El Trapiche

Sunday morning, we were heading to Monteverde. We had breakfast at the Rain Forest Café again and asked them to make a “teddy bear” in the café con leche. I don’t know if the foam made a difference, but it seemed to taste better!

Sandy couldn’t find Bert again this morning, though. After breakfast, we checked out of the hotel and got picked up to head to Lake Arenal. At the dam, near where we had paddleboarded the day before, we boarded a boat to cruise across the lake. It was very cloudy again, so we couldn’t see the volcano, but the cruise across the lake was very scenic.

At the other side of the lake near where Río Chiquito flows into the lake, we boarded another bus and began driving along the gravel roads towards Monteverde.

Although the roads were bumpy and steep in places, they really weren’t too different from the gravel forest roads in the mountains that we drive back home. The drive was quite scenic as shortly after leaving the Lake Arenal area, the clouds cleared and we began to have nice views. Shortly before reaching Monteverde, we made a stop at El Trapiche plantation. We were taking a tour of this plantation that grows sugar cane, cacao, and coffee. There were many beautiful flowers growing around the farm house and shop.

Before the tour, we had a traditional Costa Rican lunch and afterwards, started the tour. The tour guide led us around the plantation where we saw the various crops growing.

We saw rows of sugar cane growing high above the other plants.

They also had some bananas growing here as well.

The views here were quite scenic, with the Pacific Ocean and Nicoya Peninsula visible in the distance.

We learned all about how these crops are grown in Costa Rica. The Costa Rican government only allows Arabica coffee to be grown. Most of the labor for picking coffee comes from Nicaraguan immigrants; the pay is low and most Costa Ricans prefer to be tour guides. The coffee fruit can produce from 1 to 3 beans.

A fruit with a single bean produces the best coffee – peaberry. Two beans are acceptable, but three beans are not to be sold. After touring around the grounds, we headed to a building where coffee processing occurs.

As the guide was talking, an oxcart arrived and we rode in the cart to the next building were the guide described cacao processing.

There are three ingredients to making chocolate – cacao, milk, and sugar. We first tried raw cacao, which is not sweet and difficult to eat. But once sugar and powdered milk was mixed in, it started to taste like chocolate.

We then headed to the final building where sugar cane is processed and distilled to make candy. The guide gave us a sample of sugar cane liquor produced at the still. Then, we headed into the next room where the sugar cane is heated to produce the candy. The processing equipment was powered by the oxen.

We were broken up into small groups and each given a warm batch of processed sugar cane to beat until it solidified. This was our last stop on the tour. Before leaving, we headed to the gift shop and picked up some coffee to bring home as gifts (and to keep for ourselves). We then boarded the bus again and finished the drive to Monteverde. Our hotel was Atardecer, which had lovely gardens around the hotel with beautiful hibiscus and other flowers growing.

After checking into our room, I went up to the second floor to get some pictures of the sunset over the Pacific Ocean.

Then Sandy and I left to go on a guided night hike. Our guide first took us right outside of the building to a small hole in the ground. There was a tarantula in there, but she was hard to see in her current position, so the guide suggested we come back at the end. From here, we turned on our headlamps and started hiking down some trails and gravel roads on their property. We saw a sloth high up in the trees undulating back and forth, to remove ticks and other insects from him. Unfortunately, he was high up in the trees and it was hard to get a good view. We continued hiking and the guide pointed out some birds that were sleeping in the trees. We saw an Emerald Toucanet. They sleep with their heads under their wings, so he basically looked like a green blob.  The tour guide shined his light and told us to look for the “big avocado”. Further on, we saw a motmot, a really beautiful bird with unusual tail feathers shaped like a racket.

Besides the birds, we also saw two very poisonous pit vipers resting in the trees just off the trail. Good thing to have a guide to point out these critters.

We also saw an interesting leaf-mimic katydid. It was half green leaf and half dead leaf.

After hiking around for a couple hours, we headed back to the start. The tarantula had come further out of her hole so we could see her much better.

Then the bus took us back to the hotel. Once back, we got with Ro and everybody joined to go for dinner at a nearby pizza place. Definitely not typical Costa Rican fare, but it was good pizza. After dinner, we went to bed. Unfortunately, the walls and ceiling were very thin so we could hear every movement from adjacent rooms and didn’t get a great night’s sleep.

