Tag Archives: Waterfall

El Chorro Waterfalls in Montezuma, Costa Rica

So here’s a photo of me at the waterfalls North of Montezuma, Costa Rica. The walk to get there is to walk along the beach of the ocean (maybe this is technically the bay?). I’ve since learned that the waterfalls are named El Chorro (and the adjacent beach is called Cocolito).

Img 0558This was a long hike, about 2 hours each way with stops, snacks and quick swims I was gone about 6 hours. I brought seven bottles of water, gatorade and Fresca (the one bottle of Fresca for when I ate my sandwich) and drank six-and-a-half bottles so I judged that pretty good. Although I cheated and when I was 20 minutes from the hotel I stopped at the Ylang Ylang on the beach and got a mucho frio (very cold) Coca-Cola in a glass bottle (the rest of my drinks were pretty was pretty hot by then) so I still had a 1/2 water and a gatorade; Ylang-Ylang is the last stop on the beach so don’t expect much after that. So my bag kept getting lighter but it felt like it was getting heavier.

This is a 20-30 foot waterfall there is a waterfall/stream you get to early (after 45 minutes?) that some people think is “the” waterfall but it is not the waterfalls you see here. Here’s the longitude and latitude that my GPS gave me when I got to the final destination this was about 6 km from the center of town as the bird flies (I’m sure I walked farther since it wasn’t close to a direct route, plus it was on the sand and rocks). It’s N 9°41.157′ and W 085°01.530′ or at least that’s what it was about 100 meters away in the shade when I made the marker on my GPS (please note that this is the corrected coordinates as referred to in the comments).

Here’s some video that I shot when I got there.

And in case the above embedded video doesn’t work, here’s the direct link to this El Chorro Waterfalls video; be sure to notice that under the right-hand side of the video you can “watch in high quality”. Continue reading

Power Loss.

The power has glitched off and on the last few days. Just for a few seconds generally but it’s enough to turn off the A/C unit in my hotel which kept waking me all night long when it kept kicking off…

Today we lost it for a few hours but it eventually came back on. But it’s always a worry that it might not come back on (most hotels with A/C don’t have windows that will open) that means no A/C and no hot water (it’s electric).

Boring post, but that was out of the ordinary part of today…

I hiked up to the waterfalls too! It’s such a nice view!! But since I do this almost every day it’s really not out of the ordinary any more :)

My new background is Montezuma

If your display is set to 1024×768 or larger you should be seeing my new background. That’s a shot from Montezuma up by the waterfalls, I hike up there every day that I can when I’m in town….

Does it fit okay? Does it load to slow? It’s the first time using an image, so please give me feedback!

Montezuma Waterfall in Costa Rica

Here’s a very short movie of the Waterfall in Montezuma! Click for the higher quality Montezuma Waterfall version. But people always have problems with the movie files from my Dimage XT camera for some reason so here’s an YouTube version too…

I don’t have much more to say (other than it was awesome) since I talked about it last week when I was there…

Is it “an YouTube”?

Much Nicer Day

It was a much nicer day today! It was mostly sunny but drizzly on and off but looked stormy so I didn’t want to walk up the the waterfall (a real hike) and get caught in a storm; later I hear the water that you walk next to (through at some parts) were pretty wild so some people turned around and came back, which must have been all the rain from yesterday/last night.

I got to spend some time at walking the beach and relaxing. It was nice to not be running around too much. I just walked for a while and read and talked to some people that I’ve run into more than a few times this trip. I started to go farther up the beach but it started to rain again and since there was a (fancy) hotel on the beach so I popped in there for a deliciou$ lunch (and stayed out of the rain).

I did try to catch the sunset but it just got cloudier and cloudier as I got closer so that was a bust. But on the way I did pick up a couple of guys from Argentina on the road and gave them a lift for a few kilometers they were interesting and spoke great english. Just to be clear, they were from Argentina, not on the road from Argentina

It’s pouring out now but that’s okay since I’m inside and have nothing else to do but grab some dinner and sleep. If it’s nice I’d like to get up early so I can play in Montezuma more before I head to San Jose tomorrow.

Great Day in Montezuma, Costa Rica

Montezuma-Beach-Pict2568The weather was amazing all day. Sunny and warm but very humid. We didn’t get any afternoon rain at all.

