Travelling to Costa Rica -- Day 4

28 de Marzo
Playa Grande, Guanacaste, Costa Rica → Houston, Texas, USA→ San Diego, California, USA

Our plans came true today. Following the fiasco yesterday, we planned a trip to do everything else we wanted. The day commenced with the pastries we bought yesterday and eggs. At 7:00 AM, Alvaro was at our doorstep ready to take us on our exciting day. The car rides here, although they may be short in distance, consume a great deal of time since most roads are dirt or single-laned. Police checkpoints are also quite frequent, causing frequent traffic jams. These checkpoints are in place control tourism, the police would stop the tourist taxis most of the time and check if they have the correct paperwork.

The car ride to the waterfall was about an hour and a half, but it was definitely worth the drive we turned off of the freeway, a little past Liberia, and onto a dirt road. There was a fruit stand at the corner of the freeway and the dirt road, selling honey in addition to other goods, but we did not purchase anything. Along the road, we saw people dressed very fancy walking down the dusty road, I would assume they were on their way to church. At the end of the dirt road, we exited the car and headed down a steep cement path which fed into the river at the base of the waterfall. It is the end of the dry season, yet this waterfall still thrived. The cascading water was soothing. The pool the waterfall created cooled my body from the hot morning, and I soaked my knees. By the time we left an hour or so later, it was beginning to become crowded, and a perfect time to move on.

The drive to the ziplining was also long, around an hour. The destination was more tropical being further inland, but still very dry. Food is very slow here, but these tour guides did not mess around. We promptly were directed to the harness station and led along the rocky trail to the launching pad. The eight zip lines serpentined over the river a hundred and twenty feet below. Most of the lines were very fast and soared perfectly by flowering trees and cliffs after all ziplining was invented here. I would wait until the very last minute to pull down on the bottom cable with all of my strength to brake, to provide the maximum time speeding down the line. In some parts, the foliage was so close to the line that I scraped against the branches, even though I tucked myself in as tight as possible. All of the guides are so friendly, sometimes too much so. At the end of line four, the guide said to me, “¿Cómo te llamas?” to which I responded, “Charlie.” He laughed and I thought that I said something incorrect, but it was probably just the happiness of the culture.

The rock climbing that followed was very… interesting. Well, to be fair I climb frequently, so my opinion is very skewed. While I awaited my turn, I noticed water rushing through a pipe, and down the rock with holds screwed into it to allow easy climbing. The water, I would normally assume, would cause the route to be slippery, but here everything dries fast; the water is to cool the rock. After rappelling next to the climb, I was able to commence. As I climbed the bolted in holds, the guide at the top constantly tugged on the rope securing me, but ironically this tugging caused the climbing to be harder since it forced me to rush, and the rope would drag me slightly while reaching for a hold.

At the end of the short climb, I was greeted with a buffet line. The meal consisted of Costa Rican basics such as rice, beans, shredded beef, sweet plantains, and salad. However, there was an addition I had yet to see: soup. Since the weather is hot, a food like this is not common, but the pumpkin tasting soup was a nice addition.

After we were all done eating our meal and a short drive later, we were ready to inner-tube down the river through the Canon de la Vieja, which also happens to be the name of the excursion center. The water level was incredibly low, causing the rocks to be protrusive. At first, I was relaxing in the tube, but I kept hitting my tailbone on rocks, so I had to have my body lifted off for the duration of the ride. Due to the low water depth, the current was also weak and we would constantly have to flip over and paddle our inner-tube with our hands. The two guides with us, would also help us through the still water by pushing us, and direct us through the brutal rapids. The course was laid out with rocks to prevent us from floating ashore, and the space between rapids and casual water was perfect. A couple of the rapids were particularly rough, and the guides had to assist us over miniature waterfalls, one of them was so violent that almost everybody was knocked out of their tube. The ride was surprisingly long, lasting more than an hour. At one section of the ride, we passed by a group of local teenagers swinging over the river and jumping off of the cliff, with a ladder to scale the steep sides.

Once we exited the river, we drove to the mud bath area. A worker painted us in volcanic mud with sulfur in it, which smelled pretty bad, but felt very soothing. After the mud was dry, which took around fifteen minutes of hopping around on the hot ground, I jumped into the river to wash it all off. To complete the experience, there was a grouping of hot tubs, each descending in temperature for a deeper cleanse.

By this point, I along with everybody else was ready to return to the house. The drive lasted about a sleepy hour and a half, and I saw a monkey for the first, and only, time of the trip. It swung through the trees in the distance as we drove along the twisting mountain road.

It is Zoe’s birthday today, so we traveled to her favorite spot to eat in the secluded Palm Beach Estates area. Here, there are four restaurants easily accessible, El Mar Azul, La Catalana, and Los Malinches-- where we ate tonight. The special today was barbeque, so everything on the menu was some sort of skewer or meat/fish plate, pizza was also available. I ordered the “Pinchos Mahi-Mahi” which are the skewers with a side of fried yucca, which is very popular here and also known as cassava, and some salad. As we waited for the food to arrive, we attempted to play foosball, but to no avail; there was no ball.

Wow, today was long. A perfect final day in the beautiful city of Playa Grande, and in the country of Costa Rica. The trip seemed to pass so quickly, but at the same time, we were able to do so much. I would return here in a heartbeat, but maybe visit other parts of the country for the full experience. Well, it is time to sleep, good night.