Barrys Aventuras de Costa Rica: Rio Celeste

Rio Celeste

So, Costa Rica has a river named after me, or so my children think! Rio Celeste is located in Tenorio Volcano National Park, up in the mountains where it is blessedly cool and refreshing after sweating at the beach for almost 2 months. The day we arrived the weather was cloudy and misty - we had to wear long sleeves and pants!!!! It was awesome! We stopped in Liberia on the way, to pick up Geoff from the airport, as he had been gone for an entire month back in the USA. We stayed at a cute hotel in Liberia called Hotel Javy, which is run by a sweet Tica lady who speaks no English. It was awesome practice for me! She cooks great food too, if you are in Liberia alone with two kids and its getting dark and you don't want to leave for dinner.

The next morning we left for Bijagua, which is at the foot of the Tenorio Volcano. We checked in at the very cute Hotel Cacao where there was an abundance of colorful hummingbirds, butterflies and feral cats. Amara ran around trying to catch a kitten to bring home but was luckily unsuccessful. One new pet a month is probably enough! The owner of the hotel informed me that he only gets about 10 Americans per year, because most stay in the resort hotels. I would highly recommend travelling like a European and staying in this place if you want a more relaxed and authentic experience. Muy tranquilo!!! Just down the street you can walk a half a block to a great little restaurant too, and order a casada - a Costa Rican dish with fish (or meat or veggies), salad, beans, rice, and a fried plantain. Very healthy and tasty too!

The first afternoon we spent in Bijagua we went to Finca Verde, where we took a guided tour and saw sloths, sleeping bats (they are really cute!!), butterflies, frogs, snakes, and birds. Geoff also ate some termites. He says that they taste "woody". No one else felt it necessary to verify this information...

The next morning we got up early and headed up a really really slow, steep, rocky dirt road. It took us about 45 minutes to drive 11 km, but Tenorio National Park is worth it. Because of the road, there aren't a lot of tourists here, except a crazy German lady that felt obligated to bring her 3 inch heels with her to change into for a photo shoot - she was hilarious to watch! The photographer kept missing the mid-air jump so she spent a long time jumping into the air in 3 inch heels onto a slippery wet wooden deck. Entertaining indeed!

The hike through the jungle to the Rio Celeste waterfall was what I had pictured when I thought of Costa Rica before we arrived here. Dense jungle, shin deep mud, misty fresh cool air. We all loved it!!! The color of the water is the beautiful blue that reminds me of glacial-fed waters like Lake Blanca in Washington. The color here is not glacier fed, but rather a chemical mixture from underwater hot springs bubbling up from the volcano. Another "brilliant" tourist decided it would be "interesting" to stick her hand in the boiling water. You can imagine what her reaction might have been at discovering that it was indeed boiling hot water.

When the guides at the entrance to the park tell you to rent boots if you didn't bring them with you, definitely listen. They aren't joking around about the mud. :)

It was such a great mini-vacation, getting away from the heat and dusty roads of Guanacaste in the dry season. I could have spent more time sitting at the hotel just watching the hummingbirds and butterflies and wearing long sleeves!!