Blogs from La Fortuna, Alajuela, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 3

More water sports today. White water rafting with Wave Experiences is on the menu. I chose the class 2&3 rapids tour. Claudette decided to take the day off. She has had enough of getting her face wet after the rappelling adventure. Our destination was about an hour out of town. The guide, Fabio, gave an entertaining introduction and monologue to keep us amused along the way. After a brief pit stop, we turned off the main road to reach our starting point. There were 70 people signed up for today’s river descent. Each raft held six people. It was a mad scramble and lots of wasted time as people tried to decide who they wanted to go with. There were some over-sized groups. Easy for me. I just latched myself onto a group of five. ... read more

Early start today for a river nature cruise. The kind people at Eruptions prepared an early breakfast and we were on the bus at 7am. We were the first to embark so we got to see some of the other tourist lodgings, including high end spas and a five star backpackers resort (not quite as nice as our place). The river we were to explore is about 15 km. from Nicaragua, an hour drive from Fortuna. It is slow moving and the banks are held together by large drooping trees. We saw different kinds of monkeys, caimans and about 10 different kinds of birds. Couldn’t get pics of them all as the zoom on my camera is not powerful enough. After about 2 hours, we headed back to our starting point for a buffet lunch. A ... read more

Geo: 9.74892, -83.7534I'm not a huge fan of hot springs - sure, they're a nice spot for a soak after a long day on the ski slopes, and they feel great for those achy muscles and weary bones. But in North America, more often than not, those hot springs are a nasty human soup, a filthy mixture of humanity, dead skin, and floating band aids! They've never felt like a luxurious experience - at least, not until today at Tabacon, the biggest and best hot springs that Costa Rica has to offer.Even though temperatures are much cooler at this elevation, the idea of visiting hot springs in Costa Rica still seems a bit odd - things peaked at probably 28 or 29 degrees today, so it was counter intuitive to be spending so much time in ... read more

This morning dawned...yes torrential rain again!!! When Curtis asked the owner, Anthony, about the rain he replied with a grin, "Here in La Fortuna we have 2 seasons, rainy and rainier!!". After breakfast we loaded up the silver bomb and headed out in order to tour around Lake Arenal. The roads are narrow, nicely paved, but with sharp curves and vehicles appearing out of nowhere! We drove along admiring the splendour of the rainforest on one side and the lake on the other. After a while we arrived at Nuevo Arenal which is a tiny hillside village. There was a wonderful German bakery and a little shop where a Peruvian man was making rugs, mitts, socks, and ponchos. We bought a few bracelets from him and then headed down to another shop where I found a ... read more

The morning dawned hot and sunny so we lounged around the pool for a couple of hours and then walked down the road into the middle of one of the Tico neighbourhoods where Anthony our hotel owner had suggested we eat as they have the BEST food. We walked to Garra-Pata only to find the gate closed but a couple of people inside. Not knowing what to do, Curtis went up and asked, "Abierto?". Si, Si was the answer and they welcomed us inside. Hose was busily donning his crisp white chef's shirt and his cap. It is so amazing how language barriers are overcome. He did not speak one word of English, nor did his wife, and my Spanish is shaky and basic but still we were able to get across to him that we ... read more