Paddleboarding and Canyoneering

Saturday morning we woke up and met Ro at the hotel lobby. For breakfast, we headed to Rain Forest Café. The American breakfast, consisting of eggs, bacon, and toast was really good. They also had great coffee. I’m not a big coffee drinker but the café con leche from here was great. Sandy made friends with a local stray dog who wandered into the restaurant. She named him Bert. After breakfast, we headed back to the hotel and were picked up to go stand-up paddleboarding on Lake Arenal. The van took us just past the dam where we got onto a boat to head out onto the lake. After our instructor gave us some quick instructions on how to paddleboard, we tossed our boards in the water and jumped in. It was raining about the entire time, but we were going to get soaked anyway, so it didn’t really matter.

We paddled around the lake for a while and then our guide had some games and fun for us. First, he had us try to do hand-stands and yoga poses on the board. I was not very successful at all and fell off immediately on every attempt. Aside from the guide, no one was particularly good at this exercise. But it was raining so much, it didn’t really matter when we fell in. In fact, we joked that we could “dry off” and get out of the rain by staying in the water. We paddled a little further on the lake and then we tried another game. Everyone lined their boards up next to one another and one at a time, we’d try to run across the boards and jump in at the end. It’s harder than it sounds.

A few people were successful in running across all the boards. I made it to the second-to-last before falling in. After this, we started paddling back to the boat. Once we got all the boats on board, we started heading back to shore. The tour operators had some fresh fruit and beers for us on the ride back. Once back, we were dropped back off at our hotel. We had an hour or so until it was time for canyoneering, so Sandy and I walked into town and stopped at a store to get some snacks and drinks. Then we headed to the park in the center of La Fortuna to eat a snack and enjoy the view.

A couple little yellow flycatchers, maybe Great Kiskadees, were flying around the park.

After our snack, we walked around the park to see the gorgeous tropical flowers.

The park itself was quite nice too, with a fountain in the center and a view of the church just past the park.

Unfortunately, it was also too cloudy to see Arenal Volcano. After a short stroll, we headed back to the hotel to head to Lost Canyon. Everyone in the group was doing canyoneering, including Moira, Davis, and Emily. Their flights had been delayed, but finally were able to meet up with us at this point. We arrived at Lost Canyon and were transferred to 4WD vehicles, the "Jungle Limo" to drive up a rough gravel road to the facilities. They had lockers where we left all our stuff and then we hopped in another Jungle Limo and drove further up the mountain. We stopped up here and after a quick instruction on rappelling technique, headed into the canyon. To make things easier, we were broken up into groups of five or six. Guides were present at the start and end of each rappel to ensure we completed the canyoneering safely. After a short hike through the canyon, we came to the first waterfall, about 10 feet. This was a pretty easy rappel as the waterfall wasn’t completely vertical, but it was definitely exciting and a good warm-up for what was to come. We continued hiking downstream through the beautiful canyon to the next waterfall. This was a big one – over 100 feet. After getting strapped in on a platform at the top of the waterfall, we rappelled down about half way.

At that point, the guides screamed “Let go!” and then we let go and sort of ziplined down to the base. A guide at the base controlled our speed and ensured we landed safely. It was an amazing adrenaline rush and just so much fun. After everybody made it down, we continued down the canyon. At one point, we were able to jump into a deep pool of water along the river. A little further down, the guides had a surprise in store for us. We all sat down in a narrow slot together and one of the guides blocked the water flow so that it built up behind him. Once we were all situated, he released the water and it came crashing down on us, the so-called "tsunami".

After that, we rappelled down another 15 to 20 foot waterfall before we made it to the last waterfall of our trek. This one was over 200 feet. Again, we rappelled down the first part and then ziplined down to the base. It was an incredible and heart-racing experience. Although the entire trip was amazing, this was my favorite part. After everyone made it down, we continued a short ways through the canyon and then began to hike back out, ending back at the facilities. After getting our stuff out of the lockers and a quick shower, we had a nice buffet lunch and chatted with our friends about this amazing experience. Then we took a 4WD back to the base of the mountain and a bus ride back to the hotel. The bus driver asked who was staying at Monte Real. He said it quickly and it sounded like Montreal – for the rest of the trip, we joked about being from Montreal. We stopped at the hotel briefly and then got back on a bus to Los Lagos Hot Springs and Resort. After renting lockers to keep our stuff dry, we headed to the springs. First, we headed down the water slide into a big, warm pool with a swim-up bar.

Can’t get much better than that! We had some drinks and hung out in the warm water. There was another slide, but it was much colder, so I only went down that one once. We all hung out in the pools for a couple hours, drinking and socializing, and then around 8, we got out and changed clothes had dinner at the resort. After dinner, we headed back to the hotel and went to bed after a great day.

