Border Run - Wrap

Rather than take the regular, more direct - and faster - main roads from Orosi to Volcán Poás, we decided to drive the back roads.  The white roads, if you will.  This turned out to be quite an adventure in itself - exactly what we wanted it to be, right?!  Small roads, in many places wide enough for only one vehicle at a time.  Small villages and beautiful views as we climbed up into the mountains southeast of the metro area.  This allowed us to skirt the traffic and congestion of downtown San Jose and enjoy the sights in the more rural parts of Costa Rica.  Well worth the effort and hair-raising hairpin turns and blind corners and steep climbs and perilous drop-offs through the mountains.  Awesome!

To share in the adventure, check out the Garmin map we captured of our drive: Orosi to Poas.

At one point we thought for sure we were off the road we had intended to take up to the volcano.  There are only a few routes up the mountain and I was pretty confident we had missed a turn or made an incorrect turn somewhere back a ways.  This was especially bad because Bex! was driving and I was map reading.  Oh well - that'll teach both of us to stray from our strengths.  

"What's that, sweetie?"  "No, no - I wasn't implying that I'm a better driver than you!"  "No, I wasn't, darling.  You are a great (ahem) driver.  Really."  "I was just stating that my inferior navigation skills aren't as mind-bogglingly amazing as yours, that's all."

Whew.

Yes, the wife was driving…

Which I was perfectly okay with...

After a while we realized that we were, in fact, on the correct road, although I was sure we had taken an alternate route than the one we intended.  Just because we were on the right road now didn't mean we hadn't taken a side road back there just a little ways.  I was sure of this.  [I was proven wrong once we reviewed the map later that day.]  It didn't really matter, though.  We were in beautiful, sunny Costa Rica on our way up the side of an active…  

Wait, what the hell?  It was raining sideways and the wind was trying to blow us off the road and tree limbs were down all over the place.  This wasn't beautiful freakin' sunny freakin' Costa Rica!  This was Kansas and I swear I saw Dorothy and Toto in a tornado!  We finally made it up the hillside to the Poás Lodge.  We forced the doors of the Bego open against the wind and leaned in enough to make it to the door of the lodge.  Holy moly.

Once inside we were greeted by Stephan and Jimmie, two of the coolest guys I've had the pleasure of meeting.  Brothers from Texas, they run the lodge and do a damn fine job of it.  Jimmie works the front and Stephan cooks amazing food in the back.  Both readily mingle with guests, offering advice on things to do, the volcano, the specials that Stephan is creating in the kitchen and much more.  These dudes are awesome!

Stephan (l) and Jimmie, proprietors of the Poás Lodge

They have connections, too, it seems.  Most bars down here have plenty of rum but scant offerings of other booze.  While their bar is one of the more well stocked ones we'd seen, I inquired about getting a shot of bourbon to enjoy with my coffee.  Stephan was so kind as to offer up his private stash, which he keeps in the kitchen.  Happened to be one of my favorite coffee pairing elixirs, too - Maker's Mark.  Like I said, these guys are great.

The lodge sits about 4 kilometers from the top of the volcano.  It's proximity to the summit was very appealing to us volcano hunters.  Clinging to the side of the mountain, great views of the central valley are the norm.  Yeah.  Except that there was a large tropical storm hitting the Caribbean side of the country and this storm was blowing up and over Poás.  The brothers told us they hadn't experienced a storm like this in all the time they'd been running the place.  High winds, heavy rain, fog.  It was pretty epic.  They accused us of bringing the bad weather.  When we told them we lived in Nicaragua, they promptly apologized.

Jimmie showed us to our room and then we settled into the storm watch.  We looked on as the flashing on the roof of a nearby building came loose and ended up somewhere down the mountain.  Amazed, we watched hummingbirds navigate in the gale force winds, hovering around the feeders in the midst of the wind and rain.  It's impressive to see a bird that weighs a couple of ounces eat from a feeder that is blowing around in circles while it pours.

