Costa Rica - Day Three

Day three of our adventure in Costa Rica.















Had to start off with this lovely iguana. Before we left Jaco, Todd and I took one last stroll along the beach and on our way to the beach we walked passed the hotel swimming pool. There weren't to many people at the pool early in the morning but there was an iguana. A nice BIG iguana, just sitting there, soaking up some rays.... hola iguana.... we'll miss you and Jaco beach.

So, back to our third day of Costa Rica. I thought day two was lots of driving but it was nothing compared to the driving on day three. Our destination was Buena Vista lodge, which is near Liberia in the Northern top part of Costa Rica. Take a look at the map at this link, http://www.costarica.com/Maps/, to get an idea of where we are headed. We are currently at Jaco on the Pacific Coast and headed to Buena Vista lodge, which is slightly above Liberia in northwest area of Costa Rica. The driving is really not fun at all. We're in a very nice tour bus with air conditioning, thank heavens, but for those of you who have been to Costa Rica and driven on the narrow winding roads of the country you know that a long drive in a BIG bus is not fun, especially if your prone to car sickness. Fun times... not.

Just outside of Jaco, we stopped at a little fishing village for a break; a very picturesque little village. When we took our pictures it was low tide and you can see how much the water rises when the tide comes in.






































These boats will be floating on water once the high tide comes in.















This is just outside a private residence. The owner of the house has made their own floating garden when the high tide is in. The statue is Jesus.

































After another couple hours of driving, we stopped for lunch at little place called Mimi's. It looks like a tiny little cafe, certainly not enough room to hold our group of 40, but it really is quite large. It opens up in the back to a beautiful outdoor eating place.















After eating, of course we all had to get a sample of the local icecream. Good stuff! The guy in the corner of the picture, on the phone, is our guide. His name is Paul and he was great; a very fun guy. He and Todd had fun giving each other a hard time about who plays soccer better. Or I guess I should say football. Football is very big in Costa Rica. After lunch, we again hopped in the bus and continued driving to our destination, Buena Vista Lodge. Check out the website to get an idea of what the lodge is like, http://www.buenavistalodgecr.com/. Along the way I was seriously thinking our bus was not going to make it across the many, many narrow bridges.
















This is a picture of the bridge that scared me the most. Below the bridge is a very deep chasm and a river. Do you see that sharp turn. Imagine having the back half of a very, large tour bus still on that narrow bridge as the driver is trying to negotiate that sharp turn. I thought for sure the back wheels would come off the road and we were going over! But, whew, obviously we survived.
















While this is a nice picturesque view, the purpose of the picture is to show you the narrow, old road we drove UP to Beuna Vista lodge. At this point we are out in the middle of nowhere. We haven't seen houses for miles. After many long hours of driving we arrive at the incredible Buena Vista lodge. Which is on the slopes of the Rincón de la Vieja volcano.

















Unfortunately we didn't get a picture of the main lodge and various restaurants, but here's a picture of the small rooms we stayed in. Very picturesque but very remote... no tv!! We were to stay here for three days with no tv! :-) At first it was a real shock for Todd (I confess, me also) but by the time we left we had enjoyed every minute. Instead of listening to the drone of yet another sitcom at night, we listened to the sounds of the jungle; frogs, birds, monkeys and I don't know what else.
































At the lodge, they had a soccer (oops, I mean football) field and Todd and the students got together to play some football. They really had fun. So much fun that Todd ended up walking away all bloody and banged up. While he was playing goalie, the goal post suddenly tipped over and landed on Todd's head. By the time I saw him, I had been off sight seeing, he had blood all over his head and dripping down his face. It looked like he had a terrible injury but it was really "just a flesh wound". We cleaned him up and put a bandaid on his bald nogin and he was good to go.
















What's this? This is one of the many creatures roaming around the Buena Vista lodge. I can't remember for the life of me what this creature is called but it's like a bristly, hairy pig. Called something that starts with a P... ummm... Pica... something... dang, I can't remember. Anyhoo, this creature just wandered around and up to our rooms and rubbed against our legs wanting to get a scratch and a pet. Obviously it was used to people. We called him Mr. Snuffles.

That's it for day three. We are now at Buena Vista lodge and have a lot of fun times planned ahead.