After two and half months of non-stop waterfalls, rainforests, and beaches we finally got around to volcanoes! Jill had a client Thursday after Spanish school and we set out as soon as she wrapped up. Our destination was the town of La Fortuna in the shadow of Volcan Arenal. Arenal is the most famous of Costa Rica’s volcanoes. It sits out by itself and is the perfect cone shaped volcano. On the advice of our landlady, Magda, we booked a room at Tabacon Thermal Resort in La Fortuna. Magda suggested we stay at Tabacon because of their fabulous thermal pool setup. The Arenal volcano supplies the region with a whole bunch of hot springs and there are about a million operations offering tourists an opportunity to soak in the magical healing and rejuvenating waters.
Jill and I have been spoiled over the last two weeks because our excursions took us on routes with nice wide roads at relatively high speeds. The route from Atenas to La Fortuna is old school Costa Rica. The roads are about a car-and-a-half wide and alternate steep uphill curves and steep downhill curves. After a couple of hours driving in that environment I’m pretty wrung out from dodging buses, dogs, and tractors.
Fortunately, we made it to the outskirts of La Fortuna on schedule and without incident. We got our first glimpse of Arenal from about 20 miles out. Thursday was a bit hazy, so we didn’t get much more than the outline of the volcano.
We got checked into Tabacon and were quite impressed with the operation. It is very un-Costa Rican and reminded us of a nice resort in Hawaii. Think manicured grounds and golf carts. We donned our fluffy white robes and headed for the lobby to get transported to the magical healing waters.
The “Tabacon Thermal Experience” is about 400 yards from the hotel. There’s a shuttle bus that runs every 5 minutes. It’s very well done.
After soaking, drinking, dining, and shopping we retired to our room for a good night’s sleep.
In the morning when I opened up the blackout curtains, this guy was nosing around the grass in behind our room. It’s a coatimundi — Costa Rica’s version of a raccoon.
Our destination for Saturday was the Mistico Hanging Bridge park, which advertises a 2 hour trek through the rainforest with 6 hanging bridges. You know Jill likes her some hanging bridges!
We arrived at Mistico without any trouble. When we got there there was a gated entrance and a man approached us with a clipboard. He asked if we had a reservation and we said “Umm…. no?” Fortunately his response was that would not be a problem and he waved us through the checkpoint. The next stop was the parking attendant, but since I’m now a professional at the protocol we had no trouble backing into the spot he assigned us.
We paid the nice lady at the admission booth $26 each and she pointed us to the trail head.
Anyway… On to the hanging bridges!
Hanging bridges are interesting. You would think that the motion would be amplified in the middle of the bridge, but our experience is that the 1/4 way marks on both sides was where the movement tended to be exaggerated. It’s also interesting how quickly the human body adapts. We were both holding on to the side ropes on the first three or four bridges and by the end we were much more confident in our ability to stay upright without holding on.
We grabbed a quick lunch of arroz con pollo (rice with chicken) at the on-site restaurant. This was the view from our table at the restaurant.
We stopped at the restrooms on the way out because we were going to drive up to Lake Arenal. In America every grocery store has scooters available for patrons. This is the first scooter we have seen in Costa Rica.
Lake Arenal was only about 10 minutes from Mistico. It’s hands-down the biggest body of fresh water in Costa Rica. It’s man made and provides hydro-power. We drove about 45 minutes up the shoreline.
When we got back to the hotel this guy was waiting outside our room. It’s one of the Jesus Christ lizards. So-named because they can run across water. He ran across the fountain across from our room 🙂
After a few minutes in our room we donned our robes for another go at the thermal baths. We had a cabana with a great view of the volcano.
We got back to our room a little after dark and took a quick shower and reconvened in the bar where we had gin and tonics and bar food for dinner. We picked the bar because Jill had been craving a cheeseburger and the bar had one on the menu.
I think we would both conclude that Arenal is fantastic, but it’s damn hard to get to. Beautiful scenery and the volcano is pretty stunning, but there just aren’t any full-sized roads in that area.
Because we are headed back to Austin for a couple of days in the morning, we had an early breakfast this morning and beat an orderly retreat back to headquarters. The drive was no less daunting on the return trip.
We will be back in Costa Rica on Wednesday evening and then the Moshers arrive on Thursday and we will head to Playa Santa Teresa. We’ve been warned that Costa Ricans head for the beaches in droves during Semana Santa (Holy Week) so it will be interesting to see what a “crowd” looks like. I will report back.
Adventure is out there!
Jill and Todd in Costa Rica 