Whitewater Christmas

Christmas day was our first full day in Costa Rica and we would be heading to La Fortuna from San José. Since it’s on the way, Ro suggested we do whitewater rafting today and do activities in La Fortuna the following day. Everyone agreed, so the full group was doing rafting. We boarded our van around 730 and left San José. Past Alajuela, we stopped at a small roadside shop to pick up some breakfast. Further north, we made our first sightseeing stop at La Paz Waterfall, a beautiful 120-foot roadside waterfall along Route 126 just past the La Paz Waterfall Gardens.

We got off the van and had the chance to walk around for a bit to see the waterfall from different angles.

After this stop, we made a quick stop in San Miguel, so everyone on the tour who needed water shoes could pick some up and then we got off the main road to head to the put-in for rafting on Rio Sarapiquí. A few other vans of tourists were rafting as well, so there were about eight boats heading down the river. Sandy, Tim, and I were in one boat with our guide Jeffrey. After reviewing safety and rafting instructions, we took to the water. This section of the river is great for whitewater rafting with class II, III, and IV rapids.

We’ve done whitewater rafting in the past and generally there are some good rapids, followed by stretches of relatively flat water. Not so on Sarapiqui. It was pretty much rapid after rapid and rapid. It was a lot of fun and we got very wet. At one point, a waterfall tumbled down a small tributary into the river. Our guide steered our raft so that we went directly under the waterfall and got drenched.

This section of river flows through a rainforest and at one point we could see toucans up in the trees, but the rafting was too intense for more than a quick glance. About half-way through the trip, we made a stop at a calm section for a snack. There was a nice set of rapids right before this part and Jeffery suggested to Sandy that she “ride the bull”, or sit on the front of the raft. Sandy managed to stay on going down the rapids, but then Jeffrey pushed her in with his paddle! We then steered our boat to shore and stopped for a bit. As another raft of our group was coming down, both Jamie and Allie fell out of the boat. Jamey was able to get right back in, but Allie continued down the rapids, being rescued at the last minute. Once everybody stopped, the guides cut up some pineapple and watermelon for snacks. I took the opportunity to hike upstream and swim back down the rapids again without a raft. Then, we continued down the river to the take-out spot. After drying out a little, the vans took us all back to the outfitters’ place and we had a big lunch here. After lunch, we continued on towards La Fortuna. About half-way there, near Aguas Zarcas, we stopped for a restroom break at a grocery store. Ro pointed out a three-toed sloth high in a tree in the parking lot. He was a little too high for a good shot of him, but we could definitely see his three claws. Having a local around to point out stuff like that was great. After this break, we continued on the rest of the way to La Fortuna. First, we stopped at the Desafio office to pay for our whitewater rafting and to book activities for the following day. Sandy and I had purchased the adrenaline bundle, so we would be canyoneering/ waterfall rappelling and one more activity. We decided on stand-up paddleboarding on Lake Arenal. Once done here, we headed to our hotel, Monte Real. The hotel had a nice pool and scenic grounds and the room was very nice. The room was much larger than the night before with a queen size bed, instead of two twin beds. There were lovely flowers blooming all around the grounds of the hotel.

After getting settled into our room, we met back up with the group and headed into town for a group dinner at Lava Lounge. I got a cheeseburger here and it was good. After dinner, Ro arranged for a van to pick us up and drove us to a hot springs. Well, not exactly a spring, more like a hot river. We parked near the Tabacón Thermal Resort entrance. This free attraction wasn’t well known with tourists and was more popular with locals. A few amorous couples could be seen in the warm water. We walked down to the river and then river-walked upstream to a nice spot to sit in the warm water. I think that this river originates at the resort and the warm water continues flowing out on its way to Arenal River. The current was moving quite quickly, so we had to really anchor ourselves to the ground. It was raining, but the cool rain got canceled out by the warm river water. After about an hour enjoying the warm water, we headed back to the van and back to our hotel for the night.

Christmas Eve in San Jose

For the holiday season this year, Sandy and I headed to Costa Rica for an action-packed week of adventure and fun. My employer has an end-of-year holiday shut down and I didn’t want to let perfectly good vacation time go to waste. We left Raleigh early on Christmas Eve. Since the holidays are peak travel time, everything was very busy. We had to have our car valet-parked at Fast Park and Relax before heading to the airport as the parking lot was completely full. Fortunately, we made it to the airport in time and none of our flights were delayed. We flew to Charlotte and from there to San José. It was quite warm in Raleigh when we left, so not much of a difference in temperature when we arrived in Costa Rica. After deplaning and clearing customs, we found our driver and met Dana from Toronto, another tourist on our G Adventures trip. The driver took us to Hotel Autentico in San José and after checking into our room, we headed out to get cash from a bank and had a late lunch/early dinner at Soda Tapia. Sandy and I both got a steak sandwich. They were good, but really big. We should have just split one. After eating, we went for a stroll around Parque la Sabana, the central park of San José.

