April 16 – April 19, 2018

The crossing into Costa Rica on the Nicaraguan side was chaotic to say the least. We had no idea where we were supposed to park, which building we needed to head to first and we were immediately approached by “helpers”, people who hang out at the border, walk you from one building to another and tell you what you need to do next, all for a propina (tip). We had not used one since we had accidentally used one when crossing into Belize (we thought he worked for the border agency and didn’t realize we needed to tip him until the process was almost complete).

Without having really decided to do so, suddenly we were accepting the services of a helper. He saw the dog and said we needed to visit the animal inspection on the Nicaraguan side of the border. We haven’t had to fill out any papers for Piper other than for our entrance to Belize, and when we got to the office, they asked for the paper work we had received upon entering Nicaragua. We didn’t have anything. I thought that we were going to be asked for a bribe, but the agent just told us that if we were asked for the document later in the border crossing in Costa Rica, to come back and he would figure something out….phew! The helper took us back and forth across a parking lot filled with vendors selling snacks, drinks, souvenirs. There seemed to be no logical order to the process, and three different employees came three different times to the truck to look in the camper and to look at Piper. It was all very confusing, then suddenly we were good to go and enter Costa Rica, after, of course, giving the helper a tip, which I think was very generous, but to which we were given a sullen face. He mentioned about how difficult it was to cross with the dog, trying to get more money from us, when, we believe, that he brought the dog to the border agents’ attention, forcing them to deal with Piper when I think they really didn’t care.  The more complicated the helper can make it seem, the more grateful the tourist, after all.

Anyway, we got to Costa Rica where the process was much more streamlined, and before long we were driving on good roads towards Liberia. There we stopped and were able to get a new phone card (a process that always takes about 45 minutes to an hour), some more tick and flea medication for Piper, and some replacement headlamp bulbs for the truck, before continuing on to our camp for the night.

Costa Rica is an interesting country.  It abolished it’s army in 1949.  Somewhere around 95% of it’s electricity is produced using sustainable energy (hydroelectric, wind power, geothermal, and a bit of solar, although that is still very expensive).  It spends more money on education that most countries and has about a 96% literacy rate.  The country side is lush, and clean with very little garbage, the people are good looking and healthy, and eco tourism is a large part of the economy, for right reason.  We were happy to be back in Costa Rica;  we have visited here twice before and really enjoyed it.

We spent an uneventful night camped along the highway beside the restaurant at Finca Puma, visited the small town of Canas to see their church and do some shopping – Derek got a great new pair of leather shoes for about $45 CAD – and then headed to our first destination in Costa Rica, Rio Celeste near Volcan Tenorio.

We drove to a restaurant called Piuri Rio Celeste, close to the park, that allows campers.  The park had a steep entrance fee and no dogs were allowed, but we had read that you could visit the exact same river from our planned campsite, so that is what we did.

We parked the truck on a high level spot, next to a fountain that the couple that owns the restaurant built.  The water that feeds the fountain is from an underground spring.  Very cool, but wait, it gets cooler.

The water from that spring then runs along a small ditch in the ground down to a structure that they call El Huevo (the egg).  El Huevo is a guest room, and the water from the fountain runs under the small front porch.

It rained quite a bit while we were here, we are in the cloud forest after all.  We did get to visit the Rio Celeste the next morning.

From here we continued on to La Fortuna, the tourist town near Volcan Arenal, one of Costa Rica’s most visited volcanos.  The volcano was active daily until a few years ago, but hasn’t done much other than the odd puff of steam from time to time.  We actually barely got to see the volcano, as it was pretty cloudy our entire time in La Fortuna.

We stayed the night at a water park.   The various pools in the park ranged from quite hot to cool, and there were water slides.  We played in the water for a few hours, soaking in the thermals, flying down the slides at the larger pool.  They had various bi-lingual signs around the pools, the standards like No Running, but also ones that were new to us, like the sign that in English said “No Love Scenes!”  Well, okay then!

The next day we drove the highway that hugs the shores of Lake Arenal and stopped for the night at the Arenal Brewery, where there is a great restaurant, a brewery, and a lovely park like setting in which they allow you to stay for the night.  Normally there would also be views of two volcanos around the lake, but we were again socked in pretty much the entire time we were there.  But we were at a brewery, and the beer was really good, so who cared. We shared a flight of 2 oz. tasters then had a few Pale ale and IPAs, but the pineapple and chilli beers were pretty tasty too. The decor of the place was a decent takeoff of the great Mycenaean cultural palace at Knossos, Crete, including large murals, pillar forms and colour scheme and the music was kind of South American, loungy techno and funk.  Not a bad place to hang out for an afternoon. The Nachos were good too.

Turn up the sound for some more Howler Monkey footage, this one from the parking lot of the Arenal Brewery.