A walk in the clouds - Costa Rica Day 3

The previous post on this series is here..

On Day 3, we started from the Arenal Paraiso resort to the Arenal Volcano National park. We were part of a 15 people group, 8 in our group, a family of three from Los Gatos and a family of four from New Jersey.. the entire group was Desi! 

We had a great tour guide from Desafio who gave us the first sloth sighting.. It was right there and we didn't see it at first. It doesn't move much, which is the specialty! This was shot with the 70-200mm with a 2x extender using San's head as the tripod.

Later we learned that there was a sloth sleeping on the heater in Arenal Paraiso resort in one of the rooms and had not moved for two days!

We were completely soaked as we walked on the hanging bridges. Some of these are suspension bridges which makes taking photos and videos challenging. I almost lost the phone at one point! The views are spectacular..

San spotted an ant eater walking past which was amazing. We also saw a lot of sleeping butterflies, tarantulas, spiders inside their holes and other insect species as well as some really pretty birds that I cannot name. 

One thing Costa Rica is famous for is the hummingbird species. I saw a lot of different ones with purple and green hues that we don't normally see in the west coast, but could not capture them in the rain. 

The highlight of this walk was the Arenal falls within the park.

Then we went on a short drive to the 1968 volcano tour. We get to climb a vista point which commemorates the destruction from 1968 eruption all the way to 2010 when they lost two villages and 80 people. There is no activity other than hot springs now, but the desolation is there as well as the new plants that have already grown in 9 years! Life finds a way!

After this we were treated to a really nice Lunch in Fortuna town at Desafio's local kitchen. It was spacious, well done and the banana chips were out of the world. I ate probably 1/2 kg of chips in one hour there and took some to go in my hand and the guide annouced that the next stop was the La Fortuna falls, where we could go down and take a dip in the falls if it was allowed. 

I was kind of pissed that with a full stomach, it is hard to take a dip in cold water.. but did it anyways.

The area directly below the falls was off limits as the current was too strong, but they let us in the area 100 feet from the base. It was chilly, but once I got in, had no mind to come out of the water. It was refreshing. The only thing that would have made this better was if we did the falls first and ate afterwards. A good hot cocoa (they have really good hot cocoa in Costa Rica) after that dip would have been great!

We were then off to the resort. It was going to be our last chance to sit in the hot springs again and so we did. Then a dinner where we watched the guy pour fire on to a volcano cake! It was interesting.. it was lights out fast as we had a very busy day 4 planned.

A short video of day 3..

A tip to people who go to the hot springs.. go to the one at the very top. It is the hottest. The water just keeps flowing from pool to pool and the lower the pool, colder it gets. 

Would definitely recommend the Arenal Paraiso as a place to stay in Arenal. It is farthest from the town, but you don't even have to leave the premises. The hot spring is right there, the food is great. San and Padma picked a winner with this one! I jokingly called it "namma malai adivaaraththu chinna kudisai" (our small hut in the base of the mountain).. 

Have two more days to finish the posts...

Wrapping up 2019- A trip to Costa Rica

We wrapped up 2019 with an amazing trip to Costa Rica with friends. San and Padma got this trip with an amazing tour company called Desafio. United and my 1K status got us there. Given the chances of getting tickets during the break, we left on Christmas morning and came back on New Years.

The entire Christmas day was spent in traveling to San Jose, Costa Rica. We got to a local hotel 10 minutes from the airport and promptly dozed off. The next morning we had a nice breakfast at the hotel and a van took all eight of us to the first stop, La Paz waterfalls and butterfly garden. Our first photo session outside the hotel in San Jose. My refurbished 5D Mark ii has officially turned 10 years old. It is showing signs of strain just as I am showing signs of strain lugging it around! This was taken on the iPhone 11, which came in quite handy for many a rainy day. 

It was raining heavily and we were given an hour to 90 minutes before the next drive. So we made the falls the priority instead of all the other exhibits there. We did a quick run through the butterflies but skipped the reptiles, hummingbirds and wild cats etc. Given the communication barrier with the driver, we did not know that we could have spent more time.