The tropical flowers blooming in the park were absolutely beautiful, including some bright yellow trumpetbush.

We also saw male great-tailed grackles, a bird that looks somewhat like a crow with a long tail.

There was a huge Christmas tree sponsored by Coca-Cola, as well as a pretty artificial lake with ducks.

As the sun was beginning to set, we had beautiful views of the lake.

We then headed back to the hotel and met up with more of our tour group and our amazing tour guide, Ro. After introducing ourselves, Ro went over some of the logistics of the trip and background information. After the meeting, we went for dinner in the hotel. Sandy and I weren’t hungry as we had eaten so much just a little bit earlier so we had a couple drinks and socialized with the group and then went to bed early.

Holiday Hike in Gaston County

This past Saturday, we headed to the Charlotte area for a holiday hike and fun with friends in Gaston County. This December has been unseasonably warm, but it was chilly for the weekend, a welcome relief for steep climbing and scrambling at Crowders Mountain. We met in the Chapel Hill area to form carpools and headed south on I-85 to Crowders Mountain State Park. We arrived at the Linwood Road Access area of the park at about 1030 and started our hike. We started off on the Backside Trail towards Crowders Mountain, but when we got to the split, turned right on Crowders Trail and bypassed the mountain. We would be stopping here on the way back, so we followed Crowders Trail around the side of the mountain. We had a group of twelve and most of us were wearing some type of holiday apparel. At one point, a guy walking in the other direction was looking at Bob’s Santa hat and tripped over a rock. Apparently, our holiday flair was distracting to other park guests! We crossed Sparrow Springs Road and continued towards the park office. At the intersection with Pinnacle Trail, we went straight on this trail, continuing towards the trail’s namesake mountain.  After passing the intersection with the campground spur trails, the Pinnacle Trail leads over a rocky ridgeline. I really enjoy visiting Crowders Mountain for the rocky trails that require a bit of climbing and scrambling. Right after this rocky section, the Turnback Trail splits off and then it becomes steeper as it heads up to the summit of the Pinnacle. There are a couple of switchbacks and then the last part of the trail is pretty much just straight up. The trail ends right below the rocky summit.

We climbed up some rocks here and stopped to eat lunch. Looking west, there are sweeping views with the South Mountains visible and the Black Mountains far off in the distance.  Going north a bit to the true summit of the peak, I could see Crowders Mountain, the park office, and the Charlotte skyline far in the distance.

After lunch, we found some more rocks to climb around on enjoy the views. We saw a large black vulture perched in a tree not far from here.

He waited around long enough for some pictures and then flew off. Then we started making our hike back. We followed Pinnacle Trail back down the mountain, then turned right to get on Turnback Trail to make a partial loop to head back to the park office. We stopped here for a couple minutes to use the restrooms and then took Crowders Trail back to the road crossing. Across Sparrow Springs Road, we turned right to take Rocktop Trail to the summit of Crowders Mountain.

Rocktop is my favorite trail in the park as it involves a lot of rock scrambling along the rocky spine of the mountain. At a few points where there are breaks in the trees, the trail provides good views of the surrounding countryside.

Towards the end of the trail, we got on the Tower Trail, which is also the access road to the radio towers on top of the mountain. We hiked this steep road up to the towers at the summit of the mountain and then went a little further to the overlook.

The views from here are great and the skyline of Charlotte was clearly visible to the northeast.

We also saw some climbing ropes leading down. As we were getting ready to leave, a woman climbed up and was adjusting the ropes to take down from the day. It’s amazing to see how skilled some climbers are in maneuvering around on the cliffs, seeming to defy gravity. If we improve our climbing skills, I’d love to come back out here for some rock climbing. From here, we took the Backside Trail back down to the parking lot. We drove into Gastonia and had dinner at Tequilas on West Main Street. After dinner, we took US-74 east towards McAdenville to see the Christmas lights. It was extremely crowded with unbelievable traffic, so we parked at Food Lion on Market Street and walked up Wesleyan Drive. McAdenville, also called Christmastown USA, lives up to its nickname in December.

Walking down Wesleyan Drive and Main Street, very house, building, store, and tree are covered in Christmas lights. Trees lining the small lake in the middle of downtown were especially scenic.

We also saw a Shelby Cobra covered in lights.

Once we got towards the end of Main Street, we turned around and headed back. It was quite cold, especially carrying a tripod, but it was fun seeing all the pretty lights.

Driving home, we saw the traffic on US-74 stretched back for miles. I’m sure glad we opted to get out and walk rather than trying to drive through town.