First Weekend Excursion

So this weekend we left San José to go explore the country. We left Friday afternoon and began a four hour bus ride to La Fortuna. Let me just make a side note that our bus driver, Carlos, is absolutely amazing. He can navigate a huge coach bus through some scary terrain. Some of the places we drove might not even by qualified as roads because there are more potholes than there actually is road. Most of the bridges we drove on were one lane and there were a few close calls of whether or not we would even fit. I probably would have given up on some of the curves and slopes in my bug, but Carlos is a pro. Anyways, when we arrived at La Fortuna, we went to Baldie Hot Springs. La Fortuna is the tourist town right outside Arenal Volcano. So when we were told that we were going to hot springs that we naturally heated by the volcano, we pictured naturally occurring pools on the side of a mountain. Oh no, this was a resort. Too bad we weren't staying there. But we got to swim around for a couple hours. They had 16 pools, one of which got up to 150 degrees. They also had some water slides, one of which probably would not be up to safety codes in the United States, but it was fun. The sign said you went 45 kilometers per hour down the slide. There was one point where you literally flew through the air. Needless to say it was a little bit painful to land. We got to eat dinner there, but then we were off to our dinky hotel. There are 30 of us, so we took up all the rooms but two. I feel bad for the two couples that had to stay with us. We stayed up for awhile outside, and at one point we were told to quiet down, but that didn't really help. I mean, we were learning how to play Costa Rican drinking games, so it wasn't really a time to be quiet.

The next morning we went to a hydroelectric plant. Therefore, we actually are learning on this trip. We got to see a dam and the plant where the energy was captured. It was a little scary at first because the guys started e

xplaining everything to us in Spanish. Luckily we have Leo, our tour guide for the month to translate.

But after that we got to go to the waterfall in La Fortuna. It was incredible. Some of the group rode horses to get there, but since I'm allergic to horses, I took the nice air conditioned bus. To get to the bottom of the waterfall, we had to walk down a long way. I think it was like 160 stairs or something, but it wasn't just stairs. The walk was nerve racking because it was steep, but not unnaturally hard. When we made it to the bottom we went swimming in the pool. It was a good thing I had good sandals because it was hard to navigate the rocks to get to the water. I tried swim toward the waterfall, but the current was so strong that I didn't make it very far. Then we navigated down the river, which was also very difficult because of the rocks. By the time we made it to a calm section and layed out on the rocks for a few minutes, it was time to head back. The walk back up to get to the bus was absolutely dreadful. I know I'm not a marathon runner or anything, but I'm in decent shape. I made it to the top without stopping, but I was breathing heavily and super sweaty.

That afternoon we were supposed to go to Arenal Volcano, but it was cloudy and rainy, so we went to a serpentarium instead. It was so cool. We got to play with snakes and frogs and butterflys. I got to hold a cute bright green tree frog, and wait for it, a 250 lb python. Yea, I know you're jealous. On the way back, we thought we might be able to see the lava coming out of Arenal because it was dark, but we couldn't. The volcano has been erupting for decades.

The next day we got up early and started our adventure to Monteverde Cloud Forest. Instead of taking our bus, we took a jeep-boat-jeep. Except the jeep was really a van. The first van ride was to Arenal Lake. Arenal Lake is the largest man made lake in central America. The boat ride was only about half an hour. And in the middle of Costa Rica, somehow I managed to be on a boat with people from Highland Park. Bizarre. The next leg of the trip was an hour and a half. And it is a ride I never need to take again. We were bouncing around the whole time on unpaved roads, up hills, around curves, and over temporary bridges. But we lived. Once we got to Monteverde, we unloaded our stuff because we were actually staying in the forest. We stayed at a biological reserve. It was like being at summer camp because we stayed in bunk rooms with public bathrooms. Oh the joys.

That afternoon we went on a tour on hanging bridges through the forest. It was cool to be up high, but we didn't see too much. There are these trees called strangler treest that grow from the canopy down. They grow around existing trees and strangle them leaving a hollow space in the middle. To get to one of the bridges, we got to climb up one of these trees. We also got to do a tarzan like swing. Later we went on a night tour through the forest. We saw a lot of bugs. Spiders, crickets, grasshoppers, millipedes, centipedes, catepillars. But not much else. The next morning we got to go on a day tour through the forest. This tour was amazing. We saw tons of stuff including some howler monkeys and the Quetzal bird.

So pretty much my weekend was sweet. Somewhat exhausting, but now we're back in San José for a few days. Tomorrow we are heading to the beach in Puntarenas for our free day. It should be a lot of fun and hopefully I'll actually get a tan, but we're leaving Veritas at 6:00 am. Should be interesting.