La Fortuna

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Hello all. Andrew is asleep right now so you will have to put up with me again. Yesterday we got in to Fortuna on a packed local bus. It is a small and breath-taking town surrounded by mountains, which still continue to surprise us with their size. Our mountains are so small by comparison.

Last night we visited the hot springs up the road. It is actually a complex with at least 8 pools with water of varying temperature. I definitely smelled chlorine so I don't know how "fresh" the water is. It was very relaxing and had swim-up bars. We drank cocktails and enjoyed the warm water. Conveniently, I managed to spill half my pina colada in the springs and I was so embarrassed I swam away after pretending I hadn't noticed for a few minutes.

The rivers have been the other surprising thing in addition to the mountains. They are a grey-blue colour, and you can see straight to the bottom. They are beautiful and fast-flowing. I didn't realise what a river was meant to look like if you didn't have to irrigate.

Today I realised waking up to a roosters cocka-doodle-dooing is not my thing. After I got up (at 6) I went on a wildlife Safari. Andrew went in a kayak on grade 2-3 rapids. He had so much fun and apparently he didn't fall out once. The wildlife safari was pretty much my dream come true - I saw monkeys, a 4 metre crocodile, lots of beautiful birds, fascinating (and tiny) long-nosed bats (pictures to come) and, best of all (drum roll please, I could die now and be happy) ...a two-toed sloth! Our guide was very excited because you don't normally see them during the day.

This afternoon Andrew and I went horseback riding to some massive waterfalls. My horse was very naughty and had to be at the front of the pack. Her name was "Katrina" and she kept galloping too, when none of the other horses were even cantering. Then Andrew's horse copied mine and it was very annoying. Andrew and I agreed 45 minutes on a horse was enough (for the next 10 years) and we caught a taxi home, letting "Katrina" and "Crystal" gallop home, which I'm sure they were thrilled about.

The people are beautiful. As usual people are just as interesting as anything else you could do. You can understand children so well that I'm almost surprised every time they open their mouth and a foreign language comes out. I suppose people are the same everywhere.

The accommodation is much nicer than I thought it would be. There are no backpackers lodges at all, it's all twin-share "hotels" which are roughly equivalent to our standard motels and all of them will have hot water except one in Nicaragua, which will be hot anyway. The people in our group are all a bit older than us and have travelled a lot more. The youngest people would be in their thirties and the oldest in their sixties. There are two other Australians, one British, three Germans, one Swedish, one Panamanian, one Asian lady but she could be from LA for all I know. There is heaps of domestic tourism here, you see people from Mexico and so on on lots of the tours.

Well this is getting a bit long, I'll write more later. Happy Xmas everyone, enjoy the day, I am very jealous of your pudding. Then you will jealous of us on NYE when we are on a Carribean island off Honduruas!

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Comments

[Lauren]

Merry Christmas!
hey guys! Sounds like u are having a great time =) Very happy for you. And glad no drugs were put in your bags! I've just got back from sri lanka- dead on my feet, but had a great time. Will bore u in detail in a following email!! Should go do chrissy stuff now though... Hope u have had a great day!! Love Lauren. xoxoxox Ps. Very jealous about how nice your accom sounds- just spent 3 weeks with no hot water, little elecriticity and mutated HUGE bugs!!!