On this page:   Poas Volcano Arenal Volcano & Tabacon Resort Rincon de la Vieja, Playas Playa Flamingo Chirripo Day 1:  Car to High Camp Chirripo Day 2: Summit Chirripo Day 3:  High Camp to Car Rafting the Pacuare River

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We returned to the airport in the mid-afternoon, and again failed to find our bags on the afternoon flight.  Now we were losing precious vacation time, and we showed our displeasure to the local airline staff.   The last flight of the day arrived at ~9pm (the same as what we took the evening before), and our bags finally appeared.  It was late, so we decided to spend a second night in the nearby town of Alajuela, and get an early morning start.

We arrived at Arenal in the early afternoon, and found the Tabacon resort located at the base of the volcano.  The resort consisted of warm rivers, pools, and spas dispersed through series of tropical gardens - the heat was provided by the volcano at a higher elevation.  We relaxed in the pools, walked in the gardens, and enjoyed tropical drinks - it was quite a heavenly afternoon.  We found a nearby hotel - which consisted of a series of individual huts, each hut luxuriously clean and equipped for one group.  We were visiting during the off season, and were therefore able to negotiate a significant off-season discount.  We paid ~$50 for the hut, and were one of the only guests in the area.

We returned to the Tabacon resort for a sunset dinner alongside the gardens, and returned to our hut after dark.  A day well spent sightseeing and relaxing. 

We arrived at the park entrance in early-afternoon, and were the only visitors in sight.  We stopped at a small ranger hut, picked up a map of the area, and began hiking to the nearby sights.  We walked from mudpit to mudpit, and admired the wildlife and mountainsides steaming with volcanic activity.  It was well worth the drive up the entrance road.

We returned to the car in mid-afternoon, and found a group of Texan tourists whose small tour bus had gotten two flat tires on the entrance road.  The bus driver only had on spare tire available, and he had started the long walk back down the road - the Texans had been sitting with the minibus for hours, and were not pleased with their Costa Rica experience thusfar....we tried to console them, and then started back down the road.

We stopped back in town after surviving the road out, and contemplated our next destination.  We decided to drive west to the coast, in search of white beaches.  We drove several hours and arrived at Playa del Coca - a dark-colored shell beach adjacent to the village of El Coco (35 km west of Liberia via a decent road).  We drove a short 3-4 km south to adjacent Playa del Ocotal, which was also somewhat dark-colored, then back into the village.  We drove around looking for a hotel, and found a quaint hotel just outside Octotal beach.

We drove south to the town of Tamarindo, a popular surfing locale, and found a hotel only a short drive from Tamarindo beach.  The hotel was full of surfers and divers.  We found a small restaurant alongside the beach, and enjoyed the sunset over the water.  We walked through a local crafts fair, and picked up several souvenirs.
 

Aaron soaking up sun on Playa Flamingo

Sunset on Playa Tamarindo

We drove to the small town of San Gerardo de Rivas, in a valley at the base of the mountain.  We found a small hut resort on the mountainside, and checked in for an early night.  As the night grew dark, more and more insects congregated on the ceiling of out hut.  When we turned of the lights to go to sleep, the insects began to drop off onto the bed.  After about 20 minutes of trying to ignore the falling bugs, we knew that we had to do something to get any sleep.  We had purchased several cigars in town, which we proceeded to light and burn rapidly (by blowing into them) until the hut was filled with smoke.  The trick worked, and most of the insects left immediately.  We turned off the lights, and spent the night half-asleep as several bugs returned to the bed. 

We followed the main village road up to a gated path, which we opened to begin the ascent. We followed a clearly marked path through local fields and into the low elevation dense jungle, and began the switchback climb through the forest.  The low altitude jungle slowly turned into a mid-altitude cloud forest, and we continued to climb.  We stopped for lunch at a hut in the forest, and rested before continuing.  It had rained a bit during the initial hike, but cleared up as we proceeded higher.  We proceed further upwards into the higher-altitude forest with smaller and more widely spaced trees, and finally emerged from treeline late in the afternoon.  The hut lay shortly ahead, against the side of a valley about 1200 feet below the summit.

We arrived at the high camp eight hours after our departure, and we were greeted by a local park ranger. The high camp hut consisted of a long concrete stable-like series of 4-person rooms with bunkbeds.  The rooms were clean, sealed, and even had windows, shelves and hooks for hanging.  The camp was ten times better that what I had imagined.  The camp could likely hold 100 people, but there was only one other group of four that occupied the building - no one else would arrive that day.

We registered with the ranger at a small reception area.  When Cecilia told the ranger that she was from Bolivia his eyes grew wide, and he declared that no Bolivian had ever climbed to the summit.  He showed us 100 years of registration logs to prove this fact.  We cooked dinner outside the building, and discussed the upcoming summit climb.  We learned that the group of four was from Israel, and would summit at the same time tomorrow morning.

Since the day was still young and it had not yet started to rain, I decided to climb up Mount Terbi, which overlooked the high camp valley.  Terbi is also the second highest mountain in Costa Rica, which gave me even more motivation to spend the afternoon hiking.  Cecilia did not feel as energetic as me, and decided to remain at the camp, and relax on the ledge just in front of the high camp building.  She looked very comfortable when I left.

I scrambled up a small dirt path, and was on top in less than one hour.  As I climbed I remembered the ranger telling me that his record time to the top was 40 minutes.  The skies were still clouded, and my view was limited to the valley below.  I took some video of Cecilia in front of the camp (far far below me), and started back down the path.

We cooked a big pasta dinner at the camp, and talked to the ranger and Israeli group.  Several other people arrived that evening, but the camp again remained mostly empty for the night.  We slept well after two tiring days of hiking.

We stopped in a local town to call a San Jose rafting company, and organized a rafting trip on the Pacuare River for the following day.  Thanks to her Spanish, Cecilia managed to get the local rate.  We figured that our upper bodies would be OK for paddling.

We arrived in San Jose early in the evening, and checked into the Duval Hotel downtown.  We walked around town and found a small restaurant for dinner.  It had been a long day of driving and hiking, and we went to bed early.

The rafting group stopped at small hut resort alongside the river, where we enjoyed a group lunch.  The river was unpopulated, and the resort huts were the first buildings that we had seen all morning.  Another highlight of the day occurred after lunch, when we passed through a smooth but fast flowing slow canyon, with green lush walls rising 100's of feet above us.  We were able to jump out of the raft and float down the canyon unharmed.  We arrived at the pickup spot late in the afternoon, and were driven 3 hours back to San Jose.  It was a perfect way to finish our trip.  We again checked into the Duval Hotel in downtown San Jose, and again found a nice small restaurant for dinner. 

Note - we used the Lonely Planet Costa Rica to guide us through the entire trip, and we found that the book was one of the trip MVPs.  The guidebook provided great logistical information, even for the Chirripo hike.
 

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