Quest to See the World

After we made it out of the Monteverde area (3hrs to go 35 kilometers) we made our way around the scenic Lake Arenal and eventually got to the town of La Fortuna. We looked at a couple of places and Mom decided on Hotel Arenal Jireh for $55 a night in a nice room with a/c, 2 double beds, cable tv, private balcony with a view of the volcano (although there was a huge antenna smack dab in the middle of the view), fancy bathroom, swimming pool, including breakfast. You´d never get a place close to this one for that price in the states. It even had fresh flowers! By the time we got in the room the sun was going down and we headed to Restaurante el Río for dinner. For some reason, probably because i was too comfortable, I forgot to bring something in case of rain and wouldn´t you know it, it started to pour while we were eating. we tried to wait it out, but it was a long rain. we tried to make it to a souvenir store quickly, but it wasn´t where we thought it was and it was still raining hard. Mom bought an umbrella for around $2 and about 5 minutes later it stopped raining. She was quite impressed with the umbrella though because it had this collapsible plastic around it that you pull up to keep it from dripping when you´re not using it. She ended up leaving it somewhere though, so i´ll have to see if i can find one in guatemala before i come back.

The next day we drove to La Fortuna waterfall and hiked down to the bottom where the water fell into a largish pool and then ran downstream. It was really beautiful. I already knew that I really liked waterfalls, but I now realize how happy I feel when I´m near one and I really love them. I´m going to search some out around Pittsburgh this summer. After climbing back up to the top we headed back to town. I went to some souvenir shops and picked up a couple of gifts to send back with Mom. The night before we had decided to do the afternoon jungle hike/volcano/hot spring tour. We decided on the Tabacón one because although it more expensive than going to the alternative, Baldí, I knew that it was so much nicer. It was $55 for an 8 hour tour. We got picked up at the hotel around 3pm and headed to a private wildlife refuge for a guided hike. The hike lasted about 1.5 hours and we saw the volcano, howler and spider monkeys, a wild turkey, and a bright yellow venomous snake. We also learned about the history of the volcano. After the wonderful hike, we headed to a lookout spot to see if we could see lava or the huge orange glowing boulders rolling down the side of the volcano. About 5 minutes after we got to the place it started to pour. The guide decided that he would take us back after our trip to the hot springs.

Next was Tabacón. It was sooooooooooooo nice and hot and relaxing. It was just as i remembered it-a natural river running through the place with a bunch of hot waterfalls we could sit under. I enjoyed it way more than i expected! There was a waterslide too that i went down about 7 times. Before we got in the water we enjoyed the buffet dinner. Since it was a buffet I tried a bunch of different seafood for the first time. I had a mussel, an oyster, calamari and lobster. The guy put a whole lobster on my plate and showed me what to eat. The food was okay, nothing special, but there were a lot of desserts to pick from. I took a picture of the dessert table, that´s how impressed i was, but i´m easy to impress.

The hot springs were great, but the time was too short and it was dark so we weren´t able to enjoy the lush gardens around the place, next time. At 9:15 we got picked up (we were the only 2 on the tour who went to tabacón-everyone else went to Baldí) to go back to the volcano. As we were driving up we saw some huge orange glowing boulders rolling down the side. It was pretty cool. We stayed there for a while and watched more roll down. We returned to the hotel around 11pm.

The next day we stopped in the town of Sarchí on the way back to San José where they paint the old oxcarts in a fancy way. We went to another souvenir shop and picked up a couple of more small things. There was a HUGE, but I mean huge, oxcart in the plaza of town. It was more than a story high i think. It was beautiful and i got out of the car and snapped some shots of it in the rain. On the way back into the city it was raining so hard i could barely see to drive. We ended up getting stuck in a traffic jam forever. At one point we had to switch lanes because it appeared that a car had broken down, but when we passed by it, the driver was passed out cold in the driver´s seat. We just started laughing, but later i thought about it and maybe he didn´t fall asleep while sitting in traffic, maybe he had a heart attack, i hope not. Anyway, the traffic was caused by the road getting completely washed out in one section due to the rain. A waterfall had formed and ran into the road, ripping up the asphalt. It was such a mess. We made it into town around 4:30pm.

Once we arrived we stopped by the Mercado Central and went down to the pedestrian mall for dinner. After that we packed up the stuff for Mom to take back and headed to the Guadalupe section of town to meet up with my brother-in-law´s friend Mario who lives there. We had a couple of beers with him and got back to the hostel around midnight. We were in dorm room 19 at Pangea, so if you are reading this and plan to stay there don´t stay in that room. The room was like a shoebox with 3 bunks. It was really hot and stuffy and there wasn´t a fan or a window to the outside, only one into the hallway. I asked the guy at the front desk for a fan which he gave me, but there wasn´t an electrical outlet in the room and he couldn´t find an extension cord. He advised us that there was a single room available for $5 more than we were paying so we took it and went there with the fan. I slept well. We got up at 6:30 and headed to the airport, but got stuck in traffic so i had to drop Mom off at the airport before returning the rental car. It was a great week!

Tags: Arenal, Central America 2007, costa rica, La Fortuna

This entry was posted on Wednesday, June 6th, 2007 at 10:27 pm and is filed under Central America 2007. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.