Road Trip...

3 days off.

What else would Byron and I do other than our favourite past time....ROAD TRIP!

The plan - seriously, why do we bother! - was to head to Muelle, stay one night, in order to go hot air ballooning, then move on to Arenal volcano for some hiking. Then a scenic drive around the lake before exploring the Monteverde cloud forest....

So of course, after setting an alarm for 5am and throwing on clothes - only to find that it's not all that warm inland and elevated - to make it to the meeting point for 5.45am, the weather was miserable. Drizzle! Like being back in England.

And so began day one...

But the guy who was running it was really sound and gave us lots of tips on what to do for the day - even though we were miles from anywhere.

We ended up driving north almost to the Nicaraguan border, to the Tenorio volcano national park. This is where we saw possibly the biggest tree ever (see picture) and, after over an hour of hiking through the rainforest in a torrential downpour, the Rio Celeste waterfall. It was meant to be this sweet little waterfall that fell into a teal blue lagoon - seriously, we saw pictures - ......but of course, due the downpour, it became this torrential monster pummelling down the rock face into a churning sea of dark frothing water and then practically formed river rapids!!

Interesting hiking experience. With each step, the mud was squelching over the top of our hiking boots. Downhill - almost like a slip'n'slide. Fun!

Saw plenty of Pineapple fields though. Strange. I'd never pictured them growing like crops with these huge bushy heads before.

The 2 hour drive back was a bit...damp.

But we spent the evening at the Eco-termales hot springs - beautiful place. Unbelievably hot water!

They start with 'cooler' pools at the bottom (think like a hot bath) and then move up to seriously steamy pools at the top (think....being poached alive!).

Was hard to enjoy a good G&T whilst slowly becoming a bit pink. But all in all, a very relaxing experience.

Day two....

I know what you're thinking. Today's the day!

But no... Once again, 5am alarm, sunscreen (at 5am. It's still dark and I'm slathering on SPF 50!), scrabble for clothes and it's back to the field to meet Estefan.

This time it was foggy as anything, we couldn't even see 100 metres ahead of us as we drove to the meeting point.

Foggy. So here I was in Central America and so far the weather for our road trip had consisted of drizzle and fog. And people ask me if I get homesick...?!


But Estefan took us back to his humble abode. This huuuge ranch on the hillside with stables, outhouses, landscaping and his house, built around a courtyard with 360 degree views from all the floor-to-ceiling glass windows. His wife cooked us a typical Costa Rican brekkie and we sat around wondering a) if the fog would clear or not....and b) why the hell we didn't accept his offer to stay in one of the stable rooms....

It was only now we found out that it had a jacuzzi and air con. Heaven!

Instead we had stayed in La Mosquito Suite (could be it's real name, I'm not sure) and were now bitten from head to toe. (No air con, cockroaches running amok, broken shower, no lock on the door and windows that couldn't close, but that had no mosquito nets. Just these pretty lace curtains....with huge holes!) who says Byron doesn't take me anywhere nice...

In the end we decided to drive up to Arenal volcano and go hiking...

Apart from early morning the volcano was always covered with clouds. We heard rocks come hurtling down the slopes of the volcano, you could see them smacking the ground and bouncing back in the air, and wherever they touched the side of the volcano they scorched it, leaving big black marks.

The hiking was really pretty. Easy this time, not like the squelch-fest of the rainforest!

We hiked down to one of the waterfalls and over hanging bridges - terrfiying - before going on a bird hunt. The pictures show the humming bird that was right near us and one of the yellow macaws that flew past whilst we were watching the volcano.

We made our way, at 10kmh, back down the "road". I use the word loosely due to it barely being a few pebbles strewn across the top of the biggest potholes I have ever seen!

If you don't have a 4x4 over here you're screwed - well, your car suspension is anyways.

The afternoon we decided could be spent horseriding somewhere on the far side of Lake Arenal. With a side trip to a butterfly conservatory and botanical gardens....

Ah, if only it was that simple.

We managed to make it round the lake just before dark, in time to see the clouds open and get a good soaking and find out that there are no rides on a Sunday. Bugger!

And as for the mysterious botanical gardens that we spent an hour searching for (there were 2 signs pointing in opposite directions saying 200m, we travelled easily more than a mile in each direction. nothing.) even up this steep, mountainside dirt road where we eventually got stuck.

Then on the wy back down Byron managed to drive the 4x4 headfirst into a rather steep ditch. BANG!

We couldn't go forward - because lets face it, a 4x4 might be strong, but you can't shift solid earth! - and to begin with, we couldn't reverse either, the tyres were just spinning.

Besides, after ramming the front of the car into the rock and christening the car with a nice big chip, we didn't want to cause any more damage...

But whilst Byron hopped around and mused about our predicament I found a trail of red ants carrying pieces of leaves back to their nest! (Just like those in the museum eh Linz?!)

Although you have to be careful, not all the ants are on a leaf mission. Some of them have the mission to keep the line safe. They send out these huge bad-ass ants, with nasty pinchers to attack anything considered a danger....i.e Me! Figured that one out quickly.

Day three.....

And this was it!

I didn't even want to get out of bed in for the 5am alarm, after the miserable weather we drove home in last night. But I was glad that I did. Even in the morning dark you could see that the sky was clear.

We packed up all our things - and our fresh mosquito bites! - and headed for the meeting point.

Estefan was there and took us straight to the field where his guys were helping him set up the balloon.

...and WE WERE OFF!!

The mist was just rising up through the trees and the sun was about to come up.

First thing we saw were these "chicken Iguanas" - so called because they hide up at the top of the trees.

It was amazing how much control he had over the balloon, and how he could take us in any direction we wanted.
(There are different altitudes on the way up and each one has a different air flow, usually in different directions apparently. So we just rose or fell in order to catch the right breeze. Amazing!)

Estefan took us over to the primary forest and dropped the balloon to the point where we were brushing the tops of the trees!

We even dropped into a few clearings - followed by a few sharp rises to avoid oncoming trees...!

There were monkeys jumping through the trees, green parrots flying in group, macaws, toucans and all kinds of life in the forest.

It was beautiful.

This was us trying not to squint in the sun for the picture. (I forgot to pack the sunnies. I did pack the sunglass cases though....but the sunnies were in the glove compartment. Great work)

These are the Pineapple fields. Rows and rows of them.Arenal Volcano. We couldn't go any closer to the volcano for safety reasons and air flows.

We spent about 90mins in the air and then was the descent...in someones back garden!

There were people shouting up to us with the promise of brekkie if we landed in their field, children running after the shadow of the balloon and cows looking very bewildered and unsure of this random thing dropping from the sky.

Interesting landing though.

The basket drops with a bump, everyone braces against the basket - all limbs inside!! - and then when the balloon drops it still has wind and so the basket and its passengers gets dragged, side-on, thorugh the field at quite a speed. Tearing through furrows and throwing up soil everywhere!

Awesome experience!!

But back to Los Suenos we went, turning what should have been a 3 hour drive into a 9 hour epic. What with an earthquake 2 weeks prior causing landslides and taking out towns - and with it our road! Coming to a motorway junction without a single sign telling you which was the way to the west coast and which was east. Helpful. So of course we took the wrong direction and ended up 20km outside of San Jose before we could turn around (even then it required us to drive the wrong way down a one way sliproad, dodging bikers and trucks as we went!).

So that was fun....