The lodge has a beautiful stone fireplace which Jimmie lit up each evening to keep us warm while we got lit up.  Hunkered down on the comfy chairs close to the fire, the storm rattling the roof overhead made for a memorable evening.  It was great, actually.  And the food at this place!  Off the charts.  Being from Texas, the portions Stephan serves up are extra large.  The first night I had a vegetable stew served in what looked like a punch bowl and included garlic bread.  It was fantastic and the perfect thing for me as I shivered.  Seriously, the drastic difference in temperature up here compared to back home on Ometepe had me bundled up under blankets most of the time at the lodge.  I couldn't get warm enough.  The veggie stew helped, though.

The rooms there are amazing, too.  Big comfortable beds with down comforters, satellite TV, in-room coffee, and views down into the valley (only when the clouds broke, which was not often).  The beds reminded me of the ones at the Hotel Elliot in Astoria, Oregon.  If you've never stayed there, we highly recommend it.  But this place - the Poás Lodge:  hands down one of the more incredible places I've stayed.  And the weather sucked, so we can only imagine how much more fantastic the views would be on a clear day.  In fact, Jimmie told us you can usually see the Nicoya Peninsula and the Pacific Ocean.

You can sorta see how steep the drop is down to the valley floor

The main goal of our trip (beyond the visa run part) was to visit the volcano, of course.  We had already been denied a visit to Volcán Turrialba because it was rumbling and active.  We had a great visit to Irazú.  But, alas, Poás wasn't in the cards.  Bex! found the tourism website for Costa Rica's volcanos and they have cameras set up to monitor the craters.  Frequent checks of the Poás volcano cam showed it socked in with the storm.  It never cleared, which made us one for three on our volcano visits.  Oh well.  We were still having a blast. 

Even the cloud tinged glimpses of the view were magnificent

We sat in the lodge, watched the clouds roll across the valley, pushed along by the high winds.  Occasional quick breaks allowed us to pick out certain landmarks below.  We even ventured out the seocond day for lunch.  My travel agent found a place called Colbert's, a French restaurant.  And I mean French.  The owner is from France and his menu is stellar, as is the wine list.  We had a great lunch and a couple of glasses of good wine, plus we shared a dessert.  It was a little surreal enjoying authentic French cuisine in this tropical storm on an active volcano in Costa Rica.  Life is indeed interesting for us.

We also drove past a large ranch that we're pretty sure is owned by someone from Alaska.  Each driveway onto the expansive property had a large arched gate that had 'Alaska' spelled out over the top.  And we stopped so Bex! could snap a shot of this:

On the way back to the lodge, we decided to drive up to the entrance gate to the visitors center at the top of the volcano.  We knew we weren't going to pay the entrance fees - too damn stormy and foggy.  We just wanted to shoot a little video, just for you!

Dinner meant another great meal at the lodge that put me into a food coma, which was fine by me.  I had a burger that I could barely fit my mouth around to eat.  Any excuse to get under the covers in front of the fire, then in bed to watch TV while listening to the storm rage worked for us.  We made the brilliant decision to call Diego at the Alamo Car Rental office to extend our return time by a couple of hours, just so we wouldn't have to rush out too early the next morning.  He was great and didn't even charge us for the extra hours.  

After breakfast, we begrudgingly checked out and headed down the volcano.  We decided to go a different route back into San Jose, through Alajuela.  There was a festival and parade going through town, so we had to detour around a little to figure out how to get through Alajuela.  But with me driving and Bex! navigating, it all worked out.  See?  Strengths.

This one time, at band camp...

Stilt walkers are way cooler than color guard.

So many red knee sox

We dropped the car off, thanked Diego for the hospitality and flagged down a taxi to take us to our next hotel, this one in Barrio Amón - the Hotel Dunn Inn.  This is a boutique hotel in the heart of this trendy little neighborhood near downtown.  Great place, great bar.  We relaxed for a bit then walked out for dinner.  

