Brief visit to Arenal

On day 4 we left San Jose and rented a car to drive to the Pacific coast. We decided to drive through Arenal and stay for a night to check out the volcano and do a canopy tour. Renting a car here can get quite expensive due to the required insurance each day. The insurance cost per day can often be more than the car rental itself. I think we had to pay $20/day just for insurance, and the 4x4 we were originally going to rent was $16/day. When Don got to the rental company he decided the 4x4 I picked out online was not large enough for 4 people and the luggage. Thank god he made that call, because the next size up(Daihatsu Terios) just barely fit everything. Alberto was hit in the head several times with the suit cases. The roads definately were not as bad as I had read about, there was the occasional pothole, but nothing the size of a car. The road to Arenal was really curvey and definately sucked to get stuck behind a slow moving vehicle. You didn't want to go around the car/truck since you didn't know if someone would be coming around the curve on the opposite side of the road, so you would be stuck behind it for 30 minutes until the road straightened out enough to pass. Often it was a slow truck with lots of exhaust that we were stuck behind.
It was about a 4 hour drive from San Jose to Arenal. Actually, we stayed in the town of La Fortuna. La Fortuna had a park and church in the the middle of town (which is common for most towns in CR) with plenty of restaurants, bars, and shopping. I had picked out two hotels to possibly stay at, but neither worked out. The first hotel did not have internet and the second hotel had no vacancies. Since it is green season (low season), we only made a hotel reservation for our stay in San Jose. It's pretty easy to just drive up to a hotel and get a room for the night in low season, and at many places you can get a discount when paying for the room in cash - they basically take off the 13% sales tax. Arenal was the only place so far that we've had an issue with just driving up and hoping to get a hotel room. It's the busiest tourist spot in Costa Rica. We finally found a hotel within walking distance to restaurants for the price we wanted. The hotel was called El Volcan, and it felt like we were actually staying IN the volcano. There were no windows (well there was one tiny window in the bathroom), and the AC was broken. Sweating bullets. We had already paid for the room and didn't want to bother driving around anymore, so we decided to just tough it out, it was only for one night. The hotel did have a view of the volcano, however since it is rainy season the volcano was covered by clouds, so we couldn't see any lava flow at night. The picture above is from our hotel the next morning. After unloading the car, we ventured out for the night in La Fortuna. We had dinner and drinks a the Lava Lounge and went into a few touristy shops. We came across several shops where people were selling packages for hot springs, canopy tours, ect. and bought a package for a canopy tour with Ecoglide the next day. Since we were to be picked up at 8 am the next morning for our canopy tour, we went back to the inferno to attempt to sleep. I say attempt because it was virtually impossible to sleep in the furnace that was our room.
After an attempted night's sleep we were up at 7:30AM to wait for a van to pick us up at 8 to go on our canopy tour. As we were waiting in the volcano hotel's parking lot for our shuttle, we noticed this sweet black van that said "A-Team". Turns out, this guy was a huge fan of the tv show, and actually purchased this from the set once the show was over. Hells yes. Anyway, our shuttle finally arrives and we go on our canopy tour. The canopy tour was awesome, and though I'm scared of heights this didn't bother me at all. It was a zip line through the jungle high in the air from tree to tree. We saw some howler monkeys and toucans along with awesome views of the Arenal area. The highlight of the tour was the "Tarzan Swing". Basically you sit in this harness and there is a rope attached. It's suppose to be like swinging from a vine. So you get in this contraption on a platform that has a gate. Once they have you hooked in, they open the gate and you are supposed to just step off. I didn't really pay much attention to how high up we were before I was strapped in...well they opened the gate and instructed me to step forward. I looked down, um, no thank you, I'm good where I'm at. This is when I started to panic. The heart began racing, got an ill feeling in my stomach and I started to protest that I didn't want to do this. As I tried to force myself further back on the platform, I fell off. Below is the video...the cackling you hear in the background is Candler, who was too scared to go, but took pleasure at laughing at me.

San Jose

We stayed our first 3 nights in Costa Rica in San Jose. San Jose had great weather - it was about 75 degrees each day, much better than the 90 + in Atlanta over the summer. There was an occasional shower or two in the afternoon. Usually light, but one day there was quite a downpour for about 3 hours. So, our first 3 days we stayed at a cute bed and breakfast called Casa 69. Yes, Casa 69 was really the name of it. The prices were good, the rooms were clean, and the staff was great. If you are coming to see us and you need to stay a night in San Jose, I highly recommend there. San Jose though as a whole, I did not like. It was dirty. I've never been to Detroit, nor do I ever plan on visiting, but I envision San Jose being a tropical Detroit. I felt like my lungs were black after the first day from all the exhaust. I don't really have too much to say about San Jose, other than the veiw from atop our hotel was of mountains and that's where I wanted to be.
We were going to rent a car from an ex mechanic from the states, but things started getting kind of sketchy so we bailed on that idea. We figure we will just rent a car when we need one and take taxis if we can't walk somewhere. The driving here is pretty crazy. Riding in the taxis in San Jose was kind of like a roller coaster. I never felt unsafe, but it was definately crazy and I was glad I wasn't the one driving. If you don't know where you are going and are driving in San Jose, good luck. The potholes were not as bad as I had expected, but lanes...what lanes? You make your own. Merging? As long as it's not a bus, you force your way over- eventually one of you will have to give, so just assume it will be the other person and keep going. Oh and if you are driving, the pedestrians will stop for you. Crossing a street on foot? Run. Also if you are behind the wheel please note that it is required to use your horn at least once every 3 minutes, not I say at least once...more is strongly encouraged.

Finally blogging

Ok, so I will finally start my Costa Rica travel blog. Don and I have had some computer issues since we have been here. Apparently my computer's wireless card is allergic to Costa Rica internet, I think it's got a VD. Don's sound card decided to die, which meant our phone # didn't work. I was confined to stealing Don's computer for internet when he wasn't doing work or better yet, an internet cafe where the computers were loaded with spyware. We are now settled at a condo in El Coco, and my computer has decided to start working again. So all systems are a go and you can now call us - if you email me, I'll send you the number.
With my excuses out of the way...

Where we've been...