Final Day in La Fortuna

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One of the joys of being in Costa Rica is the lack of internet, television, and other so-called necessities in many of the places we are staying. The internet has been spotty at best, so I have fallen behind on this blog. I will catch up the last few days with a couple of posts this morning.
The second full day in La Fortuna (last Thursday) was taken up with hiking through the Arenas Volcano National Park. There were no swinging bridges, but we thought we would include a photo of one anyway since we forgot in the last posting. The park covers most of the volcano which last erupted in 2010. However, the last lava flow was in 1998 and that was what we were hiking out to see.

On the way to the flow we spotted a flock of wild Costa Rican turkeys, which only can be found in the parks as they have been hunted out in the rest of the country. When we reached the flow it was somewhat underwhelming, for a good reason. What you find are a few boulders, volcanic rocks, that are only visible because hikers come to this point to see them and the view of Lago Arenas. It is a testament to the rain forest that now, some 20 years after molten rock flowed where we were standing, you could only find these rocks kept uncovered by the footsteps of hikers. The rest of the area, while very uneven, has been retaken by the grasses, trees, and vines of the forest.

We hiked out from the flow and found a Ceiba tree which was easily 250 feet tall. Its footprint was probably the size of the footprint of our house.

The other hike in the park took us from the main office of the park down to the lake. On this part of the hike we spotted Coatis (a mammal in the raccoon family) and a Lesser Ant Eater.

On Friday we departed from La Fortuna, headed for Monteverde. With expert spotters John and Katelyn in the back seat we were able to spot three Two-Toed Sloths as well as a bunch (what do you call a bunch of monkeys?) of Howler Monkeys. We watched as they ate, groomed their young, and just hung around being monkeys. The dominate male sat high above and in the middle of the group, watching for danger and making sure we kept our distance. He was especially irritated by passing trucks when they used their air brakes which would be responded to with his howls and anger.

The road to Monteverde was only paved part way, all the guide books warn about the Costa Rican roads, they are correct. The final 71km was dirt road, often down to one lane, but we shared it with tour buses among others arriving in Monteverde in the mid afternoon. The Monteverde visit will be the subject of the next blog.

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Photos

George's favorite place
Bridges some 150 feet above the forest floor.

Giant Cieba Tree
Only the bottom half