Parque National Ricon De La Vijia

We took the bus to Liberia and a *gasp* cab to Ricon De La Vijia National Park for camping; or so we thought. Unbeknown to us there are not one, but two entrances and nearly separate parks – one completely public with camping available, the other blocked by a resort, that offers no camping in the park. Yet again, Costa Rica's cab drivers failed us.

We ended up hitchhiking to the Hacienda Guachipelin Resort (6Km) where we got a room and arranged for a day-long adventure tour. We spent the next day on our adventure, starting with 2 hours of zip-lining, rock climbing and Tarzan swinging through the jungle canopy weaving in and out of the river canyon. It's quite thrilling to fly through the air strapped upside-down to a steel cable!

To reach the next portion of the adventure, we traveled by horseback for about 45 minutes to the river head. This was my first time riding a horse (I'm sure my sister would be proud), and (accept for the part where my genitals were continuously slapped into the saddle) I really enjoyed it.

At the river head, we got stuck behind a really large group of elderly people (how they made it this far – beyond my comprehension), so we ended up waiting quite a while to make it into the river with our tubes. Though the wait was entirely worth it! River rafting is cool, but river tubing is a whole new ballgame. The rapids were really intense and there were a few sticky spots, but in all it was a lot of fun. At one point a very large woman went down a rapid backwards and got stuck vertically and eventually flipped – it was very amusing.

Due to the lack of hop-to-it-ness of the elderly group, our return transportation was not as timely as it could have been. However this gave Tiffany and I an opportunity to chat with some folks from British Columbia, Canada. The conversation revolved around the legal issues of medicinally accepted plants and the going rates, local terminology and quality (of which there is very little). The Canadians were great and ended up giving us a ride from the resort to the Symbiosis Spa. Included in our tour package was entrance to the spa and access to the hot springs, sauna and Mud bath!

For Christmas, we decided to take a hike through the National Park. We arranged transportation through the hotel and then set off to see the major sights of the park. The Ricon is rich in geologic activity (hence the spa and mud bath)- scattered mud pools, sulfur pools etc. Halfway through the trail loop we had chosen to explore, we decided to take the trail branch to the second part of the park and the accessible hot spring. The sign claimed the distance was 6k, though we are both convinced that the actual distance is closer to 10k. In any event we misjudged our timing and missed our ride back. Fortunately for us, a young couple in a renal car stopped to give us a ride about 10 minutes into our decent back to the lodge.