La Fortuna
Saturday, November 4th, 2006So hurray – actually got on a bus from Turrialba without incident! But of course, it’s never easy after that! In San Jose all the bus terminals are spread all over the place so we had to go find the bus terminal to La Fortuna – fortunately (or unfortunately), we met this nice man that took us to the bus terminal. He was originally from the Caribbean side of Costa Rica and he had a brother that worked or studied or something in Seattle for a while – but of course he took us to the bus terminal for buses going to the Caribbean which is East and we were going to the North. Oops! So after traisping all over the place we ended up taking a cab to the other bus terminal. We met this cool chick from Switzerland and this guy from Germany while waiting for the bus.
Wow, can you say long bus ride (5 hrs)! Well, it wasn’t really that long but since it was a local bus it stopped pretty much every time someone was standing on the side of the road. Or wanted to get off. And it got bloody full. And we hit construction. Oh well, at least we had a seat!
So anyway we eventually get off and head for this ant-infested cabina called sissy where we stayed 2 nights before we moved to Hotel Fortuna and paid 5 usd more and it was nice and included breakfast and free internet. What the heck we were thinking of, I have no idea. Hello dumbass!
The 1st day we went to these waterfalls outside of town. Hint – do not follow cartoon maps. Cartoon maps typically don’t show distances very well. In our infinite wisdom we decided to follow a cartoon map instead of the Let’s go directions and went about an extra hour to get there. Plus we got rained on. But the falls were beautiful except for there was an area at the bottom where you could swim. Oh my gosh – cheese alert! These German ladies just stripped off right there to put on bathing suits – I’m talking right in front of us. And it was not a pretty sight.
The 2nd day we took it easy and went to the Baldi Hot Springs. Note to self – when everyone in town tells you it’s cheaper to buy the tickets in town believe them! It was kind of crazy expensive but we decided to go for it – it was a bunch of series of pool – I don’t know who the heck swims in some of these pools – can you say hotttttttttt! But some of them were moderate and were nice…almost like a massage…
The 3rd day we went to the main reason we went to La Fortuna in the first place…to see the smoking volcano – Arenal. We took a cab up there – oh my gosh, the dude was friggin’ hilarious – he spoke some broken English and pretty clear Spanish and was pointing out the spots where people come at night to see the lava lava lava. And that the only real hot springs weren’t the Baldi ones but the more expensive ones at Tabacon and the sky trams were death traps…anyway, we get up there and see Monica the Swiss girl from the bus. She apparently was volunteering there but didn’t really have anything to do – she was staying in this 12 person cabin or something – dude I’d be freaked out staying all alone in a huge cabin like that –
Volcano Arenal #3,
originally uploaded by cirrusjohn.
Anyway, we hiked around like the ranger station guy told us to and saw nothing but a bunch of other tourists. Well we saw the volcano, but it’s kind of hard to miss – then John said, let’s walk back along the road – then we see the wildlife! Monkeys in a tree – scared the crap out of me – I thought they were wild boars for some reason until John pointed at this tree. Like I’d ever heard a monkey before like in real life. So cool – never seen Monkeys before! Then later we saw Toucans! Along a different road – doesn’t look like the guy on the cereal box cover but they were still pretty darn cool. So after all that we went 2 km down to the main road and caught the local bus just before the rain…
Since we hadn’t really eaten all day except for cookies and peanuts we decided to treat ourself to a decent meal. We should have stayed with the tipico food which usually consists of rice and beans – way overpriced fish and stuff and prepared all funky – think that’s where my stomach problems started…
Tomorrow is the Jeep-Boat-Jeep to Monteverde…should be fun and interesting!
JohnCin