Author: John Cruse

Our first day and what better way to start than a sightseeing tour of the capital city. As today is Saturday the normally busy roads were very empty so a morning tour with the afternoon at leisure was a good start.

Apart from the harrowing pictures of children in orphanages, Romania is probably best known to most of us in the West for events in the final years of communist rule (being 1947 to 1989 in total) which were orchestrated by the last General Secretary of the Communist party, Nicolae Ceausescu, who was deposed in 1989. We visited the building which contained his offices as General Secretary and from where he attempted to escape in a helicopter when he realised that time was up for his brutal regime.

Apparently, 100,000 people demonstrated outside his office and 800 were killed which only added to the determination of the masses to get rid of Ceausescu and his communist cohorts. There are two monuments to the people killed located outside the office with the names of those killed inscribed on a wall of remembrance.

At the time Ceausescu was deposed, his vanity project was being built in another part of Bucharest. Four kilometres of an area of Bucharest had been cleared of houses with people being pushed out so that he could build what is the second biggest building in the world and the heaviest building in the world.

This Building is now home to the Romanian Parliament and has more than 1,000 rooms. The building is not yet finished and is still being worked upon 30 years after Ceausescu’s demise.

Modern Romania is a fairly new nation, was formed in 1859 and only declared independence from the Otterman Empire in 1877. Much of Bucharest was laid out to mimic Paris with wide boulevards and Bucharest’s own Arc de Triomphe.

There are many other fine buildings in Bucharest including churches which are highly painted inside so there is plenty to see for all tastes.

One place to visit in the Old Town, which is more unusual, is what has been called the “World’s prettiest bookshop”. It’s name is Carturesti and its is much nicer than your average Waterstones.

After the city tour had finished at about noon, and the temperature had reached 32 degrees centigrade, we headed off to the Dimitrie Gusti National Village museum which was 3.2 miles away. We decide to take the underground which was just 3 stops rather than walking in the heat. The underground is very easy to use and all journeys seem to be 5 leu. In fact you get 2 journeys for 5 leu (which is roughly GBP 1) whatever the distance you go. Seems a good system as once you had gone through the barriers to catch the train, you did not need a ticket to get out as the barriers opened automatically to let you off the station.

The National Village museum, which serves a similar purpose to our own Weald and Downland Museum in West Sussex of preserving important historic buildings, was cheap to get in (only 8 leu for a senior) and has 60 buildings which are either houses, windmills, agricultural buildings from a wealthy family’s abode, to a hovel – literally as they had a Romanian hovel on show.

Definitely worth a visit as the large park area has restaurants and a cold beer was certainly needed today.

By 6pm the heat had got to us so we got the underground back to the hotel and went out to the old town for a bento box meal with some local beer.

Tomorrow we leave at 7.30 am for Sinaia, Bran and Brasov.

Our final full day in Budapest dawned. It was another lovely sunny day with a high of 14 degrees centigrade.

We decided to explore the Buda Castle area on the other side of the river to our hotel.

The Buda side of the river is hilly, unlike the flat Pest side, and with the Castle sitting on the top of a hill. It was used by the Germans in the Second World War as their headquarters and was the last part to fall to the liberating (maybe not quite the right term) Russian troops. The Hungarian Government has recently moved into some of the buildings in the Castle complex and sentries now stand guard.

Our wine tour guide from a few days ago told us that she was not sure if the Government occupying this historic building was a good or popular move so perhaps the politicians do need some protection.

The top of the castle hill also has a very ornate church (Matthias Church), restaurants, cafes, houses and shops and for the lucky residents who live their, spectacular views over both the Buda and Pest sides of the river.

We also visited the “Hospital in the Rock” which was another remnant of the Second World War. Under the Buda Castle hill, caves had formed naturally over many thousands of years and at the outset of the Second World War these were excavated and connected to form a hospital. This was very much like the underground hospitals on the Channel Islands for those who have visited them. After the Second World War they were next used in the 1956 uprising of the Hungarian people against the Soviets. After that they were turned into nuclear bunkers during the Cold War era of the 1960s. Unfortunately we were not allowed to take any photos but the hospital is worth a visit.

Before we moved on we visited a small coffee shop called the Waltzer Cafe which was novel as it was set out in the entrance to a large old house, presumably where they parked the horses in the old days. As it was open to the elements at the front, although not overhead, each chair had a blanket for the customers to either sit on or wrap around themselves.

The coffee and cake were good, so worth a visit.

After we left the Buda Castle area we walked on to the Jubileumi Park which is also on the Buda side and is another major view point over the city. The park’s main feature, apart from the views, is the Liberty Statue that can be seen from all over Budapest.

