What lonely planet doesn't know....

Greetings from the big, ugly and loud city of San Jose. Julie and I spent the night here last night in our quest to make it to the eastern side of costa rica and to finally lay our eyes on the carribean sea! Upon departing Playa Grande, we hitched a ride from our surfing instructor (who apparently does a little bit of everything.. including being a taxi) to the nearby city of Liberia. From Liberia, we caught a very crowded bus to a town called Bijauga. From Bijagua we took a cab up a windy, steep, dirt road to a little ecolodge where we instantly plopped on our beds (killed some major bugs) and read our books in silence for 2 hours. It felt great to have some alone time after 2 weeks traveling with a group of 5!

The next morning we were up early and drove about an hour to the trailhead for our much anticipated hike to Rio Celeste. The river, we had been told, had spectacular chemical properties that made the water this beautiful robin's egg blue. It sits near the base of a volcano and the volcano provides the river with tons of sulfer, colbalt, copper and possibly iron (i need to learn all the chemicals in Spanish!)

Anyway, we embarked on the hike with our driver/guide and our first stop was this gorgeous waterfall called cataras. I can't even describe the color. It looked like the Tiffany's boxes!! We weren't able to swim at the first stop because apparently someone died once jumping off the waterfall. We also saw a sloth on our way to waterfall number 1! They really do move impossibly slow. It was super cool!

Next, we came upon these unbelievable pools of water. Most were cold but one in the corner was a natural volcanic hot spring and different sections of it were hotter than others depending on how close we were to the source. Julie and I jumped into the cold pool first (really not that cold) and then made our way up to the hot one, back to the cold and then out. The water was also stunning!

Next we saw the final "Laguna Azul" which was more stagnant than the other water but made the color that much more amazing. This final pool was more like a bay and the water was so still. We also got to see the exact location where the river turns from brown/brackish to bright bright blue. The photos are amazing! I will post when I get home (which is in a week by the way!)

We then hopped on a local bus (only white kids on it!) to San Jose. It was 5 hours long and we were definitely ready for our fancy hotel when we arrived last night. We even split a cheeseburger. Now we are off to the carribean. It's supposed to be really rastafarian.. .I am excited! more later :)

Also, send me your address if you have not yet done it!