Costa Rica Day 4: A New Year's Tour Through the Jungle

Perhaps since it was also a Sunday (travel day), but New Year's Day was as crowded as we ever saw it at the Arenal Kioro, both at breakfast and at lunch.  As I had mentioned before, Costa Rica Vacations took great care of us, and all of our breakfasts at each of the hotels were included in our package.

Partially because we weren't sure to expect on our first trip to Costa Rica, we left a day or two open at each location to just soak in the beautiful country and let the mood of the trip take us where we wanted to go.  On New Year's Day, that mood took us to the Arenal Hanging Bridges.

Our English speaking guide, Diego, picked us and two others up at the hotel and we were shuttled past Lake Arenal and onto the Hanging Bridges property north of the lake. I thought that we might pick up a few others on our way that would join our tour, but as it turned out, it was just the four of us.  Diego was extremely knowledgeable about the various plants and animals that we came across under the rain forest canopy, and some of the views that we got from the top of the canyon that we were on were amazing.  We even got to see howler monkeys, and a Blue Macaw on our way out was making its presence known on a telephone pole in the parking lot.  Of course there were waterfalls, snakes, spiders, wild pigs, leaf-cutter ants, lizards, and all kinds of trees and plants, as well.


      

     

        

And after all of that, due to the two hour time difference, we got back in time to watch the Rose Bowl.  Bonus. In addition to having ESPN, there were some US stations broadcast at our hotels, with Spanish subtitles and commercials.  It was amazing how helpful it was in kick-starting my own Spanish to have those subtitles!

Costa Rica Day 3: Zip Lining on NYE

New Year's eve stated early with a trip to the Arenal Park Ecoglide zip-lining playground, complete with Tarzan swing, and complimentary Imperial (or beverage of choice) when you're done.  Other than almost taking one of the Ticos off the Tarzan Swing ledge, it went without incident and was completely exhilarating.  It did rain on us through a few of the cables, but that's how it goes when you're in the jungle!  Our lead guide, Enrique, was great with the whole group and it was hilarious to hear a Tico humming to some LMFAO!


         

         


We grabbed lunch by the pool back at the Kioro, and noticed that though the hotel was full, it always seemed empty and secluded.  There was probably one other table while we got lunch, leaving us feeling like we had a VIP rain forest experience that was just for us!

We took a cab over to La Fortuna-- about a $15 (7500 colones) ride from the hotel.  We strolled the downtown area, through the central park and checked out the tiendas, hit up the grocery store to buy our Cacique, and had dinner at the Lava Lounge. It was here that we noticed that every storefront and restaurant seemed to be open-air, which we found to be nice and refreshing.  The rain comes down pretty straight and for only a few minutes, so it wasn't as though the storefronts were in danger of getting wet as well.

Our hotel threw a New Year's Eve Party, complete with DJ, laser show, fireworks, and traditional New Year's grapes at midnight.  They definitely knew how to make a memorable fiesta!


                            
                               

                                           

Costa Rica Day 2: Traveling to Arenal Kioro in La Fortuna

Day 2 of our trip began with our included breakfast at the Real Intercontinental, a quick walk around the grounds to take in the views, and then we were off to La Fortuna.

As I mentioned previously, Costa Rica Vacations and our rep there, Marco Madrigal, took excellent care of us.  Our driver, Hjalmar, arrived a good 10 minutes early and was helping to transfer our bags as we came out of breakfast.  We hopped right in our private "microbus" as they describe it, and Hjalmar had some water and snacks for us during the 3 1/2 hour transfer.  Of course we did make a stop along the way, ironically enough, in a little town called Los Angeles!  We also passed the Cacique plant along the way.  Cacique is Costa Rica's national liquor, made from distilled sugar cane.  We had to get a bottle during our trip, of course, and found that Cacique and OJ is just fantastic!

                           

Hjalmar also had various maps and guides for us to check out during the ride, and was quick to point out many of the different indigenous plants and animals we encountered along the road on our trip, including Teak, pineapple, palm, coffee, mango, sugarcane, and papaya plantations, and even an iguana on the side of the road.  He also gave us many recommendations on things to do and see while in the La Fortuna area.  We had already planned a zip-lining activity, but had another 2 days open, so it was great to get some ideas from someone who knew the area well.

When we arrived at the Arenal Kioro, our hotel for the next 3 nights, we were greeted with a welcome cerveza Imperial, and a concierge welcome.  We took a tour of the grounds  before heading to our room, and were taken aback at the botanical garden, stunning views of the volcano and the rain forest, the hot springs, and the overcoming tranquility of the place.





   
      











                         











So after getting settled in our room complete with insane view and hot tub, we sprang for the hot springs, and even saw an Aguti on the way back to our hotel room.  That night there was a power outage at the hotel while we were at the pool bar, and it was eerie how dark it was out in the jungle with no electricity, even for just 15 seconds!

Long Overdue: Visiting Costa Rica

My apologies; these next entries are a bit overdue, but we took the time to just enjoy our trip, and now have finally caught back up with everything and now I finally have the time to post.

Beginning from our entry at SJO airport:  We had booked our trip through Costa Rica Vacations, so we had the advantage of having someone meet us to take us to our bags, through customs, and onto our first private transfer to our hotel in Escazu; to the South of the airport and West of downtown San Jose.  And I should also mention, our greeter at the airport was the first person we saw when coming through the tunnel, and helped us fly through customs before a line could even form; it was great!

Our hotel was the Real Intercontinental, and was across the road from the Multizplaza Escazu, a large and modern shopping mall, which rivaled any of the nicest Westfield locations in the states.


We made buddies with the bartender at the hotel, who was watching an interesting mash-up of bullfighting and a rodeo on television.  We asked him about it, and he said it was the Toros games that happened for two weeks out of the year.  It just so happened that we were there during the games and got to see people get tossed around by bulls every night; it was pretty damn entertaining.  Check out the video below to get an idea of this crazy Tico tradition.  They also had the biggest bottle of Blue Label we'd ever seen...