December 25, 2012
Puntarenas, Costa Rica
Today we celebrated Christmas in a most unique way: by being in Costa Rica!!
And we attempted to blend with the locals…
We were up and out early today as our ride started at about 8 AM.
Some quick facts: First known as Villa Bruselas in colonial times, Puntarenas was discovered by Hernán Ponce de León in 1519. Despite the use of the Gulf of Nicoya as an entryway to Costa Rica’s inland territory, the port of Puntarenas was not developed until 1840 when coffee production in the highlands reached exportable volumes.
First impressions of Costa Rica: The downtown area is comprised of low slung cement buildings.
Homes range form shanty style tin huts to more elaborate cement homes and cattle farms.
Looming in the background of almost every shot, are the volcanoes. -We’ll be seeing one of these close up in our next stop in Nicaragua.
Costa Rica has some 60 volcanoes, with 7 of them active. Here’s a pic of them:
Costa Rica has a woman President, no army and (according to locals) rockin’ health insurance for all.
But from what we saw there are two classes: very poor and wealthy.
On it we traveled for about 3 hours to Guanacaste. Along the way we spotted some Scarlet McCaw’s at a rest stop.
Costa Rica is rich in farming. The dark rich soil makes it perfect for growing pineapples, coffee beans and livestock grazing. We passed quite a few ranches on our drive. All of them had at least 2-3 bulls!
-Bulls are also a deep part of the history here. As evident by the bullrings (aka PLAZA DE TOROS) we pass.
The volcanoes are responsible for that rich soil… and: THE THERMOMINERAL HOT SPRINGS!
Which brings us to our destination today: RIO PERDIDO (‘www.rioperdido.com’) and WOW! It was amazing!
An iguana greeted us.
We were led into the small resort and were treated to a selection of local fruits, fruit juices and coffee.
After the light snack, we made our way down the paths in the woods (not so tretcherous after PERU!) to see what makes this place so special.
We arrived at the bottom and jumped into the hot natural springs! Ahhhhhhhh.
We then went for a hike into the forrest and out across a tension bridge and hiked over to a lookout over the water falls.
We saw this sign… should we be scared of this one…
Or this one…
Whew. we made it across.
The views were beautiful.
Then we made our way back to the base where the pristine spring pools awaited us! There were a secession of natural spring water pools varying in tempreture.
We swam, relaxed and swam up to the bar for a cold drink.
Afterwards we were treated to a top notch lunch.
We collapsed into the bus for our drive back to the ship.
An awesome day!
Safe Travels!
JKLM
🙂
Next: the National Park!
leo and finn go to south america! 