We had an absolute ball in Santa Elena. Sean’s birthday had to be celebrated and we had booked in on a Zip line experience and forest walk. In addition to that we headed across to a butterfly and frog “sanctuary” before leaving towards La Fortuna by “Jeep Boat Jeep”.
Santa Elena is geared to tourism, in fact, I don’t think there is anything bar tourism here, so the selection of bars and restaurants was very decent, the prices aren’t great for backpackers though. There was only one club which we could see, but that was pretty big and quite empty given the lack of tourists in the town. When we arrived we had been almost attacked by a number of touts who were perhaps a little on the desperate side. The economic downturn was certainly being felt, and for a “one horse show town” I suppose things get especially hard. The upturn will come and they will make more money again! However, the down turn and the fewer tourists means that all the attractions and fun stuff was not oversubscribed and a lot more fun for us!
We bought a day of zip lining which was simply incredible. Nursing slight hangovers from the rum and cokes from the night before, we were driven at high speed up into the hills and to their base. From there we geared up and were shown how to hang, brake and glide and then it was off. 10 Zip lines in total plus two surprises were on the agenda. The zip lines crossed through tree tops; then across valleys and were great fun, looking down into the valleys while flying across was a great rush. The longest of which was the last, and measured a 1 kilometer! The cross winds in the middle made me spin under the wire, and ducking the wire repeatedly I flew across the valleys; I regret not having bought the superman package which flies you across the valley hung on the wire facedown, it looked even more fun! The surprises were great too. At one point we zipped into the canopy of a seriously high tree and then waited patiently in line with no idea what was next. Then there was a great abseil down the entire tree which felt superb followed by a short walk to the next event… This was possibly the most fun, and was based on the same tree. Attaching ourselves by the harnesses to an extremely long rope we jumped off a platform in freefall then jerked and swung through the air Tarzan style, my feet touching the branches of the tree at the top before heading back towards the platform... it was like Laos but without the drop into the water and a lot higher! We headed back to base and some very friendly co zip liners were kind enough to share the photos with us: thank you Randy and Dave! We have put a few up of us. During the trip I had an interesting chat with a woman who seemingly knew or understood nothing of how poor the country is. She complained constantly about the cost of park entrances and how everything in Spain was free. When I explained that she was paying for the upkeep of the park as the Costa Rican government was too poor to pay for it by themselves, and this was how conservation was aided by tourism, she didn’t quite get the connection; it wasn’t really her English that was bad. I couldn’t believe how obviously stupid she was, thankfully I had a wire to catch!!!
That evening we headed out into the forest for a nature walk. Armed with torches we went hunting for sloths, ocelots, spiders and anything else we could find. Really impressive stuff that included a hummingbird nest with sleeping bird inside, an ocelot and a couple of sloths, but I guess you saw that coming…
We would have loved to see a Jaguar but apparently they are pretty shy and wouldn’t have come too close, a proper jungle walk would have been necessary.
The next day we got up late for our travel standards… 8am and got packed and ready before checking out; we had booked the “jeep boat jeep” trip to La Fortuna which is at the foot of Mt Arenal which left at two and gave us some time to chill out. We headed to the Butterfly/Frog house with Sean and saw the various massive and very colourful butterflies and also a whole load of frogs large and small. Arguably the most vibrant frogs were the smallest, poison dart frogs, vivid red with black spots and the green tree frog with awesome huge red eyes. We tried to photograph a couple of them but it wasn’t that easy given lighting and aquarium darkness. We saw some poison dart frogs later on in the wild too.
The “jeep” arrived at two pm to pick us up… not quite a jeep, more like a 4x4 people carrier but hey it drove the stretch to the lake and saved us a very long bus ride and 6am start. The driver drove as if he were possessed and overtook pretty much everything else on the winding dirt track that headed through the hills to the lake that stood between us and Arenal. The lake is the product of a hydro electric power plant that provides something like 60 percent of the energy for Costa Rica, and is actually very beautiful. As we arrived the heavens opened and it rained solidly for the next hour while we waited for the boat to arrive. When it did arrive the very kind tourists refused to get out while we stood in the rain waiting for them. Some impatient and slightly wet person yelled at them and they then started moving. What a bunch of pricks. The boat ride across the lake was beautiful; the boat was fast and low with the water fantastically smooth as always during a rain. We then arrived at the other side of the lake on the Arenal side and disembarked. MT
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