Costa Rica: Monteverde

And this is where I ran out of cash. My plan for getting more had involved setting up my Discover credit card with a PIN to use at ATM's. There was a 3% fee, but I figured it would be worth it if I needed it. Unfortunately, due to vastly underestimating the cost of Costa Rica, I had to attempt this well before even a third of the trip had commenced. That's when I discovered (pun intended) that none of the ATM's or banks in the entire country would take discover card (though some banks oddly could still process it when used at a restaurant). And it all happened in Monteverde, where there is no Western Union or MoneyGram, but that is something I would later find out.

 

First, I decided on the $20 shuttle/boat ride/4wd jeep through rough and rocky terrain from La Fortuna to Monteverde instead of taking multiple buses around the lake in a trip twice as long.

It was well worth it for the time savings as well as the beautiful boat ride on the lake. Whoever lives here has one heck of a view in a pretty awesome remote location.

White faced (Capuchin) monkeys showed up a couple times a day at the Monteverde Hostel Lodge which had a nice location in the cloud forest.

This one grabbed a piece of banana off me head!

We took a tour through the cloud forest, and our excellent tour guide, Sergio, found lots of cool little critters like this cartoon-like caterpillar.

Hike up far enough and you can even see the Pacific Ocean in the distance.

These transparent winged butterflies were quite common.

That night we wanted to stay up and drink a bit, so the Monteverde Hostel Lodge threw us a bonfire in the parking lot! Incredible staff at an incredible hostel! Some of the group you see here were also some of the best people I've met on my travels.

The previous day we had been taken to a giant strangler fig that could be climbed from the inside. We had so much fun, we returned to do it again the next day and this beauty of a dog randomly showed up to hang out and watch us!

Hanging out in our climbing tree!

On the way up.

About 100ft high here. The top was about another 50ft or so and had one amazing view!

The Arenal Volcano could even be seen in the distance from here!

So after running out of cash, and spending an entire day finding I could not get access to the extra cash I had sent down from the states until I got to another town, every single one of the new group of people I had just met (from the bonfire photo) offered to give me some extra cash to ensure I could get to the next town safely and even bought my dinner when we went to a place that did not take credit cards. It's times like these where you are in need, that you can really find the best in people. Even the staff at the Monteverde Hostel Lodge found a way to work with me when their credit card machine was not working, instead of denying my stay. From a very worrisome experience came one that I will never forget.

Costa Rica: La Fortuna

At less than $5 for a bus ride to the town of La Fortuna and the Arenal Volcano, I was still hopeful this trip could be done relatively cheap. Particularly when I found the small sodas to have excellent food at decent prices ($4-$6/casado plate)

 

The Arenal Volcano was quite the site, towering over the town.

And once again, the local park was magnificent.

As it turns out, transportation to everything from the town was quite expensive. So I rented a bike for a half day for $10 and rode an awesomely steep, but short road to this waterfall.

You can even get in the waterfall here. While somewhat dangerous with the powerful, choppy water and sharp rocks, very few passed up the chance for a dip in the very hot and humid weather. Being able to get in made it worthwhile even for those who have seen a lot of big waterfalls but haven't had the chance to attempt swimming up to one.

Here is a reminder not to attempt any jumps on a rented mountain bike that doesn't have pedals to clip your feet in.

This house had a refrigerator with fresh coconuts that could be purchased for $1. A literal oasis in the heat and humidity as I'd ran out of water on the trip there.

For $14/night, the Arenal Hostel Resort was well worth the price.

My favorite spot turned out to be this free watering hole. That big rock in the center was a great spot for a backflip into one of the two waterfalls on either side.

It also had this rope swing.

Which made for loads of fun!

Such a beautiful spot!

And the best part is it was all free and within walking distance to town!

Because of high transportation costs (typically $25 each way) to the national park, I again rented a mountain bike to ride to it. At $25/day it wasn't cheap, but it was cheaper. And I ran across this anteater on my way.

