Just as I’d started posting these blogs we’ve ended up being off grid for two nights, no phone signal, no WiFi, electricity off at 10 pm. More about that later. I’m still trying to catch up so here goes…
It was time to say goodbye to Rancho Amalia in the sunshine. Last night’s rain stopped at dawn. The morning weather was lovely. Sadly we spent most of it in the car and much of that was stuck in a traffic jam.
Last night, the trucks bothered me less. This was partly because it rained so hard the downpour drowned out the noise. Also, I discovered that the noise of trucks wasn’t just trucks – it was also the fridge. The fridge was so noisy it sounded like a truck rumbling constantly in the distance. Once I’d turned off the fridge the trucks came and went around the turns in a much more natural, pleasing fashion.
We needed to drive back the way we’d come to reach Poas because we were on the wrong side of the mountain. For an extra 30 minutes driving, we could take the car back to the hire people, get it changed and have one without a rattling exhaust.
Sadly, on what should have been the fastest part of the journey, the Ruta 1 to the airport, we hit a forty minute traffic jam.
Surely this isn’t worthy of note in a travel blog. There are plenty of queues in the UK. But this was a strange sort of jam. There was no continuous crawl. Instead we were stuck stationary for 10 minutes at a time before surging forward, reaching a reasonable speed, only to get stuck again. What was going on?
Right at the end of the jam, as we got stuck for the last time, we found out. The police were bringing up a truck so that a bulldozer could load the remains of a landslide into it.
The surge in the queue happened each time the truck went off to dump its load. We watched while 11 bulldozer buckets (yes it was that exciting to count them) went into the truck. When it finally went off to dump the this load, we were finally free of the jam.
We got our car changed without any fuss. Farid, the man at Vamos, the car hire company, couldn’t have been more friendly and helpful.
On the way to Poas we planned to visit La Paz Waterfall Gardens, more waterfalls, also a zoo – another of Costa Rica’s prime attractions.
First we needed a place for lunch. We fancied a traditional soda, a roadside place doing food and soft drinks, but no alcohol – hence “soda”. They can look a bit dilapidated but are usually good value. We stopped at this one which had good reviews (being a youngster Jenny checked the reviews).
It was positioned to make the most of the scenery. Sadly this clouded over while we sat there. It was rather a long wait for the food but when it arrived is was plentiful, tasty, clearly home-cooked and more than we could eat. Perhaps it was priced for tourists, but that’s only fair
The long wait, for lunch meant it was 2 pm by the time we’d reached the gardens. With it being dark at 5 pm and inevitably raining by then, we hoped we would have time to justify the entrance fee, which was a bit steep. On balance I think it was worth it.
From the visitor centre, to the flower gardens, all the facilities were top notch. Clearly a lot of money had been invested in the place and it pulled in the tourists accordingly.
Everywhere was landscaped to perfection. Even the railings were cast metal, designed to look like wood, so that no trees were injured in their construction. As with much in Costa Rica environmental and ecological correctness was very important. Apparently not a single old forest tree had been cut down to make room for the park.
Our first stop was the aviary, vast in size. It had an aviary within the aviary just for the toucans. They had had heaters because it isn’t natural for toucans to be up in the cloud forests, they like the heat of the tropical forests lower down.
All the animals at La Paz are rescued illegal pets, taken off people who shouldn’t have them. Because they’ve been domesticated they can’t be released into the wild. That is why these toucans were so tame.
As well as the birds, there was a butterfly house, adult ones flying, cocoons on racks, dead ones in cases. Fascinating.
There were other creepy-crawlies on show too. Thse spiders are all reassuringly dead. That is probably the best thing to do with illegal pet tarantulas. There is no scale to this photo, so if you don’t like spiders, trust me, they’re all really small.
The snake house had more examples of other things you don’t want to meet in the wild. No snake pictures but some interesting snake facts:
- Costa Rica is very good at producing anti-serum (one of its important exports) so if you are going to get bitten by a snake it is a good place to do so.