But, regardless of the wonderful weather, the first thing I did this morning was find a new hotel, the other one wasn’t that great but I was too tired to look around any more last night (I did check two others that were full). I found one that is nicer and cheaper, $30 a night which includes A/C and hot water. Don’t laugh at the “A/C and hot water comment”, some hotels have 4 prices based on which combination that you would like. As long as I sleep okay here, I think I’ll stay here until I have to go to San Jose on Wednesday.

Picture 14So after I moved I went up to the waterfalls which was a little more exciting than usual, with all the rain the current was really flowing. When I got up there to swim it was pretty quiet (in terms of people) the the falls were raging with all the extra water. I tried swimming but the current was too much for me, I’m not that great of a swimmer and certainly out of practice. Hung out there for a while, for as dead as it was when I got there, I think it got the busiest I’ve even seen it. Not the best picture of me, but it’s the only one I have of me so far.

So since I didn’t wear myself out swimming I decided to hike it up to the upper falls. Another difference because of the rain a few recent downed trees and lots of mud. But I got up there just fine. Unfortunately, right when I got up top I dropped my bottle of gatorade! So that meant I really had to ration my other bottle of water on the way back; I usually take 3 bottles total (of water or gatorade) I was so thirsty on the way down but I made it. It fell pretty far and I’ve climb that part before (to get to the lower fall of the upper falls) but where I usually climb had loads of water running down it.

Here’s the cRaZy spot where you have to climb down to the upper falls. This is while I was halfway down rope looking down and looking up (fuzzy), it’s really not as bad as it looks :)

Park-Ocean-Viewfile0088Stats according to my GPS: I climbed from 97 feet altitude to 572 feet, but I actually ascended over 600 feet and it was a total of 4 miles for the round trip. (But now I need to go double-check since none of that was meters or miles and I thought I had all that switched to metric; I’m certain it was “feet”, maybe it was 4 kilometers?)

All photos should be clickable for a larger version (but not very large, the ‘net is really slow here).

Cardiff, Wales – I love it!

So we made it to Cardiff via Train from Paddington Station in London. Very easy trip, Cardiff is the end of the line so no chance of missing anything. Beautiful day here! And the view for the train ride was great too.

800Px-Roald Dahl Plass - CardiffWhile I love Cardiff so far, I hate to say that it’s included the biggest disappointment of the trip. Why? Because the Roald Dahl Plass is under construction. I was very very disappointed that the very tall shiny waterfall and a bit of the Plaza (Plass) was closed (especially the waterfall).

I haven’t seen any kind of internet cafe here, I’m at a pub using the ‘net. People seem like to party around here, lots of bars and discotechs. It’s a college town at one end, but I’ve not sure that’s who the party people are.

I’ll check out the ones nearby after I go see what Cardiff Bay is like once it gets dark; especially how the Wales Millennium Centre looks.

Just in the few minutes I’ve been here, it’s really started to fill up!

Travel tips: The train was about 50 pounds for the round trip via National Rail (certainly not the deal that someone mentioned to me on-line) I think pre-booking is cheaper (although I think we’d have paid eve more the day of instead of the day before), but if we had left London before 9:15 am it was way more (almost double I think) so check the times (return time did no matter). Many hotels offer late check-out and early check-in, they charge for it (about 10 pounds the few places I’ve noticed it), but it’s worth it for hotels that that don’t have a place to leave your luggage. We were going to stay until 4 or 5 tomorrow, but since late check-out is only until 2 pm, we’ll be leaving at 2.

* Photo courtesy of Wikipedeia.

Check out my Speedos!

Speedo-Img 7777So i understand how the locals do it, they’ve got feet like a hobbits on the bottom. But it’s the tourists that I don’t understand how they walk around without shoes on. Even in the rocky areas they don’t wear shoes but sometimes I see them hobbling along.

I need my beach shoes to get around, rocks and cement and stuff don’t work for me. I had to get some fancier ones this trip since some of the other ones I get don’t work when jumping off at waterfalls; it’s no fun to be up in the mountains and loose a shoe. These are a little comfier than some of the other ones I’ve had in the past (and they haven’t fallen off yet).