Adventure Day in La Fortuna

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Today was the day of ADVENTURE! We started the morning early at 5:45 (it's CST and the jungle... combine these together for early sun rises)... Breakfast was fruit from the Tabacon resort that was left in our room.

We then were picked up at 9:00 by Costa Rica Descents for a White Water Rafting trip. Megan and I were the first folks to be picked up and we ended up picking up around a dozen more travelers. We were taken up a gigantic hill, given some quick instruction, put on some safety gear and headed into the water. Turns out we were going to raft the Balsa River, which was part of Cordillera Central.

Two travelers were in front of Megan and I in our raft and we started out pretty strong, with some class 3 and class 4 rapids... we then got to some class 5 rapids that were pretty exciting. Then, we ended up hitting a rock too quickly and capsized our raft! I was the only person not to hang on to the "chicken line" and got swept away. Thanks to the instruction of the guides I was able to quickly swim to the side and get back into the raft... it was a bit scary being pulled so suddenly under the water, but it was invigorating and really took something to get back into the raft and continue the trip. We did encounter quite a few more rapids, but they were mostly class 2 and class 3, tame by comparison to the bad boy that caused our raft to capsize.

After the rafting trip was finished the guides took us to an awesome lunch spot that served traditional Costa Rican food (rice and beans, plantains, etc). We were then dropped off back in La Fortuna where we got with another guide for a hiking tour of the Volcano. While we were waiting in the van Megan discovered a HUGE bruise on the inside of her forearm that, we suspect, was caused by when she was picked up out of the water from the capsized raft.

We jumped into another van and were whisked away... we went over single lane dirt roads and, after about 20 minutes, arrived to a parking lot of an observatory of Mt. Arenal at the Arenal Volcano National Park.

The hike was awesome... We started out by learning about the different sorts of plants and lush vegetation around the park and then made our way to the La Fortuna Waterfall. It was breath-taking and was certainly much colder than the water at the Tabacon Hot Springs and from rafting earlier in the day.

The hike proceeded to a large hanging bridge that was over 50 meters above a ravine... a bit nauseating to me, but Megan handled it fine. At this point is was 5:20 and almost dark. We headed back to the Volcano to watch the lava spew but heard a Howler Monkey on the way and stopped for a bit to check him out.

Once we got back to the observatory deck we started to see some lava come out of the top of the Volcano, but it was pretty small and wasn't big enough for us to take a picture of it. After we were there for an hour or so we got back into the Van and was taken to a small diner to eat. During our meal the guide noticed that one of his tires was virtually flat! He took the van back to town to get it fixed and didn't show up for almost an hour! Once he showed up we were taken back to Tabacon... This was alot of stuff for one day so we called it a night.


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Photos

Mt. Arenal
Mt. Arenal from the deck of the observatory.

Forest Surrounding Mt. Arenal
The Forest surrounding Mt. Arenal.

Megan and Tommy
Megan and Tommy at the Volcano.