The Beaches of Nosara
This was, initially, our choice for a home. We had seen the promotion for the Beaches of Nosara and had friends who had spent extensive time in Costa Rica on their cruises - especially around Golfito and Nicoya. Bill's criteria for a place to live was "on the water." While we did not initially go to Costa Rica to see the promotional areas, we went, instead to Panama. And, when that, ultimately, did not develop, we went to Costa Rica to enjoy it. I suspect the time frame was 1976 -1980 as it was during Carter's Administration. That I recall, because of the news in the Costa Rica newspapers about Rosalind's impending visit and what to do about fugitive financier, Robert Vesco.
We flew in commercially to San Jose and then had a merry chase to find an automobile. The reserved car wasn't and we had to find another rental. Then we were off to find a hotel in the city. We selected one in downtown so that we could explore some of the sights on foot.
In the north of Costa Rica we were fascinated with the native wood carts with their splendid paintings as well as the coffee plantations dotting the hills
The Opera House in San Jose; Cathedral outside of San Jose on way to Irazu
We also had a specific itinerary:
Irazu Volcano
It erupted with fury between 1962-65 and the floods generated by the diversion of rivers and streams caused massive damage to homes, fields, and the narrow gauge railroad. We decided to drive up there and went via Cartega. In fact, the first eruption coincided with the visit of President Kennedy to Costa Erica's we drove up the road to the caldera, we were amazed at the come back of vegetation in less than 10 years. Always an aficionado of orchids and bromeliad, we were delighted with the trees already laden with them. It seemed a long way up but then, finally we were at the top. We parked and jumped out of the car and nearly fell to the ground. We had not actually been aware of the altitude - probably near 10,000 feet. The plants had deluded us, familiar with skiing above the timberline in the Sierras, into believing we were much lower. The caldera at that time had no lake in it; perhaps that is a seasonal feature, or perhaps a later development. But, it was still impressive. Very wide - over a half-mile, and rocky slope to the greyish rock bottom. As I recall, it was vaporous and I am surprised now reading that the depth to the lake is 1000 feet. Given that volcanoes are unpredictable, this was an awesome, worrisome attraction. There was no one else up at the summit; and we did not know how frequent visitors then were. Just us and this fascinating, forbidding volcano.
In reading further, it is possible that we saw only the smaller of the two craters as I recall no steep sided lake filled caldera. There were no signs to guide us and no one to ask, so we were disinclined to wander around a volcano.
Cartago is the major town we traveled through to Irazu and in the middle of the town is the unfinished Cathedral; we did not have time to stop. Only the time to know we wanted to return.
The other stop on this trip was to Lankaster Gardens. This was special to me as I had been a member of the Board of Directors of the Orchid Society of Southern California when the vote was passed to donate money, along with the American Orchid Society, to purchase the Lankaster Garden as a gift to the University of Costa Rica. Mr. Lankaster had spent much of his life working with and identifying the native orchid species of Costa Rica and it would have been a real loss if the Garden had not found a proper home.
http://edtcserver.coe.tamu.edu/courses/645/webproj/EVA/Lanke.htm
http://www.photo.net/cr/overall-map.html Nicoya
http://www.comdinet.com/tn/nicoya/nic.html
Beaches - Nicoya
Within the boating community of Multihullers one favorite spot was the gulf of Nicoya accessible out of Liberia at the heading towards Nicaragua. Of course, being Americans, we worried about being anywhere near Nicaragua.
The Narrow Gauge Railroad from San Jose to Puerto Limon on the Atlantic was a far more difficult engineering feat than the Panama Canal and was the highlight of our journey. When I catch up with my slides, my images will be posted. Along the route were trees laden with bromiliads and orchids, exotic and colorful birds and butterflies and the amazing Tortuguero Canal that goes form Limon to the Nicaragua border.
The Narrow Gauge Railroad was built by Minor Keith to bring European emigrants to San Jose, but the engineering problems nearly destroyed the project several times. In the process, the very powerful United Fruit Company was built and utilized the railroad.
