought we were just going to stay at a hotel at the river port city of Cano Blanco, but when we got there they said the only place to stay was about 5 minutes down the river by boat. So, in complete darkness we cruised down this river only to be dropped off in a quaint little town with no cars and all of their streets were sand. Lodging, dinner, and even where we were was all a little bit unknown, but when we left the next morning to head back to Cano Blanco, Parismina had won us over.

We met up with the Evergreen Lodge in Cano Blanco and we boarded another boat that took us 1 ½ hours into Tortuguero National Park for 3 days and 2 nights of a sweet and raw jungle experience. Tortuguero is an area that most tourists don’t get to experience and it is fantastic. Our time at Evergreen Lodge, where our cabins were situated back in the tropical jungle, included three official tours on the boat and much more time just in transit as well. We spent a lot of time on the river with our guide Willis. We saw a ton of wildlife including hundreds of water birds, a Three-toed Sloth, Howler Monkeys, White-faced Capuchins, Spider Monkeys (which are the most endangered monkey species in Costa Rica due to habitat loss), an American Crocodile, and Speckled Caimans. The mosquitoes were plentiful and viscous as well. And at the end of the day we were serenaded to sleep by the sounds of a very active jungle.

Our time in Tortuguero was definitely a highlight but it had to end for a very good reason. We needed to get back into San Jose to pickup Jordan (big sis), Rusty, and the two little whipper snappers, Gracelyn and Gabriel. We had one more little adventure in the city before we picked up the rest of the Hille fam the next morning. The five of us caught a taxi out to Tibas and had dinner with my host family from when I was a student. It turned out to be a wonderful evening and very special for me to have two different worlds collide.

The 20^th brought new destinations and new life with the Roth foursome gracing Costa Rica with their presence. We picked them up and headed straight to Monteverde Cloud Forest Preserve. The roads were in hecka bad condition but the drive was “Sound of Music” worthy. The Monteverde cloud forest is one of the better-known cloud forests in the country, but it is very different from where we are at QERC. We had a good hike the next morning and after lunch set off for the second highlight of the expedition, Arenal Volcano. We enjoyed 2 nights at hotel Montana de Fuego and had an up close and personal view of the most picturesque volcano in Costa Rica. Arenal is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. We were treated to a beautiful showing of lava flowing on the volcano early in the morning of the 22^nd and the rest of the day we had spectacular views as we hiked in the national park.

On the 23^rd we returned to QERC to celebrate my mom’s birthday. It was good to be home and to share our home with the whole family. For my mom’s birthday we asked Liseth to fix a traditional Costa Rican meal along with the scrumptious Tres Leches cake. It was a surprise to my mom, and Liseth, Rigo, and Jeanette joined us for dinner.

Changes

Sarah: Well, for our last full day with our friends, we planned a trip to head to one of the highest peaks in Costa Rica, Cerro de la Muerte (Death Hill), and hike from that point all the way down to QERC. We spent the night before discussing possible animals we might see and were getting really excited for the hike. We got a ride up early morning to the top of the hill, but unfortunately, it was all cloudy up top. From that high point, we can possibly see both coasts on a clear day, but no such luck for us on Monday. Still, we began the trek down and it was fun to go through the different ecosystems. At the top is paramo, which was very tundra-like. Then we reached the elfin forest, which is a stunted forest with dwarfed trees. Finally, we reached the primary growth forest that had huge oak trees. By this point we arrived to the point where the trail connected up to a trail on our property. It was a beautiful hike; however, less than halfway through it started raining and never let up. So, we didn’t see any of the animals we were excited to see, and we ended up hiking the trail a lot faster than anticipated because of the pouring rain. As a result, we were all tired and sore the next day!

On Tuesday we got up early and packed up, and headed back toward the city. We made a short trip out of the way in hopes of seeing Irazu Volcano, but again it was very cloudy and once we got there we decided to turn around. At that point it was a sad time, as we had to take Stacie to the airport and say our goodbyes to her. It was really great for me to have a good friend here, and super fun to explore and travel with her—Stacie gets excited over EVERYTHING. :) After dropping her off, we had to say our goodbyes to Micah and Kevin and Paul. They are now off on their own traveling around the country in their own rented car. We also had a great time with them, and really it was just great for David and me to have familiar friends around to hang out with.

