'Nother wee trip
SO, we we’re returning from a wee trip on the opposite side of the mountain range / Volcanoes’ that basically divide Costa Rica. We had been to the River, jungle area of Sarapique; we had the opportunity to take some pictures of the wonderful array of birds that joined us for breakfast. The hotel lodge put out an assortment of fruit on feeding tables and within minutes all these colourful birds came out of the jungle like little jewels, flitting here and there munching whatever they could get their little beaks into. Before I knew it I had completely filled my gigabyte chip with pictures in what seemed to me like minutes. We decided after a couple of days of this to venture on, our house was rented for a week so we took advantage this time to do what we love to do .....get lost!
Even though we have a GPS in the car we had noticed, ‘as usual for Costa Rica’ that it told a few fibs also we weren’t absolutely sure where we wanted to go next, ‘let’s just head toward the coast and maybe something will take our fancy’. Lo and behold after taking a few wrong turns and our lying piece of s**t GPS we are now up behind Poas Volcano ...we think, it is getting quite misty probably because we’re now in the clouds, after all.... it is a cloud forest! We should have clued in as we did notice from the altimeter in the car that we had been climbing. The road had also been getting pretty rough, even for Costa Rican standards. Through the mist we now came upon a large sign it said dangerous road, extreme risk of landslides, earthquake effected zone! Construction vehicles only. ‘Damn it now we gotta go all the way back’, we then noticed an old rickety pickup truck coming toward us through the mist dodging the huge potholes and piles of mud. As he drives past us he gives us a curious grin and wink, this is typical of the Tico’s (locals). Rules, well they are just meant to be broken, ‘you chicken gringos can abide’; we are above all that, we gotta the macho balls! Sometimes I have to admit I do admire their ‘spunk’.
Joan is now giving me the LOOK, ‘now Kevin let’s just turn around and play safe’ knowing full well that the ‘pick up truck Tico’ has called my bluff, ‘here we go again’, she says. I promised that if the going were to get too dangerous that I would turn back ...she’s not too convinced but knows at this point ‘resistance is futile’.
Just to give you a bit of background info; just over a year ago in January of 2009 there was a 6.1 magnitude earthquake on the south east section of Poas volcano causing many landslides one of which apparently swallowed up a whole village called Cinchona. There were over 47 people killed and many injured, luckily the local school was on holiday so many of the kids survived.
Joan and I remembered driving this road on our first visit here almost 11years ago on an eco tour, massive ravines thousands of feet deep, waterfalls gushing out of the mountainside, little cafe’s perched on the edge of the steep slopes with very busy hummingbird feeders attracting tourists from the many tour buses on their way to Poas volcano and the La paz waterfall gardens. You can actually drive to the top of Poas and look down into the bubbling crater, complete with steam vents and a very strong smell of sulphur all of which at 10,000 feet can leave you a little light headed.
It took us just under two hours to traverse the road today, we were taking it REAL safe more than once driving through the mist we came to the end of the road as it abruptly disappeared over sharp cliffs where we couldn’t even see the bottom! Thank god for four wheel drive and the industrious local Tico’s who had made trails through and around these ....little inconveniences. These farmers and local business people had to find a short cut going over instead of around, at what cost ...who knows but we did pass a few other brave / silly hearts on our journey. It seemed we all had this kinda smirky, ‘hey I gotta the macho balls today’ look about us.
It was sad and a little bit eerie seeing all the broken buildings, wondering if the owners of these homes made it through the disaster and what it must have been like to witness such catastrophe. On the one side you have the mountain together with all the mud, rocks and trees coming down on you and the other a slide over the precipice down into the deep chasm. Coming from Canada and England where we don’t really have volcanoes and earthquakes we kinda live in comfort knowing that, ‘Terra Firma’ is actually ‘firma’ i.e. it doesn’t friggin move! We would never even THINK any different! I mean it’s just not British. Having witnessed a couple of minor earthquakes it is very unnerving and really makes you think, ‘standing on dry land CAN be dangerous’....WHAT!
Well because I am writing this ...as you can guess we made it! After coming through a couple of rivers and a whole new reverence for four wheel drive, with a sigh of relief we came to a very familiar waterfall which we recognised to be the final fall of the famous La paz waterfall gardens. I had read somewhere that there was little damage at this resort and that it was open for business. Just around the bend would be safety, we did however notice some of the metal walkways that are bolted to the cliffs where being repaired.
Nuff adventure for one day, we decided to take a ferry from Punteranas over to the Nicoya peninsula and head down to one of our favourite places,’ Playa Montezuma’ not to be mistaken for the belly rumbling revenge thing. We stayed there for the remainder of the week taking pictures of waterfalls and birds one of which is a neat little picture of my tripod as it fell over and broke my expensive zoom lens %?+#~&*^$#@*.
Check out some of the piccy's below, hope you like them
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