Across the street from the Hotel Dunn Inn

After visiting with the Texas boys up on the volcano, we had us a hankerin' for some ribs.  We thought we'd give good ol' American BBQ a try and it did not disappoint.  JR's Ribs wasn't the best BBQ we've had but it worked well enough to fulfill the need, never mind the fact the San Jose Zoo is suspiciously right next door.

[Note:  In case you were curious, the best BBQ on earth is found just outside Austin, TX at the Salt Lick BBQ.  Don't even bother arguing this point with us.] 

For our last two nights in San Jose, we moved back to Hostel Mi Casa, both for price and convenience reasons.  Plus we just flat out liked it a lot.  There was an arts festival going on right across the street in Sabana Park, with craft vendors from all over Central America.  There was a lot of music, dancing and people.  Lots of people!  Bex! again scored us a great spot for dinner.  We went out for Italian and had amazing pizza at The Corner Pizzeria.  This place was situated in an old multi-story house, much like some restaurants and shops back home in Portland.  They also have rooms available for rent but me staying above a pizza place would be trouble.  Better to have some distance between me and the delicious pizza.  Mmmmm… pizza.

The next day we spent more time at the arts fest where we saw some really cool carnival games that were made from scrap.  You could tell the contraptions were made from spare parts from all types of machines.

Our last dinner in the big city was just a couple of blocks away - sushi!!  This restaurant is located close to the Japanese embassy, so you know it was good stuff.  We had a relaxing meal and shared a noodle dish in addition to getting our raw fish and wasabi fix.

We packed up the night before and were ready to roll.  The next day was our travel day back home to Nicaragua.  Booby did NOT want to get out of bed.

"Just ten more minutes?!  Puh-leeezz!  And close the damn curtains!"

We checked out, walked out to the main road and flagged down a cab to take us to the Tica Bus terminal.  We boarded and settled in for the loooong bus ride.  Except the trip seemed to fly by!  Before we knew it we were at the border.  Concerns that the crossing would take forever due to heavy Semana Santa traffic turned out to be unwarranted.  In fact, it was the quickest crossing yet!  Checked out of Costa Rica and into Nicaragua in 90 minutes - a record!

About thirty minutes later, we were standing on the side of the Pan American in Rivas.  We hopped a cab to Hotel La Mision, our favorite place to crash in this town, dropped our bags and hit a couple of stores and the market for supplies.  Pedro Pablo stopped by the hotel to drop off some toner cartridges we had him pick up for us.  We wandered out on the town to find dinner and ended up at Chop Suey, a very passable Chinese place in Rivas.  We shared chicken fried rice and pork chow mein.  De-lish.  A full day of travel and a good meal had us worn out so, as much as we wanted to stay up and watch 'Criminal Minds' non-stop while we had access to real live actual TV, we zonked out early.

The other errand we had asked Pedro Pablo to handle for us was to round up eye bolts and large 'S' hooks for our beautiful, hand-made-in-Masaya hammocks so we could fully enjoy the front porch of our little home.  The hammock is a mainstay in this part of the world but most folks just tie them off with rope.  Our porch isn't suited for that, so we needed hardware.  After trying to find the hardware ourselves (several attempts were made) we gave up and asked our amigo to help.  He came through - and then some.  Pedro Pablo stopped by the next morning to drop off the goods.  Of course, he couldn't find actual prefabbed eyebolts, either.  So what did he do?  He found someone to make them for us!!  Amazing and beautiful hardware, to be sure.  

We need a castle to go with this hardware

We checked out, said goodbye to the staff at La Mision 'until next time' and caught a cab to the port.  All of our gallivanting around Central America had me beat and Bex! fighting a nasty cold, so we had called our island driver, Miguel, to pick us up and get us on home.  A chicken bus ride didn't seem prudent or very exciting for either of us.

And while our border run was a welcome break, exciting and fun, an adventure in most every way, we were extremely happy to be back in Merida.

Home sweet home!!