Costa Rica …. Costing Riva

Back in Costa Rica, we retrieved the VW Camper in Liberia and drove to Nuevo Arenal. We found a great free campground on the Northwestern shore of lake Arenal. I could have spent days there. To me, the Arenal volcano area is paradise because of its rain forests and its gorgeous fresh water lake at the foot at this pyramidal shaped volcano.

The following day we drove to the Volcano and stayed at a campground across the road from the entrance of the National Park. I wake up in the middle of the night with the enjoyable smell of guavas which grow wild in the area. At night, the volcano offers a light show; the lava comes down, dragging stones along and creating a roaming sound.

The following night, we spent at Sissy’s a noisy-cabin-campground in Fortuna.

We then drove to San Jose and slept in the airport parking lot because we had to fly early the following day to Oaxaca Mexico for a photo shoot. We took hundreds of pictures for a magazine called More for their November 2008 issue.

Back again in Costa Rica, we stayed 2 nights at the San Lorenzo de Belen trailer park and used our last days in Costa Rica to visit a bird zoo near Alajuela and to walk another trail in a rain forest near Tenorio, an active volcano. This 4 hour-trail is a real treat, apart from being a gorgeous rain forest, it offers swimming holes, waterfall, bubbling mineral springs and a unique blue-color river.

In general, our impression of Costa Rica remains the same as before; amazing nature at a steep price.