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Published: July 30th 2009
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Gringo Pete's!
The hostel we stayed at. This is Kate. I put pictures up on the first entry about Carolyn's visit, so you should check them out!
So... traveling to La Fortuna was very scenic. There were dramatic valley views as we climbed the hills. Once we were near, there was a mist around us. It felt like we were heading into the clouds! We arrived in the afternoon and it was a misty day indeed.
We didn't have anywhere to stay, so we walked around a bit and eventually came to Gringo Pete's, a cheap youth hostel that looked fun. It was purple! Also, only $6 per night and we had a private room with a bathroom! Sweet! After settling in, we were thinking of what to do. The day wasn't so good for walking around, so we decided to plan what tours we would do. We decided on the hot springs at the Baldi resort and the canopy tour. Since we didn't have anything better to do that afternoon/evening, we decided to head for the hot springs.
We got there around 4:30pm, and I was so excited about the water slides!!! After getting a locker, we walked around for a bit, trying different
pools, until we came to the water slides. Yay!!! They were SO fast! I felt like I was being shot out of a cannon. After trying the fast ones, I went on the slow one. Unfortunately, the guy who was running the slides let me go before the lady in front of me came out. I was scooting along at first until I assumed a more streamline position. I started going faster and I realized she was still in the tunnel! She was shouting, "Para! Para!" which means "Stop!". I kept yelling back, "I can't stop! I can't stop!"... I forgot to say it in Spanish. When I got close to her, I tried to move my body so that I slide up on the wall of the tunnel and went around her. It worked! I knicked her a little bit, so on the way down I yelled, "Lo sientooooooooooooooo!" which means "I'm sorry" in Spanish. When I got to the bottom, Carolyn was waiting and laughing. She said everyone around could hear what was happening. By the time that lady came out, she had 3 or 4 people in a line scooting to the end behind her. It was
really funny.
The resort also had a tropical garden. We went to see what kinds of plants and creatures we could find. The colors of the plants were beautiful! Bright pinks and oranges. All we found for creatures was an ugly slug. Yuck!
After the garden, we dipped into a few more hot springs and decided to check out the swim up bar. Every cocktail was $10!!! We decided we better only have one, since they were so much, but that we HAD to at least have one! It's a swim up bar! So, we were hanging out and met a crazy girl which I don't remember her name anymore. She was nice though and we talked to some guys as well. Before we left to go eat dinner, we all decided to take a picture together.
The dinner was great, and we stuffed ourselves full. Afterwards, we lounged around in the hot springs for a few more hours... it was super fun and relaxing. We got picked up around 9pm and headed back to the hostel. Once there, we chilled outside for a bit with these 2 Dutch guys discussing movies and drinking beer for about
an hour. Then we had to sleep... needed sleep. We were set to go on the canopy tour the next day!
We woke up early, so we went out for a bit to eat, some coffee, and some internet. After coming back to the hostel, we got picked up for the canopy tour around 10:15am. We were given lots of instructions on how to ride the cables, given equipment, and corraled onto a tractor-pull thing to head out to where the ziplines were. I was so nervous and Carolyn was making fun of me the whole time. After changing tractors, we finally arrived there. We had an amazing view of the La Fortuna waterfall. It was awesome, yet nerve-wracking because you could see the ziplines out in the distance and how high they were!!!! Yikes! It turned out to be super fun, even though twice I didn't make it to the end and had to turn around and go hand-over-hand until I was at the end. Also, on 2 ziplines it started to rain and it felt like the raindrops were stabbing us in they eye if we looked forward! All in all, it was great and I am
so glad I faced my fear of heights.
Afterwards, we were exhausted. Doing the ziplines out in those hills required a lot of hiking! We got some lunch and decided to take a nap. After around 1.5 hours, we headed out for some internet, pick up something light to eat for dinner, and some beer. I think I had tuna and crackers that night and I'm not sure what Carolyn had. Beer was the main food group for our dinner. We played cards for a long time and then we met some Canadian brothers. They played hearts with us for a bit and then we started playing an awesome card Monopoly game! I want that for Christmas just in case any of you can remember. We only played a little while, until we were out of beer, and then went to sleep. We made plans with the Canadian guys to hike to the La Fortuna waterfall in the morning.
Once we woke up, we got some coffee and internet and then set out on our hike. It was 1 kilometer down the highway and 4 kilometers up a hill to the waterfall. For you Americans, that's a little
over 3 miles all together. The last 2 kilometers of the hike were hard, because we were going up a steep hill. There were some nice views on the way though. When we got to the waterfall, we discovered it was $10 per person! Ugh! We didn't want to pay that, so we took a taxi back home and were just happy to get some exercise that morning. Once back at the hostel, we met another girl from California who was meeting 2 other girls from Canada. All of us decided to go grab some food and we had a nice lunch at a little soda in town.
Not long after, I had to say my goodbyes... my bus/van was leaving at 2:15pm and I was heading back to Quepos. Of course, the last day I was there was the only day the sun came out and it actually felt warm. I'm sure Carolyn enjoyed it after I left her. The ride home wasn't bad, but I was very tired. I slept, snacked, and dreamed of what adventures I would go on next.
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