Barra Honda

After reluctantly leaving the beach we made our way to our final Spring Break destination located about a half hour away from the city of Nicoya. Upon arriving in Nicoya we realized we missed the one and only bus to the park entrance, so we had to pay a taxi driver to haul us out to the middle of nowhere. As it turned out, we did save ourselves about a kilometer and a half of walking along some rough roads with all of our bags, so we didn't complain. The cabins we stayed at sat behind a nice little restaurant and bar where we ate all our meals. For twelve dollars a night we got private rooms with fairly comfortable beds, private bathrooms, and use of wonderful pool looking out over the mountains. Before we arrived we thought about doing an afternoon hike, but upon seeing the pool we decided a relaxing evening cooling off in the silent wilderness around us wouldn't be so bad.

The next morning we woke up at 8 a.m. for a fairly early breakfast before making our way to Barra Honda National Park. We walked up the road about half a kilometer to get to the park entrance. Little did we know when we embarked on our journey, the day was shaping up to be Costa Rica's hottest day of the year, so by the time we arrived we were already sweating. At the park office we payed about 16 dollars to get outfitted with spelunking gear and guide to lead us up to Barra Honda's caves.

An hour and a half and 3-4 km straight up hill later we arrived at the mouth of the caves soaked in sweat. We peered down the inverted 50 foot ladder that stood between us and our latest adventure. A bit shaky and nervous, we made our way down as our hands slicked the ladder with sweat and we struggled to find foot room between the ladder and the rocks. Thankfully, all three of my compañeros and myself made it down safely. Once down in the caves we squeezed through some tight spaces to find some interesting cave formations like "the Family" and the "Fried Eggs."After an hour or so in the caves we made the treacherous climb back up the ladder and started the hike downhill. The caves were a nice break from the sun and thankfully when we surfaced the heat had abated a bit for our hike back down to the hotel. Along the way down we ran into an entire family of howler monkeys and tried in vain to snap some photos of the some interesting birds hanging around the path. Needless, to say upon our arrival at the hotel we were very grateful to grab some beers and bottles of water and dive into the pool before eating lunch having to head home.

I'm glad we decided to continue our spring break in Barra Honda. If we would have stayed at the beach we never would have meet the awesome hotel owner and his wife (who was a great chef), we would have missed out on the spelunking, we never would we have been able to enjoy the cool waters of the pool, nor the utter silence of the dry forest surrounding us at the hotel. All things considered, I must say I wouldn't have changed a thing about our spring break. Looking back on our days on the beach, the rodeo, the volcano and the caves it's sort of hard to believe all of the things we did.