A Hitchhiker's Guide to Tenorio National Park

Don't let the title fool you, it's just a title.
Last week saw me working away, learning how to further decipher the code of the locals, in an attempt to be able to communicate with the savages and learn their ways. I have already been accepted into one of the families here, by skinning a local and wearing it's hide. The mother treats me like one of her own.
Hahaha I hope none of them read that...
Anyhow, I had no plans for the weekend as of Thursday morning. I recently worked out a budget for myself for the remainder of my trip here, and was thinking that a weekend in San Jose would probably be pretty easy on the wallet. Especially since the long weekend is next week, and will probably be an expensive one.
But my buddy Trevor came up and asked me if I wanted to go camping on the side of a volcano instead. That kind of invitation doesn't really come along in one's life all that often, so I felt obliged to accept. Not to mention the crazy river that is present in that park that he described to me. More on that in due time.
He told me that he's got a 2-man tent, that could probably squish 3 if we could find someone else to come along. Our friend Leigh was soon talked into it as well, even though (or perhaps because the fact) she'd never been camping before. So we went on down to pequeno mundo (small world) to pick up some supplies, hit the grocery store to pick up some food for the weekend, and got everything packed up and ready to roll. I found a sweet Spider-Man sleeping bag for like 6 bucks, so I had my sleeping arrangements!
We caught the bus on Friday afternoon. We hopped on a bus bound for Upala, knowing that we need to get off in a town before that called Bijagua. Pretty uneventful ride up, but we played a game that involves coming up with random things to bring to a picnic. You have to come up with one thing for every letter of the alphabet, and repeat them in "12-days-of-Christmas" style. We had an Axe-Murderer, Barack Obama, Coombiyah Music, etc... The Ticos that knew english were giving us some really strange looks, but it sure passed the time!
We got off in the proper town, one of those "we have a main street... that's about it" kinda places. But we were able to find a cabina for the 3 of us, plus some fried chicken to eat! Next, we followed the sound of music to a bar up the street that seemed to be the only rockin joint in Bijagua. We wandered in and it was just like in the movies where the record scratches to a halt and the whole bar is sitting there staring at you. It was eerie. So we wandered up to the bar and grabbed some beer, and watched our first evening of spanish karaoke! It was freakin awesome! I was reading the screen and laughing because I could actually tell what the lyrics were saying. It's weird, but my spanish seems to get better every time I have a couple beer (I first realized this talking to Jose Alberto, the owner of Pescadito, our neighborhood watering hole).
We headed to bed early that night, since we knew we were gettin up early the next morning. Apparently, if you want to catch a taxi in Bijagua, you have to be on the street and looking by 7am. And since the park is 18km away, most of the locals definitely recommend taking a cab. So we ended up rounding one up, but he told us the trip would cost 15,000 colones (30 bucks). *Just a sidenote, this is really expensive. San Jose is a big city, but you can get around most of it for 10 bucks or so. So 30 was ridiculous.
Well we told the guy thanks, but we were gonna walk. He just smiled and kinda shook his head, and we were off. We wandered down the highway, with the knowledge that it was 6km to the dirt road, and another 12km up some sketchy roads to the actual entrance. We walked about 4 of the 6, throwing out the thumb every time a truck went by. Then one picked us up and took us to the dirt road! That was a nice little start of good luck. We then proceeded up the dirt road, and didn't get far, when that cab happened upon us. He couldn't believe we'd gotten that far that fast, so he said he'd take us the rest of the way for 5,000 colones (10 bucks). We'd done our bit to save money, so we were all over it now!
We got up to a little restaurant, and got dropped off. They told us it was another kilometer to the actual entrance, but you can't camp in the National Park so this place had a field that they let people camp in. We said thanks and told them we'd be back that afternoon. While walking along the road, we saw a calf gettin some milk from it's mother. Just thought I'd throw that in.
We signed into the park and got a little map. It showed a catarata (waterfall), a mirador (lookout point), laguna azul (blue lagoon), and some aguas termales (hot springs). Now I must tell you what is cool about this river.
It is called Rio Celeste, and it is one of the coolest natural things I've ever seen. The river starts as 2 rivers that join up in the park. Thing is, these 2 rivers have some different chemicals in them from the volcano. So when they join up, a reaction takes place and the water turns into a crazy turquoise blue! It turns from 2 clear water rivers into 1 opaque blue river. It's really wild. Just a stripe of intense blue twisting through the jungle! What can you really say to describe a place like that? The waterfall was cool, the mirador was cool, the blue lagoon was cool. The hot springs were... well, hot! Which was cool. Haha
In the middle of the park we stopped and made some peanut butter banana sandwiches, which were delicious. We also packed in some cheez-its, chocolate, dried ramen noodles, and assorted cookies and crackers. Healthy, eh? Good hiking food.
The park itself was great, there weren't many other people in there. It got busier in the afternoon at the hot springs where we spent a bunch of time, but we were the only gringos. Leigh and Trevor had a solid 2 hour nap, while I sat by the blue river in the middle of a jungle and read Animal Farm. Haha sometimes you get these moments down here where you realize where you are and what you're doing and all you can really do is just kinda smile to yourself...
We wandered back out of the park and got back to that farm/restaurant, and grabbed some brewskies. What a way to end a day like that! We set up our tent, and I noticed ominously that there was no rain leaf and if it did indeed rain, we would likely get soaked. By the way, you never start a story like that if it isn't followed with the persons involved getting soaked. And who am I to disobey unwritten (or is it written? or maybe writing) laws like that. So rest assured, we got soaked. Luckily for us, it wasn't until 6am. And they'd given us a key to one of the hostel rooms, so that we could use the bathroom there if we wanted. So after being rudely awakened by water, we holed up in the hostel room for a bit to organize all our stuff. We wandered to the restaurant, had some delicious coffee, and bundled up for the long walk back to Bijagua. I say long walk because we were down to 9,800 colones left between the 3 of us, and we were pretty sure that the bus back to San Jose cost something like 3,000 apiece. Cheers to planning!
We walked about 10km of it, the rain having died off after about a half hour of walking. At this point, we were thinking about how nice it would be to hitchhike and get back to town in time to catch the 10am bus, instead of having to wait until 3pm. Lo and behold, around the corner came a little truck! He happily took us to Bijagua, and we made it there at like 9:30. I love small town folks!
Well the bus came, and 3 tickets cost... 9,400 colones. We made it back to San Jose with 80 cents between the 3 of us. How's that for cuttin 'er close?
All in all, it was a great weekend. When we got to San Jose we hit an ATM, and made our way to Wendy's! How's that for a great end? A classic double for my classic story.

- Just a little note, because what would a ROE be without a kernel of wisdom? This weekend saw us doing a lot of improvisation. But we were pretty relaxed, and just sorta trusted that things would work out. And every time we really needed something to work out, it did. So I guess I would just say that if you find yourself in a stressful situation, just try to take a step back, and trust that everything happens for a reason. If something needs to happen, it will. (And yeah, I know as well as anyone that this is wayy easier said than done. But it's worth a shot, y'know?).



Thanks for reading!