Don’t go chasing waterfalls

We were up a little bit before the sun this morning as we had a two hour drive to the Bojas del Toro Catarata (waterfall). It’s billed as the tallest falls in Costa Rica. We’d read that the roads were quite narrow and winding with crazy steep pitch. We figured if we could get an early start we could minimize frequency of us having to deal with oncoming traffic on the way. We rolled out of bed around 5:30AM and caught a spectacular sunrise.

Then we had coffee, scarfed down some yogurt with granola, and were on the road at about 6:05AM to make the trek outlined on the map below.

Today I learned an important lesson about driving in Costa Rica. The lesson is: Downshift on steep grades! The grades are so steep here that if you leave your automatic transmission in Drive you can end up riding the brakes long enough that they start to get hot and lose performance. The brakes on our car have been perfectly fine up to this point, but toward the bottom of the long steep grade to get us to the park we were coming up on a hairpin turn and I pushed the brakes all the way to the floor trying to reduce speed (from about 7 mph to about 3 mph) with negligible results. I was able to pump the brakes to get the car stopped. If there’d been oncoming traffic at that point I would have needed new underwear. I’d been on the brakes for maybe 15 minutes straight at that point to get from the top of the mountain to the valley. For the rest of the day we took descents in either first or second gear depending on the speed and quality of the road and let the gearing govern our top end speed keeping the brakes cool and working just fine. In this case the lesson did not come at great expense, but it was scary nonetheless.

We made it safely to the Bajos del Toro entry at exactly 8AM. We were the first visitors of the day. A funny thing about Costa Rica is that at public attractions there always seems to be a guy telling you where to park. And if you park yourself without their direction they will motion you to make an arbitrary adjustment. At the Zoo yesterday, I parked between two white lines and according to the parking attendant I was 2 centimeters too close to the line on the right side. Today at Bajos del Toro we were literally the only car in a grass field and as I was exiting the vehicle the parking attendant had me pull forward 2 feet. It’s puzzling, but maybe it’s a part of the full employment effort in Costa Rica. There’s no tourist shakedown involved and they’re not looking for a tip. The attendants appear to be employees of the establishment whose job it is to keep the parking neat and tidy. Be that as it may, we got ourselves sorted and went to the administration building to pay our park entry fee, which was $10 US for each of us. In exchange for our $20 we each got nightclub-style hand stamps and, best I can tell with my limited Spanish, an admonition to not horse around on the hanging bridge.

We set off and the three resident dogs trotted along with us. Two of the three dogs stayed with us for the entire trek. When I die I think I’d like to come back as one of the Bojas del Toro dogs. I have to say that the Bojas del Toro experience rivals the prettiest landscape I’ve ever seen (and I’ve been to New Zealand). The drive in was stunning. The hike to the falls was through temperate rain forest with 200 foot trees and then through mountain meadows. And the falls, hidden until the last moment, were a breathtaking surprise. Plus the water has a similar rock flour appearance to the rivers in New Zealand, which reminds me of all things Lockerd.

Jill and I crossed the hanging bridge keeping regular order and set off for the falls.

We both kept marveling at the beauty of the park.
I’m not making this up… At one point Jill spontaneously declared that she was Maria in The Sound of Music and started spinning around with her arms out on one of the vistas.

Totally worth the 2 hour drive each way! The hike to the major falls may be a little strenuous for some of our vistors, but we will take any of our guests who are up for it.

By the time we got back to Atenas it was lunch time and we were both famished. Exploring new lands is hungry work. We decided to go to Kay’s Gringo Postres for a comfort food lunch. Kay’s is run by Anya who is from Poland by way of Toronto and she serves up delicious American and Polish fare. Jill had a cheeseburger and fries and I had a “Hungarian Pancake”, which was basically a beef stew torta topped with sour cream. It was so good I even ate the beet salad that came with it. Those who know me know that I detest beets, but this preparation was actually quite delicous. We chatted with Anya for a little while after lunch and promised to bring the big Praisners by for a pierogi and galumpki lunch when they are in town. Total cost for lunch was 9,500 colones, just under $16. A far sight better than our crappy $80 lunch yesterday!

We made it back to our house right around 1PM, feeling like we’d already had a full day. I made afternoon coffee for us and started on this update, while Jill wrestled with getting today’s photos uploaded to Google Photos. We’ll both be glad when Jackie gets here with the Google WiFi mesh network gear. Then maybe we won’t have to stand in the garage and hold our phones up to the ceiling to connect 🙂

One final research note… I figured out what common American houseplant the ubiquitous living fenceposts are.
They are Corn Plants (Dracaena Massangeana)

 

Time for happy hour with some of Jill’s new signature pico de gallo and chips. And maybe a gin and tonic…