don't go chasing waterfalls

The border with Costa Rica is only 40 mins from San Jorge (the ferry terminal for Ometepe), after a long and stilted conversation about football with the taxi driver we finally arrived at the border

Goodbye Nicuaragua

hello costa rica

Costa Rican customs was very busy and very, very hot

The town not the country

The plaza in Liberia had a distinctly 70's feel to it

The architecture is quite stark and modern compared to other parts of more colonial cetral america

Surely this is the key indicator that Costa Rica is too americanised

Bus from San Jose - capital of Costa Rica to Turrialba a town next to volcano of the same name on the eastern Caribbean slope.  The Turrialba volcano had started erupting a few days prior to our arrival, we couldn't see it though as it was always in cloud.

Arriving in Turrialba, trying to find the hotel.  Luckily Linda who we were meeting there had just driven past and seen us loitering in the street so loaded us up in the van they had hired and whisked us straight off to eat!

Our hotel was down by the market where we stocked up on bananas and bread.  

The pavements in Turrialba are high and the gutters are deep, having walked succesfully up a volcano with slippery roots and terrible mud Ralph managed to badly twist his ankle stepping off the pavement. The days trip to the waterfall was then spent hobbling.

We visited Guayabo national monument, the site of a pre-colombian community from 3000 years ago. http://www.costarica-nationalparks.com/guayabonationalmonument.html.   It is now covered in forest but at one time a huge area was cleared and paved with stone and round houses with conical thatched roofs were built in different sizes according to your status in the community. There was also a complex system of aqueducts some for water for the community and some highly filtered to produce clean water for ceremonies.

stick insect - they move surprisingly fast

We had joined Linda and her two sisters and their husbands for a tour of the site and some birding on the way round with our guide Jose. 

Beetles mating

This is possibly the weirdest thing we have seen on our travels, an ultra thin transparent worm that looked just like a fibre optic cable, it was writhing around looking very alien.

The gangs all here - Jose the guide, Carol, us, Ellen, Linda, Larry and Mike at the back.

Looking down at the remains of the two largest houses of the chief and the shamen with original entrance to the village then leading into the forest in the top end of the picture is the original paved road which went approx 16kms to surrounding village of the time.  The vast area of paving and sophisticated aqueduct system indicates this was a very important ceremonial site.

Base of the chief's house, a conical thatched roof would have been constructed on top of this.

Three ants carrying different items with a small hairy caterpillar in the background

coffee anyone?

although secondary growth the jungle at the ruins was dense

Kirt took us to a great soda (the local eating places) in the market, the food was excellent. Kirt was a friend of Linda's that she'd met in New Orleans, he guides people around the Turrialba area and did a great job of showing us the sights.

Kirt trapped inside the Soda

Yum yum, casado con huevo, casado is the name of a set lunch rice beans salad and meat or egg.

After lunch Kirt showed us a couple of waterfalls at a local coffee plantation

Lind happily strolling off trail, moments before she stopped dead when Kurt shouted "look out for snakes"

The first waterfall we visited

Not everyone was up for a swim given the weather

The waterfall where we swam-ish (more splashed about)

The waterfall was amazing and picturesque but to get in the water you had to navigate through some very pointy and slippery rocks. Our stumbling approach to the water meant it looked less like a bounty (mounds for US readers - I think we can see why that never took off in the UK!) advert and more like a couple of geriatrics - it was great once we got in though.

The waterfall was on a coffee plantation, this guy was a picking guru (Zorro) - 14 baskets to the younger lads 4 and a half.  Most of the coffee pickers are very poor Nicaraguans.