'Cano Climbing

After leaving La Escuelita and smoggy San Jose behind on Friday morning, I traveled to Lake/Volcano/Rainforest Arenal for the weekend on my way to my destination on the Pacific coast. It was overcast almost constantly all three days, the humidity/moisture in the air was unbelievable: if something got wet, it was simply not going to get dry (towels were worthless after the first shower) and the town was overrun by tour operators. Nevertheless, I saw an amazing waterfall, walked through a small rainforest, gazed up at a volcano (but no lava), photographed some cool wildlife, and relaxed on Saturday night at a very classy thermal springs. Photos of all these things below except the hot springs (unfortunately)


Witnessed this crazy scene on the side of the road. Those are a bunch of Costa Rican racoons, coatis, being fed by some pretty ignorant people. There were signs everywhere telling you not to feed wild animals for all sorts of reasons. Apparently these people weren't convinced by any of them. At least something positive came out of it (this picture)


Probably the clearest the volcano got all weekend. Yup, didn't get too lucky on that count.

Happiest VW bus I've ever seen.


The 2 mile walk to the waterfall was really cool. Here are some of the highlights.


Walked by a banana grove which appeared like a strange weird cross between vegetable and fruit cultivation.

A life-saving coconut water stand on the side of the road (I didn't have a water bottle). A facebook profile picture quickly ensued.

Sup droopy.

There were fresh fruit nailed to the top of this sign and birds of practically every color had flocked to it when it first came into view. I mean legitimate ROYGBIV. By the time I was close enough to get a photo off, the effect had diminished somewhat.



A very environmentally conscious sign on the side of the road. As far as I could tell, someone had just decided to put on their lawn. I loved Costa Rican's environmental awareness: almost 100% of the country's energy comes from renewable resources, I noticed people make legitimate efforts to turn off lights/save water/not use AC etc. It was cool to see.


The waterfall. Tough to give it a sense of scale, it was over 200 ft tall.

People, including myself after taking this photo, swam in the river next to it. Bathing suit didn't dry until I left the town, not joking

Shows the scale a bit but not really. There was a sign warning you that swimming at the base of the waterfall was not a good idea, but that was about it. Nothing was stopping you from just diving right into that white-water pulverizer which I doubt would ever happen in the US.


I was in a rainforest so photos were hard to come by, particularly without flash, but this tree happened to be in a patch of sunlight. Hard to appreciate in this photo, but this tree probably had about 20 different plant species living in/around/because of it.

The roots to the walking palm tree. Grows spindly stilt roots to find sunlight. Looks really eery in person, photo doesn't quite do it justice.


The weekend was a great, green reprieve after almost 10 days in the cement jungle of San Jose although I definitely barely scratched the surface of Costa Rica's green offerings. Next time I guess. Another post or two probably by tonight, so I can wrap this up before my memories get too stale.