Friday March 7, 2014
We thought we would sleep late after such a long day on Thursday, but the sun was up before 6 am, and we didn’t sleep much later. Jody put out breakfast for us which involved cinnamon bread, lots of fresh tropical fruit, yogurt, quiche, meat pastries, cereal and pancakes. After we ate, we swam in the attractive pool on the premises for a while – the day was already quite hot and sunny. We were the only guests at Casa Marin that morning. The kids played with Jody’s dogs while we packed up, and around 11 am we left by van with Wilson.
The drive to the Treehouses Hotel took 2 hours over narrow, winding, mountainous roads. We climbed quite a bit out of the San Jose valley. The scenery along the way was interesting – lots of farmland, small towns, roadside merchants, kids in school uniforms, etc. We knew we were getting close when we started to see signs advertising restaurants and hotels and canopy experiences. Wilson pulled over, and pointed out three large iguanas sunning themselves in a tree. It was very hot by then – the forecast had said 95 degrees. Wilson said it was only another 5 minutes to our hotel, so we climbed back in and finished the trip.
We arrived at the Treehouses Hotel, and checked into the Sloth treehouse.
We settled in and then agreed we were all hungry, so we walked over to the nearest restaurant – Lomas del Mapache.
The walk did not take more than 5-10 minutes, but we walked on the very narrow shoulder of the narrow, twisty, turny highway. This is the norm here, but it was a bit unnerving, especially with kids, and I would not do it after dark. The restaurant was pricier than we’d expected ($50 for lunch for the 4 of us, and we had a lot to learn about ordering because it was way too much food), but the food was quite good and it was in a fun little open-air building with a stunning and cloudless view of the Arenal volcano in the distance. (Little did I know at this point that ALL of our dining would be in open-air buildings!) Lunch also included yummy Costa Rican ‘batido’ fruit drinks.
Back at Treehouses, we had planned to hike to the property’s small waterfall and swimming hole, but were told that the swimming hole was undergoing some construction and that, being dry season, there was no waterfall. Instead, we hiked about 3 km down to a river where there was some fun swimming in a swift, but still suitable for the kids, current. On the way down we heard our first howler monkey, but we never did see him. The river was a lovely idyllic spot and we had a great time cooling off from the hot day there.
We got back up to Treehouses just as it was getting dark. The kids were quite eager to get back, as the Sloth treehouse has a colony of bats that roost on the porch roof, and we’d been told we could see them waken and leave for the night around 5:30. Sure enough, we were back at 5:30 and they were all awake and twitching and started taking off shortly after that.
Not wanting to walk on the highway after dark, and not needing a large meal after our big lunch anyway, we ordered pizza for dinner. It was delivered to us at the Rancho by a deliveryman on a moped – quite a funny sight. Two pizzas, including delivery and tip, were $20. We ate at the tables in the Rancho with a few canine friends who were scrounging for a handout. By then it was well after dark, so after we ate we picked up a couple of board games from the Rancho to take back to our treehouse. We played Apples to Apples before all reading in bed for a while and calling it an early night.
Cook Family Travels 