Ah Trini Travelogue Trinidad & Tobago's most travelled blogger through 99 countries. Create and Re-Engineer your life for travel.
After my long journey with the delay to get to San Jose, my luggage was delayed. Now you would think that I would a bit pissed about this, since I was delayed coming and then Continental delayed my luggage. However the customer service agents were so friendly, they offered vouchers, let me use their phones to call Lev (US Number in CR) and helped me find Wi-Fi in the airport.
In the end, Lev and I met up, watched Ghana choke on penalty kicks at some rather sketchy gas station while the rental was being taken care of then proceeded on our drive to Arenal.
Costa Rica seems like any other tropical country to me. The houses are the same style, the roads are just as terrible and there were accidents in the rain … including one three car pile up we passed on the highway.
After about 2 1/2 hours of driving .. Lev and I ended up at a restaurant called the “Pink Pork Restaurant and Bar” … And we were trying to figure out whether the the restaurant was named after our waitress who was the shortest little thing with the tightest little pants encompassing a chubby little body… Or because they had a pink pork taco platter. How wrong is … A platter of pink tacos … So wrong!
We ended up ordering – a couple of Imperials and ordered the pink taco platter … Ok… Not really. We went with the fajitas and salad.
After getting lost for a bit and then finding the Arenal Lodge, (if you have to drive in the middle night, in the jungle without lights, it can be a bit off putting) was a bit of a trek but the place is amazing. We had an amazing chateau for 119$ (ridiculously well valued) with a great viewing area and beautiful glasstop table and 4 chairs. Nothing like eating on your own patio and watching the volcano (or the wildlife) in Costa Rica.
There wasn’t much TV (who cares about that anyway) but the internet in the lobby was very good and fast. From reviews it seems that the lodge is not the best in the area … who cares! I would much rather a phenomenal view, the option of eating/cooking in the room rather than bad restaurant food which is overpriced than staying at a very expensive lodge which we can’t afford or a cramped room and searching for food 3 times a day.
After checking in … Lev and I headed down for dinner … where it so happened that we ran into the owner and manager in the corner bar … needless to say … against the power of the Russian and the Trini … our Costa Rican hosts were drinking bottles of Russian Standard Vodka and mixing Caipirinhas for us. Three hours later … the owner asked to buy my iPad for a tidy little profit.
[smugmug url=”http://rishiray.smugmug.com/hack/feed.mg?Type=gallery&Data=12786733_W8M7Y&format=rss200″ title=”Arenal” imagecount=”10″ start=”1″ num=”10″ thumbsize=”Th” link=”smugmug” captions=”false” sort=”false” window=”true” smugmug=”true” size=”M”][
