Day One = Relaxing. Day Two = Volcano!

For our first full day in Costa Rica, there really isn't much to say. Why? Because we did something that I never do. We sat. And we sat. Outside by the Pacific coast of course and under a tiki umbrella - no sunburn for me. We were in the shade all day. I was happily reading a new book. I never get to read anymore, but I LOVE to read - hey, my degree is in English after all. So it was nice to lay around all day and hear the waves crashing. I know you can't compare the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean, but I found myself doing it several times. Not only is the sand color different, but the tallest waves I've ever seen while staying on Isle of Palms are less than half the size of the waves we saw on this day. The waves along this area, the Nicoya Peninsula, are huge.



This area is known to have riptides too. The hotel has a flag that is flown every day to let you know if the water is safe or not. I think almost every day we were there it was flying black which meant it was too dangerous to go in the water. This didn't keep some die-hard surfers at bay. At high tide, the water came up closer than I think it normally does. They had two long rows of beach chairs out in the sand that hotel workers had to go and bring up on the grassy bank area.



At one point as we were walking around the resort (probably scouting out food), we saw an iguana. I kept my new little camera with me so I whipped it out and took a photo of it. A couple of days later, I found that they are common around the hotel. That day I saw about six or seven within a 200 square foot area around some bushes!



Some photos I took of the resort. Everything was very clean and pretty!



In the evening - love the thatched roofs everywhere. Here's the inside of one.



Monday evening we went to eat at Macondo, a nice (indoor and air-conditioned!!) Latin American restaurant. I think it must be new for the resort as it isn't advertised on their website. It was very much a high-end restaurant. Since we were staying for more than three nights, we were able to eat there free with the all-inclusive plan. Our food was good and the service was great, very attentive. There was a family from the US there and the dad was taking a photo of his wife and two daughters at the table so I offered to take a photo of the four. He was kind enough to return the favor. :)


Our one and only tour was scheduled for Tuesday. I had wanted to give us a day to relax after traveling before we headed out on an all-day tour. This is the kind of thing I like though - exploring. The sitting by the beach is okay, but I like to be up and going and doing. So on Tuesday morning, a driver/tour guide by Sun Tours met us in the lobby at 8 am to start our day. His name was Marco. He started off giving us sort of a history lesson on Costa Rica as we started our 3.5 hour trek to La Fortuna where our ultimate destination - Arenal Volcano - is located!


We traveled along the Pan-American highway (which we learned reaches from Alaska all the way to Argentina!) part of the trip. Our first destination was to Arenal Hanging Bridges. Before we got there though, Marco made a quick jut off the road and jumped out. I wasn't sure what was going on but Wade realized he had seen something. With is binoculars in hand, he had run across the road and was looking at something. He came running back for us to come see. It was a troop of howler monkeys!



Not too far down the road, we came upon Lake Arenal and stopped again to see a toucan! Wow! And another troop of howler monkeys.



(By the way, you can so tell I did not use my good camera for these photos. I didn't know what the travel conditions would be like so I didn't know if would be safe to take them on this tour. I am kicking myself a hundred times over for not bringing it. I am used to its quality of photos. :( Oh well, another lesson learned!)


At this vantage point, you could see the beautiful Lake Arenal in the background.



Before we arrived at the hanging bridges, we got our first glimpse of Mount Arenal, the volcano! It was exciting but Marco assured me as I was trying to take pictures of it while driving down the road that there would be a great view once we got to our first destination. He was right!



The Arenal Hanging Bridges has around two miles of paved trails and six hanging bridges among 250 hectares of tropical rain forest. It was a great hike and just the exploring I had been needing. Since it was a little after noon, we didn't get to see the wildlife that would have been possible if we were there in the early morning, but we were able to do some birdwatching and learn about the trees, plants, insects (Marco ate some termites! and we saw LOTS of leaf cutter ants at work) and animals that live in this rain forest. We saw a several of this particular kind of lizard and at the end of our hike, we were able to find this beauty - a yellow morph eyelash pit viper! We saw a blue morpho butterfly also. They are so big! I wish I was fast enough to get a photo of it, but I did tell Andrew about it. He has been interested in butterflies since they did an extensive unit on them the last few weeks of school.



After that hike, we were famished and ready to eat a late lunch. It was around 2 by the time we drove the 30 minutes into the town of La Fortuna to eat at an open-air restaurant. But before we got there, we were driving past Arenal and Marco started shouting that there was a big pyroclastic cloud coming out of it. On Thursday when we were with a different driver (Giraldo), he told us that he was on the other side of the volcano that day and came back to an ash-covered van after this eruption!



Wade and I are not sure if we were just so hungry or if the food was really THAT good but this may have been our best meal in Costa Rica. Really, the food was THAT good and the presentation was nice. The prices were even better. We had already eaten our appetizer and I had started on my meal, but I wanted to take a photo of my yummy food.



How cool is it to be sitting at a restaurant in Costa Rica, drinking a bottled Coke and see a volcano in the distance?



We shopped around in La Fortuna after our meal and was able to have Marco help us in finding the coveted coffee of Costa Rica - Cafe Britt. We also bought a bag of what Marco told us was the "everyday" coffee of Costa Rica. It was about 1/3 of the price of the Britt.


Driving about 45 minutes or so, we got on to our next destination - Tabacon Resort - to sit in the thermal heated mineral springs. Ahhh! This was another "attraction" that we had visited when here in 1998 but we did not relax in the hot springs. This time it was on our agenda to partake in the (super) hot waters that were flowing in rivers at the base of the volcano and in the rain forest. We couldn't sit in the water for long. Remember our "day in the shade" that we had the prior day? Wellllll, we did get a little sunburn and it hurt like crazy in that hot water. Ouchie! It felt good though still and we soaked in the mineral waters for little over an hour before getting dressed and ready for dinner.


Dinner is what we did do at the resort when we visited way back when. Funny thing - and most cool - is that we sat in the VERY EXACT spot we sat in eleven years ago. Table two. But on that day we were with about three other couples and had a few tables put together. Same enough, we were in the very corner and area of the restaurant. Marco asked the waiter what the table number was. He replied "table 2" and Marco told us we should play the lottery that week and pick "0-2". LOL


The food was good and we practically gorged ourselves since it hadn't been too long that we had eaten lunch. It was a very enjoyable evening though. The fun wasn't over though. By this time it was dark and Marco drove down a dirt, rutted road toward the Arenal Volcano Observatory. He knew a spot along the way (as did all the locals) where you could get a good view of the volcano. So we bumped along for a while until we crossed a small bridge over a river and parked among other hopeful spectators. The goal was to see if this active volcano would be active enough to put on a "fire" show for us. After sitting around for 10 minutes, we were rewarded! Some large boulders were propelled from the mouth of the volcano and we saw them tumble down, breaking up and causing streams of fiery rock to roll down the side. A pyroclastic flow. And because it was dark, it wasn't something I could capture on camera but oh, it isn't anything Wade and I will forget for a long time.


Marco dropped us off at our resort around 10:30, we thanked him and headed to the room. We were still filled with exhilaration from our fun filled day and climatic evening but pooped from the long day of events. It didn't take us long to fall to sleep though, and I don't think I even heard the "boom booming" of the disco that night! :)