Tuesday afternoon we ran some errands around the city, and then our adventures continued because we went back to the airport to pick up David’s parents and younger sister Jenna. It was really great to see them and spend the evening together. Today we got up and walked around the city for a while, and eventually hit up the grocery store and made it back to QERC. It was a pretty low-key day, which was great for us all since we are all tired from traveling. It’s been a lot of fun to show family a bit of our life here and around our home in Costa Rica!

Fun in the sun

Sarah: To continue on…last Wednesday we left with our friends around midday to head south to the beach. On our way out we stopped to look at some quetzals, which are phenomenal birds. Absolutely gorgeous. We then traveled to a beach called Dominical, and arrived just as the sun was setting on the ocean. Micah has a friend who spent some time in Costa Rica, and she had a connection through a church in Dominical. We hooked up with the church and joined them for their time of worship that evening, enjoying both the Spanish and the English translations. Micah and Kevin and Paul decided to stay at the church to sleep, and David and Stacie and I opted for a super cheap hotel on the beach. We decided that we’d enjoy our time better if we had a bed to sleep in rather than on the hard tile floor of the church.

Thursday we got up and the 3 boys went surfing all morning, and Stacie and David and I headed into Hacienda Baru, a National Wildlife refuge, to do some hiking. We had a great time exploring the area, and some of the highlights were seeing a Tamandua (an anteater) sleeping in a tree, lots of basilisk lizards (commonly called the Jesus Christ lizard because they run across water), iguanas, lots of skinks, and David saw LOTS of birds. But the highlight of them all was when a 5-foot snake slithered across the trail and we got a good look at it. Stacie and I were convinced it was a pit viper, but David claims it wasn’t poisonous. Still, we got a big thrill out of seeing it so close! Thursday afternoon Stacie and David went out to try surfing with the other three boys. The water was so warm it almost wasn’t refreshing! Close to sunset we all drove back to the wildlife refuge to check out the anteater again and look for monkeys, but we missed the monkeys again.

Friday the boys got up to surf again, and we all took off late morning and headed south to Palmar Norte. There we showed up at Liseth’s in-laws again (remember when we went there a few months ago with Liseth and Rigo?). Vera was absolutely thrilled to have us all there and even had one of her daughters there to help make us a special lunch. Unfortunately, her idea of a special lunch wasn’t exactly what we would have requested to have—we ate liver!! Being the good guests that we were, we all choked it down and praised her for making such a great meal. We toured their farm again and it was great to be able to continue that relationship with them. On our way back up north we stopped at a beautiful beach—Ventanas. There was no one on the beach, and it was beautiful! There were a couple of caves that you could actually swim through, but Micah was the only one brave (or stupid) enough to try it and he came back scraped up and talking about a near-death experience. We made it to Manuel Antonio in time to find a super cheap hotel to stay in, and as we were checking out the hotel there was a group of about 30 squirrel monkeys hopping around on the roofs and trees all around us! Later that evening after we ate, we came across a 3-toed sloth crawling right above us from a telephone wire onto a tree. I’ve never seen a sloth so close, and it was great to see one active since they sleep for 20 hours a day!

Saturday we got up early and headed into the national park with dreams of seeing more animals and beautiful beaches. We weren’t disappointed! We hiked all over and swam in the warm ocean at one of the beautiful beaches inside the park, and saw lots of exciting things. The highlights were seeing howler monkeys, white-faced capuchins (monkeys) really really close to us, a raccoon stealing some food off a picnic table, lots of lizards, tons of hermit crabs, a group of about a dozen coatimundis crossing right in front of us, another active 3-toed sloth, and a few more agoutis. It was unbelievable! Right after lunch we decided that we’d already seen everything and hiked everywhere, so we headed back to QERC. We made it back here in time to make dinner (with a minor setback of having the power go out for about an hour) and get a good night sleep.

Today we woke up and went up to the church, where there was a mass and celebration of two young people having their first communion. One of those kids was Liseth's son Diego, who was looking very handsome all dresssed up. It was a fun service to go to, and Diego was both embarrassed and proud to have us there to support him. Following the service was lunch and Bingo, but we hadn't known about that in advance so we decided to head back home instead. We ate lunch and played a game of Carcassonne, and then Stacie and I headed off for the waterfall. It was a gorgeous walk, with clouds rolling in and out. The waterfall was still very powerful and flowing with lots of water. Tonight we had a big dinner and then sat around planning our adventure for tomorrow...

