Ballooning in Costa Rica!

DAY 90: Monday, 14^th of May

Phil's version:

Tucker's balloon drifting over the sugar cane fields

Up at 0430 to try and fly. Despite Tucker’s optimistic predictions last evening she now frowns at the building cloud and unfavourable wind direction. We drive almost to the point where yesterday’s rafting began feeling rather gloomy, but at the launch site things improve and, though a rainbow appears as we inflate, we are soon in the air in my 95^th country. 

The flying area looks pretty well devoid of landing spots but we begin a slow drift down the same valley we rafted in yesterday towards sugar cane plantations. I am flying ‘hands on’ and Tucker encourages me to descend into the river itself regardless of trees or the rushing torrent because the balloon, built in 1991, is due for retirement soon soi damage is irrelevant. 

Tucker clearly enjoys water!

My instincts prevent me colliding with trees or crashing waist-deep in water (which disappoints Tucker), but we do a ‘splash-and-dash’ skimming the surface and then Allie takes over for the rest of the flight into a field where ‘caneiros’ are cutting sugar cane. In between, again at Tucker’s insistence, she drops us deep into the growing crop for a ‘shower’ from the rain-soaked leaves.

Back to ‘the ranch’ for celebratory champagne and a host of e-mails to people I feel ought to know I’m within five countries of the magic 100. There will now be an interim day where we drive to the Arenal volcano before re-joining Tucker at her other base north of San Jose for more adventure.

 

Phil's country nr 95

The roads in Costa Rica are surprisingly well maintained though they often curve sinuously through the mountain ranges and are beset by huge US-style trucks carrying pineapples, bananas and papaya to the ports, in particularly Limon on the Caribbean, for export. A journey we expected to take three hours takes over five but the newly-opened hotel we’re booked into in Arenal welcomes us with a hot-tub pool and a view of the volcano. As dark falls the clouds topping Arenal’s 1700m cone vanish leaving a star-lit backdrop to the glowing red lava at the summit.

 Allie's version: 

A flight across rivers and sugarcane and drive to the volcano 

I still haven’t caught up with proper sleeping and getting up at 4.00 doesn’t help that fact. But Tucker has kindly invited us to go flying this morning and so we drive out to the same area where we had been yesterday. A bit of a drag to drive for an hour to get to the launch site, especially when Tucker suddenly said “we might not fly” - the weather looked rainy and the wind direction wasn’t all that good. 

the pretty inhospitable flying area

But then we got the kit out and at 6.00 Phil, Tucker and I were up in the air in an old shagged out N- 120. Phil flew first and Tucker gave advise on how to use the winds in this area. 

You are surrounded by a lot of thick and dense rain forest and so have to watch a bit where you are going. But after all the direction was good and we came right over the river with Tucker suddenly commanding Phil to do a splash and dash into the water. 

“Don’t worry about the balloon, we do this all the time!” she said and in we were soaking our the basket with water. (Not the kind of thing Phil and I would do to our balloon, but this was her choice!). Anyway, after that excitement it was my turn to fly. 

Tucker now had another idea: “Let’s do sugar cane bashing!” she said, “put it right into that field”. So down we went and ended up being surrounded by wet sugar cane all around us. 

What about the farmers, we wondered? No worries, they don’t mind, was the answer. And indeed as we finally landed the balloon in a sugar cane plantation with farmers just doing the harvest, they all smiled friendly at us and we even took one guy for a short hop to the next field. 

What a great flight! Country number 95 for Phil Dunnington (only 5 to go!) and country number 27 for me!

Good to be back at the house to refresh with a cold shower (it was very hot down there in the valley) and have some breakfast and a doze. 

Around lunch time we pack up and start our long 5hours drive to the volcano Arenal taking one of the girls that work for Serendipity with us. It’s good to have her as a guide because the sign posting in this country is just terrible. The road seems to be endless. Tucker said it’s only going to be a three hours drive, but the 220km stretch from windy mountain roads to highways packed with huge trucks. 

A well deserved breakfast with Tucker!

Around 5pm we finally reach Kata’s house and drop her off. From here it’s another 30km to our Hotel, the Arenal Vulcano Inn. This is much better then expected: there is a hot whirlpool, a proper little swimming pool and we have a nice large bungalow to ourselves! Relaxing with a pint of beer in the hot pool and watching the red glowing volcano makes me feel compensated for the long tedious journey.