After walking back to the Hungarian Restaurant, Alma Korte, that was opposite our hotel for dinner (would recommend this place as the food was very good), we worked out from our Apple watches that over the four days we had walk a few yards short of 29 miles.

Budapest is a nice city and the people are very friendly. English is very widely spoken (which is good for us Brits) so there are no difficulties getting around or eating out. The transport system, trams, buses and metro, are all easy to use although we walked mostly as we prefer the exercise. Apparently travel was free on public transport for EU senior citizens so get here quick if you want to make use of this perk if you hail from the UK.

Definitely a good place for a short break.

Romania next in June.

We went to the central market this morning which was quite close to our hotel.

The construction was impressive and looked like an old building that had been renovated in recent times.

We are going back there tomorrow for a culinary tour with Taste Hungary to experience the Hungarian cuisine so more on the market tomorrow.

We then walked across the Independence bridge which is the most attractive of the bridges notwithstanding the many padlocks that adorn its structure.

We then went back to the hotel to meet out guide for the Etyek Wine Country tour where we visit three small wine producers and sampled three of their wines plus dinner at the last one.

The tour comprised 11 people, 4 from the USA, 3 from Peru/USA and two others from the UK. I was the only male so it was a bit like going to a Pilates class (you will understand if you have been to a Pilates class).

The first vineyard was called Anomie (employing the owner, his wife and one staff member) and produced 25,000 bottles a year, most of which were sold to restaurants in Budapest.

The Etyek region is known for its white wines with the red Hungarian varieties being produced further south, although most vineyards seem also to produce Palinka, the Hungarian version of Grappa (about 45%).

The second vineyard, Vizi, was a two man band of father and son in law who produced 8,000 bottles of wine a year.

The vineyard was surrounded by many other small producers who generally sold their produce to restaurants in Budapest.

The last vineyard, Debreczeni-Ferenczy, produced 75,000 bottles and had vineyards in the Etyek region and further south in the country so producing both red and white wines. We enjoyed a 3 course meal with matched white and red wines with each course that was extremely enjoyable.

By the time that we had drunk 11 glasses of wine/palinka we were friends with all of our group and speaking fluently in Spanish to the lady from Peru.

Tomorrow we are going for our Taste Hungary food tour.

After the Invisible Exhibition yesterday we followed a 3 mile self-guided walking tour of the main sights that included the Hungarian Parliament, St Stephen’s Basilica, Chain Bridge, Freedom Square and the many statues that are dotted around Budapest such as the Fat Policeman and Ronald Reagan.

Part of that walk was The Holocaust Shoe Memorial that is on the bank of the Danube close to the Parliament building.

The Memorial is to remember the Jews and other citizens that we killed by the Nazi secret police group, Arrow Cross, that operated during the Second World War. The victims were shot and pushed into the Danube. All were required to line up and take their shoes off not knowing which of them would be shot. When the Nazis wanted to save bullets they would tie a few people together, shoot one, push the group into the freezing water and watch the dead bodies drag the entire group down.

The Memorial has 60, 1940’s era shoes and represent the shoes left behind by the victims.

Unfortunately people have attached padlocks to the Memorial due to the latest craze to put padlocks in public place (they are all over some of the bridges in Budapest) which rather spoils the Memorial although the chain on the Memorial are authentic.

This was not the last reference we saw to the past history of Hungary in the Second World War.

In Freedom Square, which was named after the Freedom fighters who were executed in the 1840s, their had recently been erected of a new Memorial which was the cause of daily demonstrations.

The Memorial is named “Memorial for the victims of the Nazi occupation ” but the demonstrators say that this is phoney Memorial due to the Hungarian Governments involvement with the Nazis during the Second World War. Their case is set out below.

Recent history still playing out in case we should forget the horrors.

We are off on a wine tour today outside of Budapest and the sun is still shining so more from us later.

Day 8 we left the Arenal Manoa to travel for 4 hours to the cloud forests of Monteverde.

On the way we spotted some interesting birds including the endangered White Fronted Nun bird and the Crimson Collared Tanager.

The roads were good until the last hour or so of our journey when the tarmac stopped and the ride got bumpy. The bumpy roads obviously did not agree with our small bus as it refused to start after lunch on the outskirts of Monteverde so we walked for 10 minutes to Don Juan’s Coffee plantation for the coffee tour.

It was surprising to hear that there were only 3 coffee plantations left in Costa Rica and that coffee was no longer an important export. In fact, Don Juan’s plantation now only made a small amount of coffee that was sold locally and was instead a tourism business. We meet Don Juan who often turned up to greet tourists.