- Most people who get bitten are farm workers who are poor, work remotely (like those potato croppers) so takes them a long time to get down from the mountains for treatment, hence they also have the highest mortality.
- Even then, the fatality rate of even the most poisonous snakes is only 1%.
- Reassuringly, it takes a poisonous snake 2-3 weeks to replenish their venom, so if you are lucky you might get bitten but not be injected – a hopeful thought.
Of course the top animal attractions at the zoo were the big cats. There were pumas (called cougars, or mountain lions, in North America), ocelots and most impressive of all the jaguar.
Hopefully they were happy cats – happy not to be illegal pets any more, preferring to be in a zoo. They did all seemed quite lively, touring their enclosures – prowling rather than pacing – but still it is rather sad to see such impressive animals in cages.
With the animal houses visited, and the afternoon rushing past, we still hadn’t seen a proper waterfall, not counting some little ones in the gardens which were very pretty like this one…
No, we were here to see real waterfalls so off we went to see them. Many steps led down into the gorge – there were warnings about steps; you needed to be able to do them. There was no disabled accesss.
Once again, like yesterday, we were venturing into the jungle, another curated jungle experience. This was not only a zoo for animals, it was a zoo for waterfalls.
Along the gorge to the first waterfall – an impressive sight.
There were four more waterfalls in the series. The walkways and balconies let you get a close look, and a good soak.
Once we’d seen this last waterfall there was a bus to take us back to the visitor centre, but not until we’d had to climb a lot of steps to get to the bus stop.
We’d finished our tour of the gardens before it got dark. Now we had to find our accommodation, this was the place we’d only booked yesterday, the place at the end of the dirt track which needed four wheel drive.
Jenny chose to drive, once again taking her turn in the dark and in the rain. Of course it had started to rain. This is the cloud forest in the rainy season. It was tipping it down.
We had a 30 minute drive, with a stop to buy some beer, wine and snacks. We found the turn off towards Volcan Poas park, and, after a few miles, saw the sign for the cabins. There was the dirt track, going downwards quite steeply, looking like something you would walk down on a hike back home but never think of driving down unless you were on some sort of four-wheel drive experience thing.
Annoyingly, there was a Suzuki jeep also heading down blocking the track. He must have changed his mind about the whole venture, because he was trying to reverse back to the road. He was spinning his wheels, stuck. We tried going around him but grounded our car on the tarmac edge. It made an awful sound. Wouldn’t it be great if we had to take a second car back with a broken exhaust.
The jeep’s driver got out to lock the four-wheel drive. There was more spinning. Dirt flew, and the jeep slewed from side to side, too close for comfort. Jenny backed up to give him space but grounded the car again. This was turning into a nightmare: two cars stuck on the mountainside on a dark, rainy night.
Finally, the jeep got some traction, shot backwards onto the road and disappeared. What should we do? The sunk cost fallacy exists for a reason, so down the track we went. The problem wasn’t the gradient, or the grip, or the bumpiness, it was the clearance. Our 4WD SUV had little more clearance than an ordinary car. Jenny had to drive out of the ruts whenever they got too deep or whenever there were big rocks in the way. Exciting!
With only a few clunks and grinds, we finally got to the end of the track. We parked in a patch of wet grass, unloaded our bags and carried them through waist deep soaking wet bushes to the cabin.
The couple who ran the place couldn’t have been nicer. They had a fire going for us, necessary because, at 2300m above sea level, it was cold. They showed us around the facilities which were basic but adequate.
The cabin was a ramshackle place, perhaps the first house they’d built forty years ago before their building skills improved. I didn’t like the look of the electrics, especially the fittings with rainwater running down them. The place had WiFi but no towels; coffee maker but no kettle; lots of blankets, no heating.
We hunkered around the fire where there was space for two chairs occupied by Sarah and Jenny. I sat on the stairs and got sticky gold paint, presumably used to add a bit of bling to the place, on my trousers.
When we turned in for the night, I left the outside lights on so that I didn’t have to touch the switches. I went to sleep wondering how on earth we would get back up the track in the morning. I wondered how easy it was going to be to find a farmer with a tractor.