saltwatersteve.com/travel

Again I woke up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. This time I was coughing up nasty stuff so when we woke up at 3:30 I decided it was time to start the antibiotics because I was pretty sure I now had bronchitis. This, along with some inhaler and we were good. Meghan and I checked playa naranjo for baby tortugas, but nada. We packed up the rest of our gear, grabbed a couple of clif bars and we hit the trail at 5. We rationed the water pretty well, it was crazy hot and uphill the whole way - but at least we knew it was going to be. When we got to the river we bushwhacked about 100ft into the jungle to the north so we could try to keep Meghan’s boots dry. Her boots had gotten soggy on the way in. We stopped several times along the way to catch our breath and sip our aguas. The antibiotics seemed to already be helping with my lungs. During the hike, I had these wild fantasies of chugging gallons of gatorade, while Meghan wanted a foot massage. We finally got back to the car, started it up, and sat in the Air Conditioning for 10 mins or so. Then we drove to talk to the ranger at the main gate to tell her about the crazy (since they had no water) old european people we saw on our way back uphill. Then, as they say, we got the f**k out of dodge. La policia stopped us at a roadblock where they were looking for arms smugglers. We stopped in Liberia for some gas and powerade - no gatorade and some wood fired oven pizza at Pizzeria da Beppe.  We inhaled it.  We made the call to go down to the Arenal area, so Meghan drove and I was on navigation duty. That meant a trip back down the CA1 for a while, then a left at Canas to follow the most potholed paved road we had been on yet. The drive was pretty, saw some wind power turbines at the east end of Lake Arenal. When we got to Nuevo Arenal, we asked around for a doctor but since it was after three we would have to go to his house. We were told to do this by an old woman, so we did, and he refused to see us.  I drove from this point to the Arenal Lodge, which has a great view of the volcano and jardines hermosas. $80 a night though for a room! The room was super nice though, fresh flowers and a little perro made out of towels waited for us every afternoon. At dusk came an amazingly loud cacaphony of animal noises. We ate dinner in their restaurant - the food was expensive and of mediocre quality.