The coffee tour took us through the history of coffee coming to Costa Rica and the whole process of growing, drying and processing the coffee beans.

Years ago all the coffee beans were sent to San Jose by ox cart which took 2 months each way from Monteverde and the raw beans were exported for processing, often to the United States.

There was a league of the countries that per head drunk the most coffee and surprisingly top of the list was Finland with other Nordic countries, Iceland, Denmark and Norway also featuring in the top 5. The USA which one would have thought would be fairly high on the list was 25th and the UK was 44th.

Another surprising fact was that there is more caffeine in a normal cup of coffee than in an Expresso. Apparently, with an Expresso you get a quick shot of caffeine that seems high but wears off quickly but in a normal size cup of coffee the reverse happens and the effect is slower but last longer.

The tour was very interesting and showed that when making coffee how easy it is to get it wrong as we have all probably experienced.

Luckily our driver, Heraldo, had nursed the engine back to life and we went into Monteverde to our next hotel, The Monteverde Lodge and Gardens.

Day 9 started with a canopy walk in the cloud forest. When we left the hotel, Ed our guide, said wear long trousers and a coat as it was much colder in the cloud forest. Good job he did as it was not only a bit colder but it rained. The canopy walk had 9 bridges some of which were 31 metres above the ground.

We were hoping to see hummingbirds, snakes and many other birds but due to the rain many were not on show and those that were were often hidden by the canopy.

The cloud forest was really living up to its name as the following photo shows.

At the end of the canopy trail there was a hummingbird park where they had set up some feeders to attract the hummingbirds. Luckily, by that time, it had stopped raining so there were many hummingbirds feeding. As mentioned in a previously post, hummingbirds being so small and quick are very difficult to photograph but this would be our best opportunity.

Even when up close with the hummingbirds, the wings are just a blur as they hover and flying backwards as the following video shows in real time.

After lunch, we had an afternoon at leisure before we have our farewell dinner tonight with our group of travellers as some will be going on tomorrow for a few days at a Pacific coast beach resort and the rest of us will be coming back to San Jose with our guide and then a flight home that evening.

Costa Rica is very interesting culturally with lots of wildlife and whereas there is no guarantee of seeing the wildlife, we did quite well in the short time we were here.

That is our travelling over for 2018 but we have already booked all our trips for 2019, first to Romania, then we return to the Northwest Passage to try and complete this year’s trip and finally Colombia.

2020 is in the planning faze with Australia, and New Zealand on the list.

Day 6 we got up a 6am for a walk in the rain forest and some wildlife spotting. There are some spectacular birds of all sizes and colours with the Hummingbird being one of the most spectacular but most difficult to photograph due to its size and speed.

The Toucans are also spectacular but being a bit larger they are easier to photograph.

After some breakfast we left the Hacienda LaIsla and headed for the Arenal Volcano where we were going to take a trip on the manmade lake that produces most of Costa Rica’s hydroelectric power. On the way, by the side of the road was a family of White Nosed Coatimundi which are related to the raccoon.

We then reached the lake for our boat trip in the shadow of the Arenal Volcano. Its last major eruption was in 1968 but has been active between the 1970’s and 2010 with volcanologist predicting that it will become active again, without giving a timeline.

The lake was another haven for wildlife, in particular birds, and we saw Kingfishers, Egrets and an Osprey, amongst others. The Osprey had just caught a large fish which was clearly visible as it disappeared into the distance.

An Anhinga bird was sitting in the sun dry its wings as these birds are apparently not fully waterproof as they do not have the oil gland required for waterproofing, which seems strange for a bird that fishes.

We then travelled a short distance to our next hotel, the Arenal Manoa, which has good views of the volcano. The hotel is set out over a large area with each room being an individual chalet. The hotel has extensive gardens with lake that has caiman in it.

Day 7 was another 6.30 departure as we were going on a three hour hike around the Arenal volcano on the 1968 trail.

We went early in the morning as the trails can get busy later and it is the time when the wildlife is more active. One of the intended reptiles we wanted to see was the Golden Eyelash Pit Viper which is one of the 27 poisonous snakes in Costa Rica. They are difficult to find but right at the end of our 4 mile hike our guide spotted a couple of juveniles in some trees.

Apparently, you can generally tell if a snake is poisonous as it has a triangular-shaped head although there are some exceptions.

We then had an afternoon to relax, the first since we got to Costa Rica, and tried the hotel’s volcanic thermal pool, which was very pleasant.

Tomorrow we have a long journey to Monteverde to visit the cloud forest.