After an hour and a half of cycling and another steep $10 entrance fee, I was hiking up towards the volcano.

Though the sign said it was risky, it really wasn't.

The trail was beautifully groomed. One could go barefoot here.

Though the amount of trails was extremely disappointing, as it turned out to be only one 7km loop, there at least was this rough but marked path through the jungle that was not on the map.

At the end of the trail was a beautiful view of the adjacent Arenal Lake.

Unfortunately the trail did end and hiking up to the volcano like I had planned was not allowed.

Despite the major disappointment, the trail was quite a beautiful one and the bike ride to and from added to the experience.

 

Overall, La Fortuna was definitely a tourist town and the prices at a lot of places reflected it. Instead of being an adventurer's location, with lots of different places to explore, it was more of a tourist's location, with most available adventure packaged in one tour or another. With many incredible resorts and hot springs nearby, it was perfect for the average first world vacationer with lots of money to burn and looking for some neat outdoors activities. For a backpacker on a budget looking for cheap adventure and some extreme locations to explore, it had, well... very good food!

Costa Rica: San Jose

Getting around in Costa Rica can be quite confusing. Buses are very cheap, however taxis are not. Also, many of the taxi drivers are not so scrupulous. On arrival in Costa Rica I had an airport transfer scheduled. It went well at first as I found the guy with my name printed on a sign, however, when he left me to go get the vehicle, another taxi driver showed up and whistled at me. Being new to the city and dazed from travelling all day, I did not recognize that it was a different guy that had pulled up. He, of course, tried to take me to a different location than my booked hostel. After arriving at the correct hostel, I finally realized it was not the same guy and ended up having to pay the outrageous $30 fee the local taxi drivers are charging for airport transfer as well as the $16 for the transfer I had already booked. Turns out, if I had just taken any bus it would have taken me straight to downtown for about a dollar and from there I could have either walked 15 minutes or taken a taxi for a few dollars. And that is how the bus system works: all buses go to downtown San Jose. This makes it very easy to get back if you're hostel is in that area, however, not so easy to figure out how to get out. 

 

The next day, walking around San Jose, I discovered that, despite the thorough dilapidation of every building, the parks were very nice and extremely well kept.

The downtown city center area wasn't quite as dilapidated as everything around it, but extremely busy. Considering almost every bus in the entire country goes here, it's not surprising.

A stereotype of Latin American women is that they generally have larger butts, and the mannequins in this store seem to prove it.

Here was a cool view of a park from a local museum.

The parks were definitely the highlight of San Jose. This was the very large Sabanas Park just west of downtown and was a great area for outdoor activities in the city. This running path winds around the entire park and can be close to a couple miles or longer depending on the route you take.

It even included a beautiful lake.

Scenic picnic areas inside of the trees.

Some dinosaur bones!

And a track which would be packed with runners in the early morning! On the inside is also a skating circle for competitive speed skating.

While traveling through La Fortuna later, I had found that Costa Rica was also known for it's dental tourism. Dentistry work could be done for a fifth to a third of the cost of the States. I looked into it further and settled on Nova Dental in San Jose (novadentalcr.com) as they had all the right international accreditations.

 

It turned out to be a highlight of my trip. I had used a coupon a year ago in Oklahoma to get a teeth cleaning and X-rays for $50 and afterwards I was told I had 3 cavities in between my teeth that would cost $250 each for a $750 total. I tried to bargain. At least take a little bit off that astronomical price. But they wouldn't. And apparently no one in the industry does. Well that price was way too steep, particularly considering the X-rays they showed me were not very clear and did not look very convincing (though I had no idea what I was looking at). I decided to hold off. Which was a very good decision.

