Beer in Costa Rica is hardly something to write home about. If you're a beer connoisseur, your expectations are best kept very low indeed. The one national brewery in the country all but monopolizes the beer market, with hardly any competition from microbreweries. All of its products are rather tame to the point of being boring and are quite similar to one another.
One of very few microbreweries that we could find in the country happened to be near Lake Arenal, and on our way from Monteverde to La Fortuna (a town near the volcano and national park named Arenal). As the crow flies, the actual distance from Monteverde to La Fortuna is a mere 25km to the northeast. But the road to get there goes around the lake, which is north of Monteverde and west of La Fortuna. So, we had a scenic 3.5hr drive along winding roads.
We stopped at the Volcano Brewing Company for lunch and samplers.
Since their production is extremely limited, we couldn't even buy a case of beer but had to settle for a few overpriced bottles to enjoy over the next couple of days.
Waiting for lunch.
And on the road again. The drive was scenic, as the lake was in view for much of the way. The first half hour from Monteverde was on gravels roads, but beyond that the roads were paved again. This meant conditions were improved, but not exactly perfect. We went from things like this (note the movable posts indicating the alleged "safe" mark on an ever-eroding road)...
...to this: sure it was paved, but the canyon to the right was still caving in at an alarming rate. They were nicely extending the left side of the road for us as we waited. Of note was the fact that the entire road crew consisted of the Cat operator and the guy leaning on a sign. Nice and cheap... except I imagine they're there every week for more of the same repairs.
Also of interest were the frequent bottlenecks along the road, presumably because of natural obstacles. One direction of traffic was marked with a "CEDA" (yield) sign. This word looks a lot like the English word "cede", which is how I tended to translate it in my head. Sometimes when Reuben was driving we'd encounter such a bottleneck. If our direction had to yield but he didn't realize he had to yield, and traffic was coming from the other direction, I'd eventually be forced to start yelling "Cede! Cede!" as everyone but the driver became increasingly aware of our impending doom. Reuben would be all "What are you yelling about seeds for?!" before finally noticing that the oncoming transport truck was in fact going to be the one to win this contest if we didn't move over. I think I eventually learned to yell "yield!" but it took a while to retrain my brain.
Arenal Volcano's cone is hidden by clouds much of the time, so we didn't see much of the mountain as we drove by it toward La Fortuna. Many tourists stay for days and don't see much of the mountain at all, so we hoped we'd at least catch a glimpse during our two days there.
We arrived in La Fortuna by late afternoon and found our hotel. The main drag of La Fortuna seems to consist largely of hotels and tourism offices. Our hotel was in the middle of it, with an inner courtyard that our rooms faced and which housed a small pool. The courtyard was also their secure parking area, which, with controlled coming AND going and with three-cars-deep parking, was about as convenient as a hole in the head.
After settling in we headed to a nearby fancy restaurant, which was our most expensive meal yet (we paid first-world prices--gasp!); the food was fantastic. After that, a dip in the pool, followed by a cigar and nightcap, as was our wont.
The next morning we got up on time to drive out to our only planned outing at Arenal: a hanging bridges tour. This guided tour would provide a floor-to-canopy walk-through of the cloud forest. We were fortunate to have beautiful weather and a great view of the volcano.
The volcano was very active in the 1990s, and has had significant activity as recently as October 2010. Since then, it's been doing little more than oozing steam and gases, as seen coming from the newer right cone; that side of the mountain looks bare, while the slopes below the older left cone are noticeably greener.
The hanging bridges tour started okay, with eight tourists in our group. Our guide did a decent job at first, pointing out various plants and animals and explaining things around us. Before too long, however, the route we were following became very busy indeed. Both guided and unguided tourists follow the same narrow trail, and there were fast people trying to pass slow people (e.g., us trying unsuccessfully to gather around and listen to our guide). Then there were hanging bridges with limits as to how many people they can hold at one time, so traffic got backed up at these as people waited to cross. To top it off, many unguided tourists were talking loudly enough to scare off any potential animal sightings, so we saw very little wildlife. In the past the tour company has limited how many people can be in the reserve at a time, but if that's still the case, this limit is far too high. Tour groups should be spaced much farther apart, and the unguided ones should be told to keep it quiet for the rest of us. I blame the Germans! But to their credit, one of the Germans started singing Bavarian folk songs while we were waiting to cross a bridge, and we could imagine we were in the Alps; we had a grand old time... for the moment.
While both the entrance fee and the guide fee were overpriced, it was a nice walk through the rainforest and across wobbly bridges, with the occasional nice view of the volcano.
We did see a macaw, but it was the pet of a local, so that hardly counts.
After the tour, we asked around for a good place to swim. We were told of a swimming hole very close to town, and we headed there after lunch. It was a nice deep swimming area at the river, complete with a Tarzan swing.
Reuben enjoyed the Tarzan swing. Didn't do back flips off it like some of the loco locals though... maybe next time.
Carrie made an attempt, but she wrenched her finger in her (mostly successful) efforts to hang on to the rope long enough. Good thing she hung on, or she might have ended up with worse ailments than her currently (and likely permanently) crooked finger.
That evening, Reuben and I decided we needed to buy more cigars. Our new favourite and regular smoke, the massive one from Tabacos Exclusivos, had been a great buy back in Tamarindo, and we were running out. So we struck out on our mission while the girls hung out at the hotel. We hit up a number of touristy shops, all of which sold cigars, but generally they focused on ripping you off with overpriced Cubans.
Some clouds were rolling in, and the darker sky made for a neat contrast with what we'd enjoyed earlier in the day, from this...
...to this.
Well aware that tourist traps wouldn't be the cheapest place to buy cigars, we left the main drag to seek out less conspicuous shops. Our search caused a great thirst to ravage our throats, so we also kept an eye out for beverages. We visited the nearest grocery store--and wouldn't you know it, they were offering taste tests of a new brand of beer! We had a couple of samples and bought a can each; it was pretty run-of-the-mill Costa Rican beer, but it served to slake our thirsts. Back to the streets! Eventually a liquor store stumbled into our path, but since we couldn't bring our cracked-open beers inside, we had to hang out outside while we downed our drinks. Nothing but class.
Once inside, we learned that beer is cheaper at the grocery store! So that worked out well. On the other hand, we found the right cigars here and for a great price, so we bought a healthy stash.
Meanwhile, back at the hotel, the girls were dealing with a big problem. Like the size of a massive tour bus. Actually, the problem was a tour bus. A bus load of American school kids was taking over most of the hotel, and the bus driver was trying to park the bus in the courtyard. Our car was there, and the girls didn't have the keys. So having the bus in there would effectively prevent us from going anywhere; we planned to leave early the next morning, and the bus wasn't planning to leave until later. Carrie told the driver and the hotel guy that they couldn't park their behemoth there, as it messed up our travel plans. So after 20 minutes of incredible maneuvering to get the bus in the courtyard, they pulled out and just parked it on the main drag in front of the hotel. We win! Except the place was crawling with snot-nosed kids. Okay, they were teenagers and were surprisingly well-behaved. Plus, the next morning they ended up leaving for a day trip well before we were checked out, so things would have worked out fine anyway. But still, keep your ugly bus out of our tiny courtyard.
