In the sun and clouds of Costa Rica

Playa Conchal

The side gear

Our stay at Steve and Jocelyn, originally planned to last for two days finally grew to six. Steve was able to locate an additional problem in the transmission, and we had to take it down and replace a part that broke in the accident. He spent a lot of time driving me back and forth to Liberia for frequent visits to the Toyota dealership, and I hope one day I will be able to help him as much as he helped me.

An iguana takes the sun along the swimming pool

Meanwhile, Jocelyn was cooking us delicious food that gave us a break from Central America meals.

Conchal beach

On Sunday we stopped at Playa Conchal before saying goodbye. After a few hours brake, we took the road to the highlands, in direction of the Arenal volcano. Quickly, as we were going up, we realized the weather on the other side of the mountain was really bad.

The Arenal Lagoon

What a contrast with the hot and windy weather we had previously. As we entered the rain forest it was – guess what – raining really hard. The visibility was low as well. To admire the Laguna Arenal, it was not a problem as the fog was adding to the dramatic splendor of the lake and the jungle. But we had to forget about seeing the active volcano.

Through the jungle

We could not even see the base of it, in fact. Sad story, but I shall survive, since I already saw the monster in action a few years back.

At the end of the day, we passed the town of La Fortuna, and as the night was falling, we reached our destination.

One of the three tree houses

Inside the house

Lucy and Mark invited us few days back to spend a night on the ground of their unusual hotel. Mark, another refugee from journalism, used to be a sports writer in a newspaper in Hawaii. He is now on a sabbatical leave with his wife, and together, they manage the tree house hotel. Guests rent a cabana built on trees and can enjoy fully the rain forest.

The rain forest

We had diner with the couple, and decided to go explore the vast forest behind the hotel the following day. I stayed few more hours with Mark drinking a bottle of red wine, and watching the rainfall. It continued all night and we got somewhat wet, which is not really a big deal, since last time we saw heavy rain was back in the U.S.

Hummingbirds

We woke up at 5:30 a.m. to go for a two-hours walk in the forest. There we got drenched. The rain hadn’t stop all night, and it looked like it will not stop for the next 200 years.

Lemon tree

We found a lot of orange, banana and lemon trees in the jungle, as well as a lot of other fruits I could not identify. There was a cascade down the road, as well as a river, which brown water was flowing intensely.

Our camp site

Back on our campsite, I folded back the tent and we had breakfast with our hosts.

We are now back on the road driving south, toward the Pacific Ocean. Two more days in Costa Rica, and we will – hopefully – be in Panama.

View from a tree house

Lines long like a day without bread

Driving through the Costa Rica border

After few days at the beach, we eventually made it to Costa Rica. We left in the morning of Jan. 2nd, and it took us two hours to reach the border between Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Here, our worst border crossing was awaiting us. It took us more than five hours to go through.

The first line, Nicaragua side

Two hours to exit Nicaragua and do the exit papers for the vehicles (US$ 4 for everything), and three-and-an-half hour to do immigration and vehicle paperwork on the Costa Rica side.

This really was our worst border crossing. Before the trip, I read a lot about difficult crossing, and hours of waiting time. Because we only used very little crossing until now, it never took us more than an hour-and-an-half to do this necessary step for each country. The trouble here was a massive reflux of visitors coming back home after the holidays.
This time, it was more difficult. We reached on the Costa Rica side around 2 p.m., and the sun was high and strong. Lines were outside, and there was no shade. Multiple photocopies of everything were – as always – needed. We met a family of French people who are doing the trip Canada-Chile by road (blog here, in French). Like us, they will have to go around the Darien Gap, and we may meet later on in Panama.

Second line, Costa Rica immigration

Less than US$20 later, and as once again the sun was about to disappear, we were back on the road. I was now driving toward Tamarindo, on the Pacific side, where we were scheduled to meet with Steve and Jocelyn.
Steve invited us few days back, when he eared about our mechanical problems. Back in 2000, they did the trip with a land Cruiser between California and Costa Rica, where they finally decided to start a new life. You can check out their website here.
We arrived in town around 9 p.m., and quickly found the house, where we would be able to take advantage of luxuries we didn’t see in a while, including hot showers (last seen in Mexico) and a swimming pool (last seen while squatting the Best Western in Managua)

On our way to the beach with Steve and Jocelyn

In any case since we arrived Steve provided us great help with the car, and diagnosed some transmission problems that should be corrected before the end of the week. I cleaned up a little bit our truck, had some good food and nice nights of sleep.
The plan after that will be to go to the Arenal Volcano, come back on the Pacific side, and go south to Panama, where we should be next week.

Tamarindo Beach