Day 4 we left Mawamba Lodge by boat and went back the same route to pick up our small bus with driver.

Notwithstanding that the rainy season had just ended, the small rivers that we had to take were extremely shallow and the boats would only be able to use this drop off point for a short time as the outboard motors would be hitting the bottom.

We retraced the route of a few days before for an hour and a half and then proceeded a different way to reach our hotel in Sarapiqui. The hotel is the Hacienda LaIsla Boutique Lodge which has quite an extensive garden for wildlife spotting. Here they grow cocoa which they make into chocolate the traditional indigenous way pre-Christopher Columbus.

Our first visit that afternoon was to the organic farm of Mr Rodolpho called Finca Sura which is to show tourists the diverse crops that grow in a tropical climate. He originally grew tropical plants on the farm for international export but after the crash of 2008 changed his business to the current tourist format.

His main crop is now pineapples which were the best we have tasted but he also grows vanilla, pepper, sugar cane, cinnamon, ginger, and palm heart amongst many others.

The farm is part of the eco tourism that Costa Rica is promoting in addition to the wildlife. We were also able to press sugar cane which had cinnamon and some of Mr Rodolpho’s moonshine added which was a very nice drink.

As nothing went to waste at the farm, any left over pineapples were fed to Mr Rodolpho’s Vietnamese pot bellied pig, Matilda.

Day 5 the owner of the Hacienda LaIsla, Jean-Pierre, gave a tour of his cacao plants and explained the growing of harvesting process before giving us the history of chocolate pre the Spanish arriving in the region in 1502. He then went on to make in the traditional way the chocolate drink that the indigenous people would have made pre 1502 (as documented by the Spanish) and the drink that Spanish made as they did not like the indigenous version.

The process involved the seeds of the cocao being sucked in the mouth to take off the outside layer and then dried. Once the bean was dry it was crushed until it became a paste. The paste was then mixed with maize, cinnamon and chilli and cold water to make the chocolate drink. It may sound disgusting but tasted good. The Spanish thought it was disgusting so they changed it and eventually made the drink with sugar cane added and using hot water. Again this tasted good.

In the afternoon we visited a leaf cutter ant farm. This is another eco-tourism project where the owner, Leo, has been studying two colonies of ants in a purpose built environment. He explained how the ants fitted into the eco system and the life process. The queen lived for 25 years and the colony, which contained 5 to 6 million ants, died when she did. The ants collect the leaves from up to 240 different plants to use to make a fungus that they eat. There is a structure with workers who cut the leaves, smaller ants whose job is to do quality control and large soldier ants who protect the colony. The Queen only mates once and does not have to do so again for the rest of her life as she stores the sperm. The poor old males die after mating and all the other ants in the colony are not able to mate but just do their allotted tasks. Who said it was a man’s world?

Another interesting visit. You learn something everyday.

Day 2 was an early start so that we could leave San Jose before the morning traffic. The Police seemed to have every road out of San Jose blocked and they were stopping cars and trucks. We saw them stopping an illegal taxi driver and were told that his car licence plate would be removed and he only got it back after paying his fine. Our guide’s comment was ” the police making everyone’s day miserable” as it seems that the Costa Rican public like using the illegal taxis as they are much cheaper even than Uber.

After taking breakfast on the way to catching the boat we arrived the embarkation point which was a lot busier than we expected and were greeted with the following sign:

We boarded the boat 40 minutes later and left for the 1 hour trip to Tortuguero. The river was very low even though the wet season was just finishing so the driver had to drive carefully to make sure he was in the channel and to avoid going aground. We saw a caiman (small crocodile) on the way sunning itself on the river bank and a few vultures and arrived at the Mawamba Lodge in time for lunch.

After lunch we were going for a walk down the beach to Tortuguero village and ran into one of the Lodge’s resident large male green Iguanas:

These Iguanas are good climbers and swimmers and we saw many of them in the trees. The female is much smaller and a dark grey colour.

The main street of Tortuguero village was not very long but was much more commercialise than we expected. On the way we visited the Sea Turtle Conservancy which was set up in the 1950’s by an American, Dr Archie Carr, to stop the locals killing the green, hawksbill, loggerhead and leatherback turtles that lay their eggs on Tortuguero beach. It seems to be working through an education programme which also uses the young locals to act a tour guides when the turtles are on the beach laying their eggs between July and October. We were just too late to see any hatching turtles but the remains of the nests were evident on the beach.

