Costa Rica Part 1: Central Valley

We spent a brief night in Denver with Justin's brother James who gave us an early ride to the airport the next morning. We arrived in Costa Rica, stepped out of the airport and suddenly realised we don't know any Spanish. However we still managed to catch public transport to our first destination, the capital of San Jose where I mangled the language and succeeded in buying tickets for the next bus and a soda of some sort. The 1.5 hour ride to Turrialba took us on scary twisty roads through the jungle mountains past coffee plantations. I especially liked how they grow living trees as fences, with wire strung between them.

Turrialba is not a tourist destination but is a handy base for white water rafting, we stayed at the Hotel Intermamericano in a tiny but adequate room. The next day we managed to order a 'casado' lunch, a Costa Rican standard of rice, beans and chicken and I ordered something I had no idea of, except that it apparently came in either a milk or water variety. Turns out it was some kind of tasty milkshake with a fruit called Guanabana.

We took public transport to the Guyabo ruins and when the bus couldn't make it up one of the hills we had to get out, climb and get back on at the top:


The ruins are the only major archeological site in Costa Rica from before the Spaniards. It's no Machu Pichu but was it still fascinating to see these remains only recently uncovered in dense jungle. I even spotted a Toucan!


The next day we had a blast rafting the Pacuare river with Exploradores Outdoors, who then dropped us off at our next destination: Cahuita. We didn't get photos but here's what we pretty much looked like: click Excitement level: High.