This one is a Blue Morpho butterfly.. you can see the blue through the cut in its wings. I could not get a single shot of this one in any butterfly garden to show the blue side. There may be a video somewhere.. it is an amazing butteflly the size of my palm, but it flies real fast. 

big butterfly, big caterpillar....

 

I did not get what they were doing with the coccoons hung like this on a line...will have to find out!

We made a dash for the falls, all 5 of them and got soaked from the rain and the mist. This was our first intro to the rain forest in Costa Rica. Rain from the outside, sweat from the inside.. a poncho to cover the camera that made things awkward. The pictures and video will show you what it was like... It was a good intro that prepped us for what was to come.

After hiking through all 5 falls (climbing back up to the exit is not trivial and pretty steep), we were picked up by a shuttle bus from the La Paz fountain to the parking lot. That bus took 30 minutes to show up. Eventually we drove back in our van through that exact same pick up point. If only we had known, we would have asked the driver to just meet us down there and saved ourselves 30 minutes. The three kids in the Van who were learning Spanish in school kept freezing up when we asked them to talk to the driver!!! I gave the little one a lecture on "skills" vs. "grades" which did not go well.  Jr. escaped because she has been on Mandarin for the last 3 1/2 years. Her turn will come when I ask her to translate. 

Where were we? The drive to the next stop, Serapiqui river white water rafting. We got to a rest stop 20 minutes from the river, which was the last restroom on the route. Do NOT skip this. Get some fresh water, take the minute, change into wet clothes and wet shoes. You can thank me later.

Once you go to the river, there is you, the helmet, lifejacket and paddle. A quick lesson and you are off on the rapids. The river had amazing local birds large and small everywhere! The older girls and the two men got the brunt of the river on either raft. It was an amazing experience.

After what seemed like an entire day on the river going through rapids named ay caramaba, ouch, etc., we got to haul the rubber dinghy up the bank. They had towels for us and a shower area and once done, were fed a really nice fresh made lunch by the local Desafio team. There was a photographer on a kayak who was ahead of us and he showed us the pictures. We loved it and bought them (you still need to edit them and these are .jpg not .raw, but great starting points). 

did not know I was taking the wettest seat in the boat... the funny thing is San always knows where the camera is, even on that rapid to smile!!! Amazing camera awareness, while I was practically underwater..

I skipped the egg and the avocado.. there was no shortage of vegetarian food in Costa Rica.  A lot of folks there are vegetarian and sugar conscious and there seems to be no obesity there yet. There is banana in everything. The banana chips (actually nendranga chips here are amazing.. true Kerala feel). Hope it stays that way.

We said bye to the rafting team and started driving to Arenal Volcano. It was a long drive and given most people were sore from the rafting, it was a quiet trip.

We saw some Coatis that were being fed by someone from a car. It clearly said do not feed animals in the route. Felt bad for these creatures. Once they get used to food from cars, they are on a downward spiral..

 

Once we reached Arenal Paraiso resort, we realized that there was no point in trying to go out anywhere for the night. They had the hot springs right there, so we put our bags in the room and sat in the springs for an hour.

Then they had dinner served in the restaurant right in the resort. A full vegetarian dinner with icecream and Chocolate cake! 

Day 2 (or rather day 1 of actual touring) was hectic and fun. 

On a side note, the only time we saw the volcano was when we checked into the rooms and were about to go to the hot springs. It was almost sunset and the coulds were moving fast. The entire next day, it was raining and foggy to the point that the volcano was not visible at all. Was glad to have these pictures..

Given this is the first post in this series, would strongly recommend Desafio and United Airlines if you are planning a trip to Costa Rica. Most of the drivers and guides from Desafio speak English and are very courteous and everyone shows up on the dot. 

Day 3 post when I get done with editing photos and videos.. it pretty much took me all day to do this blog post and get the pictures and video. It is my sincere hope that friends and family will find this useful when they make plans to visit Costa Rica.

Creature comforts...

There are a lot of critters that show up on any lazy day in Chennai even when we are on the 2nd floor (3rd floor if you count G by US standards).

Captured a few just sitting in same position in and around.. Not mentioned are the videos of mosquito and pidgeons in the exhaust fan.. one was nightmare material and the other one did not make for a good video..