Day 3 we took 2 boat trips into the Tortuguero National Park wildlife spotting. As we are in the rain forest, it decided to rain heavily on our first boat trip which, although not pleasant for us, did not put off the wildlife. We were lucky enough to see all three types of monkeys, Howler, Spider and White Throated Capuchin as well as many birds including the Scarlet and Great Green Macaw. We also saw many more Caiman, a 3 toed Sloth and fresh water turtles. When we got back for lunch after the first boat trip, there was even a spider monkey in the bar area of the hotel for good measure,

The Mawamba Lodge also has a butterfly and poisonous frog enclosures where they have the likes of the Great Owl Butterfly and the poisonous, but extremely small (size of a finger nail) red and green Poison Dart frogs. The frogs secrete a poison from their skin so if you ingest even through a cut on your hand, the consequences are dire and can lead to death. The is also a small area they have for the red eye tree frog which seems to appear on every holiday brochure for Costa Rica. These were again quite small but very attractive. I will post a picture of one in the next blog.

The Costa Ricans seems to be doing a lot to try and conserve this area by not letting any more people settle here or hotels be built so hopefully this area will continue to support the wildlife even though some species are thought to be endangered.

Tomorrow morning we move on the the Braulio Carrillo National Park.

After 18 hours door to door we reached our hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica, That said, the journey was fine with 10 hours flying time between Gatwick and San Jose.

There are only 9 people on our tour including ourselves so a nice number. Our tour guide, Ed, is a very lively Costa Rican and has so far displayed a good and interesting knowledge of his country on our first day. With our driver, our group is 11 in total.

Our first day, Sunday 2nd, consisted of a visit to the Irazú Volcano, the old capital of Costa Rica, Cartago, and the National Museum. We were very lucky with the visit to the volcano, one of many in Costa Rica, as the weather was clear and 27 degrees centigrade which is not always the case as Costa Rica is just coming out of the wet season so low cloud and thunderstorms still occur at this time of the year.

From the top of the Volcano, which is still active, we could just make out the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica.

We then went to Cartago for a traditional Costa Rican lunch, rice and beans, which for those following this year’s “I’m a Celebrity” does not sound too appetising. The dish we had is called a Casado and can be rice and black beans with chicken, beef or fish plus sweet potato and salad. We tried the fish version and with a local beer, Imperial, was really excellent.

The main Catholic Church in Cartago was famous for it black Madonna which legend says has miraculous healing powers. Not just the Madonna but the church also has water with healing properties. The local people still seem to believe this as they were queuing to touch the stone and ask for their ailments to be cured. They then made a donation of a small silver jewellery piece of the part of the body that was healed so there were cases full of legs, lungs, arms, heads and whole bodies.

Finally we visited the National Museum that charts Costa Rican history from migrants coming from Asia across the Bering Strait, through Christopher Columbus, the Spanish to modern day. An interesting journey when you hear about most of the indigenous population being wiped out by common diseases from Europe, the slave trade and a country that had disbanded its army. There are many interesting animals and bird here some of which were shown in the museum like the Zoplite Rey ” King Buzzard” below.

We leave for the Caribbean coast and Tortuguero tomorrow morning through the Braulio Carrillo National Park and will make part of the journey by boat.

Not long to go now before we leave for Costa Rica with the first stop being the capital, San Jose.

The high season starts in December and runs through to April with the most expensive period being over Christmas and Easter. No visa is required for UK passport holders and the currency is the Costa Rican Colon although US Dollars can also be used.

The country appears to be split into four main regions being the Pacific Dry Forest, Pacific Rain Forest, Mountains and Caribbean Atlantic Lowlands with countless mammals, reptiles, amphibians, birds, butterflies and invertebrates so we should be in for a treat of culture and wildlife.

After two nights in San Jose we leave by road for Caribbean lowlands and a remote lodge in the Tortuguero National Park where we should have our first chance to see the wildlife.

After two nights in Tortuguero we move on to Sarapiqui by boat and road to visit an eco-plantation, see more wildlife and finish that day at our hotel in the foothills of the Braulio Carrillo National Park.

After visits to the likes of a chocolate factory and leaf cutter ant farm, and two nights in Sarapiqui, we move on to Arenal and stay close to the Arenal Volcano and lake. We visit the Arenal Volcano National Park for some hiking along trails that follow the 1968 lava flow which give the opportunity for seeing wildlife.

We then travel to the mountains and misty cloud forests of Monteverde for a rain forest adventure.

After two nights in Monteverde we travel back to San Jose for our flight home.

The country looks beautiful from the pictures on the internet with such a wide diversity of wildlife so we are really looking forward to everything Costa Rica has to offer.

Hopefully the internet connections will be good enough to post blogs as we travel around but Lonely Planet suggest the internet is slow. Time with tell.