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Published: November 4th 2011
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Arenal
Volcano near La Fortuna that just recently stopped flowing lava. Our trip from San Jose to La Fortuna was uneventful. We took a bus from San Jose to San Carlos and then continued on to La Fortuna at the base of Volcano Arenal, both trips were about 2 hours for a total of 4 hours on the bus. As we arrived the imposing Arenal looked over the city and created an easy marker for navigation for our time in La Fortuna. We knew before we arrived that we wanted to take a guided tour of Arenal and the surrounding area and possibly include a visit to the hot springs in our tour.
Upon our arrival we were greeted at the bus station by some people wanting us to stay at their hotel. Due to the recession and the rainy season tourism is pretty depressed in all areas of Central America - which has been great for us since we get reduced rates and people fighting for our business. We settled on a really nice hotel for $25/night which included AC, hot water shower, and a TV. We checked out the different tours available and decided on a tour that would take us on a hike near Arenal, walk across some
Tree Frog
Rare tree frog around Arenal suspension bridges, see a waterfall, and go in some hot springs. The tour was amazing, and I think I'll start at the end and then work back to the beginning as the end was really the most incredible part and definitely ranks as one of the top highlights of our travels thus far. As a treat to our day in the woods we had the opportunity to sit in some natural hot springs. Now these aren't the "hot springs" you see advertised in most places where the hot springs are developed and put in man made pools. We sat in a rushing river of warm water that had a little hole for sitting in. Possibly most impressive was the quantity of warm water flowing in this river (heated by Arenal). I would guess that the river flows at a rate of 1,000 cubic feet per minute! The guide noted that the river was cold before the major eruption of Arenal in 1968, and since then the water has been warm. In addition to the hot springs, our guide picked up some volcanic mud towards the end of our hike and created a paste to give us volcanic mud facials. This
Waterfall
Hiking around Arenal was my first facial, it was interesting to try, and only added to the adventure. The rest of our guided tour was amazing in itself. We hiked in a couple of miles to a great waterfall seeing tons of flora and fauna along the way. We saw some spider monkeys which are incredibly agile and vocal, more vocal than the howler monkeys we saw in Nicaragua. We saw an incredible tree frog that was a vibrant green with blue stripes on its side and bright red eyes. Our guide picked us some mushrooms we could eat from the forest. He picked some citronella which I rubbed on my legs since I forgot bug spray. We saw an endangered Costa Rican turkey. To top it all off as we arrived for our hike the clouds that constantly cover Arenal cleared so that we could see the peak of the Volcano. Overall, it was one of the best days we have had throughout our travels! From La Fortuna we arranged a shuttle to go to Manuel Antonio.
Manuel Antonio is one of the most popular parks in Costa Rica and is considered to be overrun and have rather tame animals. Given
Amy and I
At Manuel Antonio beach its reputation we expected to see wildlife eating from our hands and at every turn of the path, which was far from the truth. Despite this, we did see some great wildlife, plants, and views of the ocean. The beaches around Manuel Antonio are absolutely gorgeous and remind me of Big Sur in Northern California. The water is a wonderful blue color and rock outcroppings dot the Pacific skyline. We decided against a guide in Manual Antonio given that it was supposed to be teeming with wildlife. Ultimately, I don't think this was a bad decision, but it wasn't until the end of our hike that we really got to see the wildlife we were expecting to see all day. We were able to see a white-faced and squirrel monkey, so we have seen four different types of monkeys on this trip! Just towards the end of the our hike we saw a sloth, which was very camouflaged and I only spotted because there was a "blob" in the tree that I thought moved. We saw a white tailed deer just at the end of our hike as well - getting me ready for hunting season in Wisconsin at the
Crashing Wave
Wave crashing on the shores near Manual Antonio end of November! In additon to those major sights we saw the token birds, butterflies, and flowers that seem to be everywhere. Overall, it was a great hike and we saw a lot of interesting things and it was definitely worth visiting the Manuel Antonio area.
Tomorrow we head back to Cartago to spend some more time with Amy's host family from high school and then we fly back to the states on Sunday for a three week break before we start our India adventure! Cheers!
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Sam
non-member comment
Re: Your trip
Going to Costa Rica in December. Will visit Arenal and Manuel Antonio, so enjoyed reading your blog. Keep traveling. If you need any tips on India, I can help.