The crow feeding is still on. I gave the crow some Digestive Marie biscuits which had gotten kind of soft after the temple trip to Gunaseelam. The Crow gave it a disapproving look given it is used to some fresh rice with dal and ghee.. eventually it took it. Maybe it exchanged that for something else.. who knows! 

There were three lizzards that were constantly circling me to catch flies and mosquitoes. I had named them Lizzie, Libby and baby lizzie on the July trip to annoy my kids. They would run everytime they saw the lizzards. This is not something you see in the US but as kids we coexisted with them.. in fact there was a section on the Almanac (Panchangam) that would give you a forecast for what to expect that day depending on where the lizzard fell on you from the ceiling.. head meant something, leg meant something etc... don't remember those off the top of my head, given there are no house lizzards here..

Not sure if coloring the chicks is a good idea. Saw that at a pet store near Kabali kovil. Apparently they are a favorite among kids. Guess the color wears off in a few days.

It was a one week visit to take care of things and spend some quiet time with my parents.. but given my nature, had to convert those silent moments on the chair to capturing crows, squirrels and lizzards.. 

Temple Gopurams

In an 8 day trip to Chennai, I sure got to visit temples every day. This time I took the time to smell the roses.. err photograph the Gopurams without being in any rush. 

It is always good to go on a trip without a timetable..

The best part was the visits were after it had just stopped raining for a brief period or when it was still drizzling. So that made the colors vibrant. 

Visited 7 temples, some with big gopurams, some small.. here is a collection..

The Kapaleeshwar temple..

The Parthasarathy kovil, where my parents were engaged!!! I got to hear both my parents version of the story for the jillionth time on the visit.. I think San and me tell the story of how we met in Kapali temple as often to our kids.... we are slowly turning into a version of them..

Valleswarar kovil, which is my mothers favorite as they used to live in TSV Kovil street, literally 100 feet away..

There is a lot of detail on the big gopurams..

many stories told in these..

births, deaths, marriages..

There are small gopurams for each deity which have their own thing going..

Then there are these colored statues that deck the halls..it is possible that the entire thing was painted at one point.. 

Then there are these little statues at the corner of the roofs..be it conch blowing men or women or white bulls.. they add a little touch whenever you look up..

The rear entrance gopurams are not as grand, but still are interesting..

The decorations for the cowshed...

and a last picture of the temple main gopurams back facade after rains.

This time saw more people with Canon SLR's than Nikons.. Guess Canon is getting bigger in India.. not that it has anything to do with the post topic. Had not taken my 5D on this trip.. so all pictures you see from the India trip were taken on the iPhone 11 Max (some of them with the 0.5 or wide angle lens) and edited on Snapseed app on the phone. 

The best camera is the one you can get access to! 

I really wish they would dismantle all these sheds with the blue coverings in the temple that have been put up recently. spoils the beauty of it and makes for an eyesore. They also keep filling the gaps in the stones with cement which clogs up the natural drainage that was set up 100's of years ago.. the temple floods at the first hint of rain. Sometimes new technology when applied without understanding to ancient temples which already had been well thought out, backfires! 

I see 700 hundred year old stone walls and floors intact while the structures built with bricks and cement 30 years ago is crumbling.. better to leave the old temples the way they were.

They will outlast all of us... they should! Our kids and their kids deserve to play in the same halls and with the elephants the way we did.. 

Kabalicats

As a kid, I remember seeing peacocks and peahens, some turkeys, cows and calf and a lot of parrots and sparrows in the Kapaleeshwar temple.

There was an occasional cat. 

Today the situation is different. There are two turkeys and a lot of cats.. literally it has become a cat temple! 

The little one loves cats but given my allergies she is not allowed to bring any into the house. So this post is for her.. 

Don't think any of them like to be pet though!

It is one thing for Poonai to drink paal.. another thing for it to eat parle-G!

sometimes the most photogenic ones are the most difficult to get on camera.. this one did not want to be photographed.. eventually stayed and looked at camera!

same cat.. different day.. 

and I know this was about the cats.. but the cows get an honorable mention on this post..

the calf from the July blog post is probably grown up already?! could not spot it in the Goshala..

Also took a lot of photographs of the gopurams.. will post those now that the laptop is back to working..