Rio Frio Cruise

Orange groves along the way to the Rio Frio

View of Arenal volcano from my hotel room

Now that we are in lower land in La Fortuna, at the base of the Arenal volcano we've moved into a new crop growing region. Rather than coffee up in the higher elevations its a vast variety of fruit. We've passed pineapple fields, papaya fields, sugar cane, oranges, mangoes and mangas (mangas are the supersized version of mangoes). The the three biggest crops they grow with the best bang for the export dollar are pineapple, bananas and coffee. We didn't see too many banana fields, but there were banana plants tucked around a lot of properties we visited. Coffee plantations tend to grow a lot because the banana and coffee plants complement each other in the soil I believe. They had huge papaya tree farms, and we learned that you have to pick the papaya while they're green otherwise the birds will feast and you have no crop to export. I was also amused that of all the fruit they grow papaya was the one that was regularly on our buffet lines. Costa Rica has been growing increasingly larger quantities of pineapple due to Hawaii slowing down production. And you can grow a lot on in a small space so it's a good crop for Costa Rica.

In the early years the government used to give land away to young married couples. You would get a 99 year lease, the catch was that you had to grow coffee for the 99 years and then after that anything you wanted. So it was a couple generations that had to farm but afterwards the land was yours. They did supply them with beans and harvesting equipment. As well the government would buy the coffee beans. So the only stress the coffee farmers really had was literally just growing the beans.

They also grow an impressive amount of sugarcane. We had a few traffic delays with the farmers taking the sugarcane to the mill. And as with the coffee harvest, they also bring in Nicaraguans to harvest sugar cane. Something like 20,000 workers will come in. I'm not sure how much they get paid, but snake wrangling is part of the job. They do have giant machetes they use to cut the sugarcane so they do have a quick way to solve the poisonous snake problem. They do protect the snake that isn't poisonous and kills all the other ones. And in an attempt to become far more environmentally friendly they've stopped burning the fields post harvest. Snakes are the biggest reason for that, but the problem is that many other animals can't get out fast enough either. I wouldn't want to be a sugarcane harvester!

Daycare kids waving, they were incredibly excited

We did pass a sugarcane mill, oddly enough everything is open to the road and you can see the entire process while parked. So our guide gave us a quick little lesson on what happens. And they are really good with using everything that comes out of the mill, aside from the sugar. There is a remnant powder that is left over after the processing is finished, and instead of wasting it they turn it into a fertilizer, and it is incredibly high in nutrients. Good for coffee plants. The strangest part of the tour is that next door they have a daycare for the younger kids who aren't old enough for school to go while their parents are working. And sure enough, they all came running out and waved at us like we were royalty. It was strange but amusing.

Bird on the cruise, can't remember which one

Today's big excitement was an amazing river cruise on the Rio Frio this morning. We saw a wide variety of wildlife, including howler monkeys, turtles, caimans (which are smaller crocodiles), bats and a crazy amount of birds. It was really relaxing to just cruise up and down the river while waiting see to some animals. The river wasn't what I'm used to here. It's a far smaller, and dirtier river. Not polluted, but really murky.

At the Nicaragua border with both countries flags

We went all the way up to Nicaragua, and as a tourist thing, we actually went into Nicaragua and then got to take our pictures while we were on the border. They did have a big sign letting you know that you've entered the country. Along with the visit to Nicaragua, we learned about the tumultuous relationship between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. They've been mostly peaceful, which is a bonus seeing as how Costa Rica shut down their army in 1948. Instead they sent that money into the education and health care budgets. So they have a highly educated population and agreements with other countries for military forces. Like the agreement with the States. I think they'll be fine without an actual army. The latest skirmish is due to an error on a map by Google maps. Nicaragua decided that if Google said it was true then it must be and just tried to take a corner away from Costa Rica. Rather than start a war they are using the international courts and are waiting to see what will happen.

Baldi hot springs, with some of the waterfalls
in the back

After the river cruise we went to the Baldi hot springs. I will say this, hot springs are a little more enjoyable when it isn't almost 30 above. That's not to say they weren't enjoyable, but I did spend some time reading in the sun rather than in the pools. They have an interesting system here. They have a few dozen different pools in different temperatures. Hotter at the top and cooler at the bottom. And they all continuously flow from top to bottom so the water is always fresh and clean. It was just interesting to see how by moving the water they could cool it down a little bit. And they even had staircases in the pools between the different levels, so you didn't have to get out! There was a lot of really nice landscaping with all the tropical plants. And they had swim up bars. They also had a few waterslides but Paul warned us against the slides half a dozen times as there have been some impressive injuries on them apparently. Maybe this is why there is slide patrol at the waterpark at West Ed Mall. These ones are a free for all, no supervision.

Monkey from the cruise

Have I spoken of money yet? So the Costa Ricans use colones. As with the entire planet except the US, they have fun colored money that is easy to tell apart. The only catch is that it is virtually worthless. If you doubled the colones that is how much US money it would cost. You could get 420 colones for one Canadian dollar. They also have coins, Paul joked that you could probably get more for them selling them for the metal at home than using then in Costa Rica. It's worse than here, at least here when your wallet is heavy you probably have 20 bucks in there! I'm assuming that because of the tourism, they do accept US dollars most everywhere. Chances are good you'll get change in colones, but they do take US dollars.

Arenal during the day, you can even see the top

I didn't get much of a chance to check out La Fortuna. The hotel was right on the edge of town and it was a bit of a walk to get into town. And like clockwork everyday, sun is up at 6 and down at 6. So there wasn't as much daylight as I would like in the afternoons to wander around. But the town is quite small as are most of the towns in Costa Rica. The best part of the hotel is that we were right at the base of Arenal volcano. And it was pretty clear at the top so we did see most of it. You can hike the volcano, but it's fairly dangerous because of all the junk the volcano has spit out during previous eruptions. It was erupting fairly regularly up until 2010 and the trails are a mix of gravel and ash, which are hard to walk through. So for the most part you just admire it from the road.

Tomorrow we head south for Guanacaste and hit the hanging bridges along the way.