Week of Adventures

Sarah: Whew! What a week. I’ll try to summarize everything that’s happened in the past week, with the hopes that this doesn’t get TOO long. We started the week by traveling back into San Jose last Monday. We were able to visit the LASP office and even sit in on one of their guest speakers (a homosexual pastor, very interesting). That evening we went out to eat with Trevor and Laura, and more of the staff came along too—the intern Christina (who happens to be from Spokane), and Krystal. Trevor and Laura treated us all to a great Italian dinner and ice cream for dessert. We spent the night at Trevor and Laura’s—they live in a beautiful house on the edge of the city, and have 5 baby kittens to play with.

Tuesday we got up EARLY to leave for Nicaragua. After a long day of travel and meeting interesting people, we made it to the beach town of San Juan del Sur. For the next 2 days we spent chilling in the small town and hanging out on the beach. We met even more interesting people, and took a trip to a nearby beautiful beach known for good surfing. It was a major surf crowd, complete with the long hair. For us, it was great to be back in Nicaragua. Though it’s so close to Costa Rica, it’s a completely different country. In this particular small town, there were plenty of people living in poverty, and there were also tourists with lots of money, some who were already purchasing property to build big houses on. Friday morning we got up early to catch the Transnica bus back to Costa Rica. We even found some of the same people on our bus back, who had done the same thing by crossing into Nicaragua to renew their visas. We met people from all over—the couple from Israel, a couple from New Zealand, a couple from England, a guy from Quebec, lots of other Canadians, and a guy we named “old man crazy”. He was our most memorable travel buddy—from New Orleans, and very quirky.

Friday we got back after a long day of travel and headed back to Trevor and Laura’s to spend the night again. Saturday we got up and they had a big breakfast prepared, and Alex came to join us. Alex was a professor when we were students, and we hadn’t had a chance to catch up with him yet. He was one of our favorites—an Afro-Costa Rican who is one of the most suave guys ever. It was fun to reminisce about our semester, and to chat more with the staff from a staff prospective. We spent the rest of the day running errands in San Jose, waiting for our first guest to arrive. Stacie flew in late Saturday night, and it was so fun to see her! We went back to the sabbatical house and stayed up late talking and catching up. Sunday morning we got up to finish some Christmas shopping in the city, and then headed back out to the airport to pick up the rest of our guests.

Micah, Kevin, and a guy named Paul who is friends with the other two flew in midday on Sunday. We packed the Volvo completely full, squashed in, and set off to our first destination. We made it to La Selva, which is a biological research station on the Caribbean side, in time to take a hike before dinner. It was absolutely incredible there. The facilities are great, and the wildlife was unbelievable. After dinner we took another really fun hike in the dark—and being in the jungle at night was like being in the 100 Acre Woods with Winnie the Pooh, complete with all the jungle sounds. Monday we got to go on a guided hike with Max for 3 hours, which was really fun since we were all or are currently Naturalists to be in the reversed role. Monday it rained the entire time during our hike, but that made it even more adventurous. Overall, some of the highlights we saw were: blue jeans poison dart frogs, a 2-toed sloth, toucans, an agouti, iguanas that jump into the river, a white bat, a snake, leaf-cutter ants, lots of parrots, peccaries, and we heard howler monkeys off in the distance. The birders of the group were in paradise, since there are about 450 species of birds in that one area. Everyone loved being there and it was fun to experience it together.

We started to head back into San Jose after a good trip, and when we were about a half hour from the city, the Volvo all of a sudden quit working. It happened to be in a bad spot—right along the highway, and of course we didn’t have cell phone reception. A nice guy pulled over and David and I got a ride to the nearest restaurant, about 15 kilometers away, while the others stayed back with the car. We called Anthony, since it was his car, and he ended up driving out to pick us up and pull the Volvo back in. Unfortunately, we were planning on making it back to QERC that night, and we were delayed enough that we had to stay in San Jose for the night. The whole thing took hours, and we made it back to the sabbatical house late for a short night of sleep. Monday was a very long day!

Tuesday we got up early and headed back to QERC. We got here to find sunshine—we are now officially in the summer. After sleeping and being nice and lazy for a while, we took off for a hike late in the day. We made it to the top of the trail just as it was turning dark, and hiked down the trail in the dark. It was fun to do a night hike, and we even had a sparkle party (an activity from Mission Springs night hikes). It’s been good to have a home base and do laundry and catch up on sleep.

Today is Wednesday, and we are planning on taking off soon to spend a few days beach-hopping. We’ll keep you posted…