Rio Celeste

This morning, I left my apartment in the dark at 5am to go on a day trip to Rio Celeste. I had a guide named Michael who picked me up and took me on the 2.5 hour road trip. He was young, but super nice and did a really good job with the trip. He asked me if I wanted to speak in Spanish or English. I chose Spanish, so I essentially got free Spanish lessons all day. It was really good practice.

Rio Celeste is a famous national park in Costa Rica because the water is a beautiful turquoise blue color. There is aluminum in the water that reflects the sun and gives the water color. It was cloudy today, so the water wasn’t as bright as it is in sunny weather, but the river and waterfall are in a cloud forest so sunshine is hit and miss. There is a lovely trail going to the waterfall, then more trails that take you through the forest. It was a pretty good hike. There is a long staircase going down to the waterfall. Once you’ve taken pictures, you have to go back up. There were stairs in other places too.

Rio Celeste is in Tenorio Volcano National Part. The waterfall is on the volcano and there are three volcanos in the area. There is another river that runs into Rio Celeste, and it bubbles in places with heat and sulfuric gas that come out of the ground. It’s a beautiful area, but it smells pretty strongly in places like rotten eggs because of the sulfur. The picture below shows the point where the two rivers converge. You can see the color change between the clear, sulfuric water and the aluminum water.

There were quite a few people out hiking the trails today. A lot of people from San Jose, the capital, bring their families. It’s an inexpensive way to visit a natural area. I also met a French guy who took a picture of me with my guide, so I got to practice a bit of French. The only draw back to this area is the bugs. There is a variety of insect that my guide called chiggers. They aren’t like chiggers in the US. They are more like large gnats. When they bite, they take a chunk out of your skin and leave you bleeding. Fortunately, my guide had some bug spray that worked really well, but I was bleeding in several places before I got it sprayed on.

After we left the park, we drove around the area looking for animals. There’s a lot of wildlife diversity in the area. We didn’t see any animals, but it’s a beautiful area with striking geography. You are surrounded by three huge volcanos covered in vegetation. Along the way, we came across a Rainbow Eucalyptus tree. I had seen pictures of these, but I had never seen an actual tree and I didn’t know they grew in Costa Rica. They are amazing! They hardly look real! I couldn’t get a good picture of the one I saw, but I’m posting an internet picture below.

For lunch, my guide took me to a fantastic, family-owned restaurant. It was an open air restaurant in a forested area and there was a small trail behind the restaurant. I had a traditional Costa Rican dish called a Casado. I ordered mine with fish but you can get other meat, usually chicken. It’s beans, rice, meat, salad, fried plantains and Costa Rican cheese. It was delicious! I don’t usually like fried plantains, but even these were good. The region we were in specializes in raising tilapia and dairy cows. So the fish was fresh and the cheese was made in the region with milk from local cows. I don’t know how to explain Costa Rican cheese. It’s good, has a mild flavor, but is a little rubbery. Picture is below.

My guide had been looking for sloths during our drive. This region of Costa Rica has a lot of sloths but they are hard to see. They are basically little gray fur balls that curl around gray trees. On the way home, on the side of a busy road, my guide spotted one. I have no idea how he saw it high up in a tree while driving the car. It was impressive. We pulled off the road in front of a run down house with a sort of run down looking guy with no shirt on out front. He started waiving at us, and we weren’t initially sure whether he was friendly or not. He ran into get a really dirty shirt, while I took the binoculars to look at the three toed sloth. When he came back out, he invited us into the yard because there was another sloth lower in a tree with a baby. She was all curled around the baby, so I couldn’t see the baby or get a good picture but it was cute. The owner of the junk-filled yard then offered to give us a tour of his property because sometimes there are toucans in the area. He had a small dirt path behind the house that ran beside a river. We carefully avoided the cow maneur, climbed under a barbed wire fence and entered a small wooded area. I didn’t understand most of this guys Spanish. I’m pretty sure he wasn’t speaking well-educated Spanish that you learn in school, but he was really proud of his trail by the river and his small wooded spot. He likes to fish in the river in the evening. He seemed mostly lonely and was happy to have people to talk to and appreciate a place he loves. It was nice of him to invite us and I appreciated the tour. I also love sloths!

I made it back to my apartment around 4pm. I was messy, covered in bug spray and bug bites, so I decided to go swim for a little while. I think the salt water helps with bug bites. The ocean was really choppy today with sizable waves. It’s fun to be in the water with waves rolling in, but it makes for rough swimming. You have to decide quickly whether to jump above the wave or dive under. Otherwise, you get water up your nose. When I got back, my landlady brought me a box of strawberries grown by someone she knows. That will be part of my breakfast.

Tomorrow is the last activity I have planned. I’m going dolphin watching and snorkeling again. Hopefully the water will be calm enough for snorkeling. I’m posting pictures below. There are several, so I’m going to try doing a slideshow this time.