 

When I arrived at the dentist office for my appointment, I was shocked at how nice and clean it was. It was just as fancy as the nicer dentist offices I had seen in the States. I told them about how I wanted to get those three cavities fixed that had earlier been identified. Well they couldn't find them. So the doctor himself came in and took several different X-rays all from different angles. And still they were not there. Then he showed me the extremely high quality images and there wasn't a bit of dark spots anywhere. These weren't blurry like the ones I had been shown in the States, these were very clear and easy to see. So either my teeth had magically healed themselves from my decision to start flossing more often or the dentist in the States was looking for money to destroy pieces of my teeth.

 

Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I did have two smaller cavities in my teeth as well as a filling that could use fixing. These were easily visible and since they were small they were at the bottom of the quoted price ($50-$90/filling). The doctor stayed with me the entire time and immediately went to work which made the visit extremely short. The total cost was $50/filling and $50/cleaning which came to $150 for a cleaning and two fillings. Overall, it was a great experience to get my teeth fixed so quickly and for such a good price!

So what I found that San Jose had to offer was cheap food, a good wooden crafts market, great dentistry, and beautiful parks with near perfect weather to match (days were typically high 70's with nights in the 60's).

Cali Coast Road Trip Part 4: San Francisco to Salt Lake City

After drinking a bit too much the previous night with newfound friends, I found walking (hiking) around San Francisco to be quite the chore. Even this tunnel was on a grade. Interestingly, there was another road on top of this tunnel!

I decided to stop in Chinatown for lunch on my way through. Not bad.

Had a great view of the Golden Gate Bridge from this high point.

Alcatraz sits behind the American Flag here. 'Merica!

Some day I'll have to try swimming from there. The Escape from Alcatraz triathlon is on my list.

An old battleship still sits in the bay here by the Fisherman's Wharf. With all the delicious seafood around this area, I will make certain to eat here next time and skip out on a Chinatown lunch.

 

Leaving San Francisco took quite awhile. In fact, I got so frustrated with sitting in traffic, I stopped in the town of Davis to eat and run (literally, a 4 mile run). I was impressed. While not as many bike lanes and multi-use paths as the larger city of Boulder, I have never seen more people on bikes. It didn't matter that there wasn't a bike lane in some areas, as I saw a whole entire road with hundreds of bikes passing by and maybe 3 cars over a half hour span. I am quite certain more people ride bikes here than cars. It was quite the town.

 

Once I finally arrived at my buddies in Meadow Vista, who originally pulled me down the coast two years ago, I was sick of driving for a bit. Luckily, the trail race we planned on was right down the road. Called the Switchback Challenge, it involved three big climbs over 6.5 miles of tough trail. While I couldn't keep up with the leaders up any of the hills, I definitely made up time with some good, recklessly fast downhill running. By this point, fitness had come back some from the last two weeks of intense running, cycling, and hiking, and I was able to nail a sub hour finish by 6 minutes to not only nab an age group prize but also score a large, liter beer mug that included free beer and food at the town's Octoberfest later that night (given out to everyone under an hour). And another bonus: got to meet Gordy Ainsleigh, the founder of modern ultrarunning in the US, who lives and trains in the area, before the race start. Definitely one of my favorite running races to date.

Found this gorgeous spot on the rocks in Sand Harbor to watch the sunset over Lake Tahoe. By this point, I was mostly worn out and after a failed attempt to swim in the crystal clear lake due to extreme cold (even with a  wetsuit, I had a splitting headache after a minute), I decided to spend these last couple of days resting up and enjoying the scenery.

While I stayed in Kings Beach on the California side, this beautiful spot was in Sand Harbor on the Nevada side.

 

On my way back to Colorado, I stayed overnight in Nevada, where I ate an enormous 5 course meal with a large filet mignon and bottle of wine for less than $30 (or rather attempted to eat) at an old hotel in the town of Winnemucca. The next day was a beautiful run in Salt Lake City around Sugar House Park.

 

Which would be a nice place to play a ballgame!

 

Always amazed at how beautiful Utah is. Here you can see the moon positioned between the mountains at sunset as I leave the SLC area.

And of course the drive back thru Colorado is always nothing short of spectacular. Can't wait to do this trip again for some hiking in the Sierra Nevadas!