Goodbye San Jose... however only for a short while!! This morning we packed up and left for La Fortuna. We were very La Fortuna to get a private minibus with air conditioning and all!! The drive took around a couple of hours...and was up and down some very windy roads. The drive was absolutely stunning. The land of green hills and healthy cows, which is a contrast to some of the anorexic cows we have seen in Nicaragua, Honduras and Guatemala. The other big difference, the grass cutters on the side of the street have whipper snippers, not just machetes. Just goes to show the contrast between countries in Central America. Even the shanty towns in Costa Rica aren't so shanty. In fact in most of the countries we have visited so far, the shanty homes in Costa Rica would be considered middle class homes.
Along the way we stopped... Great don't tell me we have a flat?!?! No, we were all pleasantly surprised when the bus driver spotted some sloths... Just hanging in some trees on the side of the road. Gees they are so cute. Not bad for our first day driving in Costa Rica... We spot sloths!!!
We made it to La Fortuna and it was hot. It is a bit crazy as our hotel room doesn't have air conditioning. Oh well, the fan will have to do!!
We had a quick orientation walk, and marvelled at how small and quaint this town is.... especially as it is overshadowed by the large volcano arenal.
We had a quick bite for lunch and then got ready for our afternoon excursion. We were going hiking. I don't know why we decided it was a good idea, as it was as hot as the sun out there. But we all got prepared for a half decent hike. I even had to resurrect my smelly dirty converse shoes for the hike. Peeeeewwww!!!
So we are driven to the base of the volcano, where we all get out ready for our hike. I was a bit confused... Only 2km and we have 2.5hrs to do this.... this is going to be tough. Off we go. After 30 seconds I see why it's going to take 2.5hrs, it's because we stop every 5m to discuss plants, rocks, bark on trees, yawn!!! We were lucky enough to see some peccaries on our way up to the lookout, but they were too quick for me to get a photo.
So I wouldn't necessarily call this hike, rather a stroll. The lookout was great. We were able to get a great view of the volcano and lake arenal. It was a beautiful place just to take in the views.
We could see the storm clouds rolling in... and knew that rain was on the way. We started to hear thunder, only slightly concerning as we left our raincoats in the van!!
So we started to make our way back. Again we were lucky to see a squirrel eating leaves, some parrots and a real life toucan!!! Amazing!!
The rain hadn't hit by the time we got back to the van, but as we drove up the road towards dinner and the hotsprings, all hell broke loose. The biggest thunderstorm rolled in. Now when I say that it poured, I mean it poured!! HEAVY!!! Lucky we had made it to our dinner destination at the hotsprings. So we all ate dinner...entertained by the lightening, thunder and heavy rain. It was quite magical. As soon as we finished dinner we all got changed and hit the hot springs.
The hot spring were made up of a large number of pools...all different themes. Our first pool... The water slide one. I ran up the stairs and was greeted by this really cool security guard. He explained that there was a fast one and a slow one!! Fast one it is. Holy crap it was fast!! I flew down that slide a million miles an hour....it was a dark tunnel so you had no idea what was coming next. Before you knew it you hit the pool and all you can say was 's*** that was fast'. I just stood at the bottom and watched everyone else's reactions as they came down... Each more stunned than the last. Everyone reappeared out of the water and all they could say was 's*** that was fast'. I could not stop laughing!!! It was so fun that a second round was warrented. Down the fast one again, just as fast and cool the first time round!! I then tried the slow twister one. That too was awesome!!
We then tried out all of the pools...some really hot, some really cool, some with swim up bars, others with spas and saunas. Each pool had something cool to discover. Before we knew it, it was time to get changed and leave.
We made our way back to the sauna that is our room. Fan on, we know it's going to be a hot, stinking night!! Hopefully we can get enough sleep for tomorrow's activities!!!