8-11 July
We flew from Los Angeles to Liberia in the northwest of Costa Rica, an uneventful 5.5 hour flight to be met by torrential rain. We were to join a small group holiday with Active Adventures. We made our own way to the Hotel Hacienda Guachipelin where we would join our group the following evening for dinner.
We spent the day relaxing, with Lynne enjoying a well-needed massage, after so many early mornings, disturbed nights and, of course, lying on the hard wooden bench at Flagstaff station.
We learned it was to be a very small group indeed – just the two of us! This had positives and negatives. It meant that we had to join much larger groups, without our guide, to participate in the adventure activities. We had been looking forward to branching out and mixing with new people, but that always brings the risk of not rubbing along well. Just each other to rub along with then!
We imagine that the Hotel Hacienda Guachepelin is a bit like an upmarket Centrparcs, set in the Rincón de La Vieja National Park.
It is surrounded by beautiful exotic plants and birds and has fire pits and a bar area to enjoy a pre-or post-prandial tipple.
We had one adventure day with horse-riding to a place on the Rio Negro where we enjoyed an exhilarating journey over 22 rapids in large tubes. After lunch we joined the Canyon Canopy Tour, which involved 9 zip lines, abseiling, rock climbing, hanging bridges and a Tarzan swing, before ending the adventure with a visit to the volcanic hot springs.
The horse-riding was a bit pedestrian (if that is the correct terminology…). Our horses always knew who was in charge! We were in a group of 20, with 3 rancheros, but there was little opportunity to do much other than enjoy the trail through the forest.
The tubing was fantastic, lots of spinning, not too much hand paddling. We tagged along with a nice group of people from Hawaii, who encouraged us, especially if we got stuck. There were sixty of us on the river, so it did get a bit crowded on slower stretches of the river, but it was really well organised. Lynne is sure she got more helpful pushes from the tubing guides on the slower patches. Peter just got grazes on his elbows from energetic paddling.
Looking over the helmeted crowd, we could see the scaffolding ahead of us. One after the other climbed up, were hitched up and sent to the abyss… No, it wasn’t the hangman – it was the first platform sending us down a steel zip-line… Readers may recall that Peter is not good in vertiginous situations. Lynne let him go first, just in case, but it all went well. He landed safely, with Lynne following shortly after.
Then, the next zip line. And another. And another… Each platform with an efficient attendant braking incoming people and dispatching the outgoing ones. Lynne even opted to abseil at one point, facing cliff side climbing to get back up.
The route started off through thick forest, but soon followed, side to side, a narrow and deep canyon with a strident river crashing along at the bottom, far below. When possible, one could admire and wonder at the wild beauty that we were making this crazy journey through.
Peter’s worst moment was perching on a top step with only a flimsy (non-supportive) string to hold onto. This was for the ‘Tarzan leap’ across the gushing gorge. Yes, he closed his eyes for this leap… Lynne found the rock climbing most strenuous; by the top ledge, she wasn’t sure if the guy on the rope was pulling her up more than she was climbing! Definitely a joint effort. At the end of it, it must be admitted, it felt wonderful for both of us.
We delayed our visit to the hot springs until 4pm, when most of the day trippers had left. That meant we enjoyed the hot springs and cool river waters pretty much by ourselves until the Hawaiian group appeared and a few others, who were staying at the hotel. We decided to give the smearing with volcanic mud a miss and only left as the pools began to empty of water, as the incoming hot spring water was turned off.
A great day! Not too many bruises, but certainly aware of some muscles.
The following day saw us undertake a challenging hike through primary and secondary forest to the Cangreja, a magnificent waterfall and lake in the deep forest. We had timed our arrival perfectly, having this beauty spot to ourselves for a decent time. The path was slippery after an early morning tropical rain storm. All three of us slipped at some point. It was quite difficult at times, especially the last part getting to the waterfall. Jimmy, our Active Adventures guide, and Peter both got attacked by army ants as we clambered over large rocks. We spent time enjoying the flora and birds before arriving back at the start 6 hours and 2 protein bars later.
Our guide, Jimmy was a wealth of knowledge on nature, history and Costa Rica’s innovative approach to tackling the environment and climate change. Lynne was pleased with his knowledge of plants. We saw two groups of white-faced monkeys face off against each other, some beautiful birds and butterflies, but no toucan.
After lunch we went for a short walk to see another stunningly beautiful waterfall, the Oropendola. This involved negotiating some ungainly hanging bridges. We chose not to take a dip as it would have been too cold. Time for a catnap before dinner! This evening we left the hotel for dinner in a local Soda (roughly translated as home eatery), which made a very pleasant change from the buffet at the hotel.
