Friday, December 08, 2006

La Fortuna, bus travel and bad weather

Over the last two days, I was constantly reminded of how time can be ephermal one minute and excruciatingly long the next. Take for instance, the unpredictability of the weather in Monteverde-Santa Elena or the fickleness of the Arenal Volcano. In both of these places, the chances to see a bit of sunlight, in the case of MV-SE, or a glimpse of the top of the Arenal Volcano in the distance can be merely minutes if not seconds. Although it is supposed to be the start of the dry season, both of these areas have been experiencing pounding rain, driving wind, and ominous cloud cover almost the entire time I was in both areas. Unfortunately, the side effect of this is that traveling by bus in Costa Rica is a long, monotonous, and sometimes bone-crushing ordeal on pot-holed gravel roads.


But sometimes this inconvenience of slow or even delayed bus rides can have memorable moments. After a short morning hike in the Monteverde Rainforest Private Reserve, about a 25min ride from the town of Santa Elena where I was staying, I rushed back to make the 2pm ¨Jeep-Boat-Jeep¨ trek to La Fortuna. The ride turned out to be an eerily surreal experience of riding through a fog-covered countryside of Costa Rica filled with pot-holes and cows crossing the road. At one point, my driver had to stopped in the middle of the road because a road repair crew with picks and shovels were repairing the road ahead, all barely visible in the thick fog and pelting mist. There were a few times I was worried the van (not a Jeep as advertised) would get stuck in the mud... but somehow, the little van made it through.

So, I ended up spending half my day traveling to La Fortuna on Wednesday. Although I was hoping that the weather in La Fortuna would be better than Monteverde, it was not. It rained heavily Wednesday night. Although it was a bit drier early Thursday morning when I set out to hike to La Catarata La Fortuna, or the La Fortuna Waterfall, it started raining towards the end of my hike toward the top of the waterfall. Fortunately, after I arrived at the top and started the descent to the bottom of the waterfall, the rain passed and I got a good half hour of beautiful weather. After the hike, I rushed back to the hostel to meet up with the others on an evening Arenal Volcano and Hot Springs tour.





The Arenal Volcano hike was alright - we spotted a squirrel monkey, a white-faced monkey, leaf-cutter ants, a sloth, and a huge turkey-like bird in the forest. The hike was through a private trail that led near to the side of Arenal Volcano. Had we been lucky, we would have seen some active lava spewing out of the volcano but unfortunately, volcano top was shrouded in very thick clouds. We couldn´t see anything both on the hike and 3 hrs later, after our hot springs visit.
I ended up spending all day Friday making my way to Alajeula, near Heredia and San Jose. After a 3 hr bus ride to San Ramon, I got a bit confused and had trouble finding my way to Alajeula. At first, I had hoped to just travel straight to Sarchi, a town between San Ramon and Alajeula, known as the center of Costa Rican handicrafts and furniture making. Unfortunately, I somehow goofed up and couldn´t get the bus for Sarchi... so, I ultimately decided to go to Alajeula. Tomorrow, I´ll make a morning trip to Sarchi (only 30mins away from the Alajeula bus station... that is if I don´t screw it up again) and then return to Heredia in the late afternoon.



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