There was some serious stress catching my connecting flight in Miami. Even though I was in transit, I had to go through immigration. I spoke with an airport employee and was able to skip most of the security line. I ran to the gate and they were already boarding group three. A lot of people didn’t make the flight because they had to go through immigration as a non-US citizen. So, I was lucky. Once in San Jose I picked up the rental car I had booked online. Online it was quoted at 503 USD for 26 days. That is a pretty good price. It wasn’t until I was standing at the desk in the Alamo office that I found out the final bill. The jovial Oscar informed me that the total including the mandatory insurance would be 1,770-1,900 USD depending on which package I selected. Um, no! I had previously read about the absurd insurance situation in CR, but I had been expecting maybe an extra 300 dollars. After joking and negotiating with Oscar, he dropped the 13% airport pick-up fee and the drop-off at a different location fee. I also decided to keep the car for 10 days instead of 26. Moral of the story, beware of the insurance fees!!!
The drive to La Fortuna was relatively uneventful other than discovering that Costa Rican two lane roads all cross bodies of water over one lane bridges which can obviously lead to some issues. I stopped for a 5 dollar meal at a furniture outlet and then made it to my destination after roughly 3 hours of driving. Once in La Fortuna I was able to catch some great pictures of Arenal and made it to my airbnb host.
My first full day in the area was spent at La Fortuna Falls. I met a nice Spanish couple and swam around the falls. The area was serene and a nice place to spend a morning. The rest of the day was spent just taking advantage of having a vehicle. I drove around the lake for about an hour and discovered an odd Swiss establishment and saw an RV that looked like an armored delivery car for a bank. Note to self- next time get an armored car!
The next day I went to the Hotel del Lagos and paid 15 USD to enjoy the facilities for the day. I checked out the croc enclosure, butterfly house, frog house, and ant tree. I dove up the hotel’s massive hill to get a closer view of the volcano and hurried back to swim in the many natural hot spring pools. The establishment has both hot and cold pools of varying temps and several have slides. I met a lovely Canadian woman named Tami and spent some time chatting with her which inevitably led to me trying to convince her to move to Taiwan. The Taiwanese government really should hire me. Back at my airbnb place I cooked curry with hot hot hot chili peppers. When the produce guy tells you that this chili pepper is the hottest, you should probably believe him. The oil got on my hands and they swelled up and became very red. They burned for hours and I ended up soaking them in a bowl of yogurt. That didn’t work, so I then soaked them in milk. Thank goodness I didn’t get oil in my eyes.
The last day in La Fortuna I hiked Cerro Chato. It is a small mountain next to Arenal with a placid lake at its summit. It is supposedly the toughest hike in the area and on average takes people four hours round trip. I made it to the top in less than an hour and twenty minutes, so it is possible to do it in less than four hours. It was a steep climb criss-crossing up a muddy slope of large and uneven tree roots. At the top I initially felt disappointed at finding a view that provided only a narrow glimpse of a lake with Arenal not visible. Luckily, I continued around to find an absurdly steep drop down to the lake. I wouldn’t have dropped myself down if I hadn’t seen other people doing it. I met a nice couple from Chicago. She works for a company called Rent to Own. The idea is that they rent fridges to businesses or farm equipment to farmers at a monthly rate they can afford and eventually they will own the equipment. The idea came from micro loan companies like Kiva. She just spent 4 months in Zambia and 7 in South Africa. I told them I had done Chimp research in Zambia and the husband got excited because he did similar research but with dolphins. She knew of the reserve I had spent time at and had hoped to visit, but was unable to fit it into her schedule. It was so nice chatting with them that I lost track of time and the urgent need to get down the mountain before dusk. I let the fish eat some dead skin off my feet and a coati watch me pee and headed back up the muddy embankment. On the dash down the mountain (I literally ran down ⅔ of the way with the hope of beating the approaching storm and in the process broke my big toe’s nail off), I saw amazingly camouflaged frogs and several bugs that looked exactly like tree leaves. The huge thunderstorm I had been watching from a distance rolled in and made the last ⅓ of the way back down slow and dangerous. Luckily, I made it back to the car wet, but in one piece.
The drive to La Fortuna was relatively uneventful other than discovering that Costa Rican two lane roads all cross bodies of water over one lane bridges which can obviously lead to some issues. I stopped for a 5 dollar meal at a furniture outlet and then made it to my destination after roughly 3 hours of driving. Once in La Fortuna I was able to catch some great pictures of Arenal and made it to my airbnb host.
My first full day in the area was spent at La Fortuna Falls. I met a nice Spanish couple and swam around the falls. The area was serene and a nice place to spend a morning. The rest of the day was spent just taking advantage of having a vehicle. I drove around the lake for about an hour and discovered an odd Swiss establishment and saw an RV that looked like an armored delivery car for a bank. Note to self- next time get an armored car!
The next day I went to the Hotel del Lagos and paid 15 USD to enjoy the facilities for the day. I checked out the croc enclosure, butterfly house, frog house, and ant tree. I dove up the hotel’s massive hill to get a closer view of the volcano and hurried back to swim in the many natural hot spring pools. The establishment has both hot and cold pools of varying temps and several have slides. I met a lovely Canadian woman named Tami and spent some time chatting with her which inevitably led to me trying to convince her to move to Taiwan. The Taiwanese government really should hire me. Back at my airbnb place I cooked curry with hot hot hot chili peppers. When the produce guy tells you that this chili pepper is the hottest, you should probably believe him. The oil got on my hands and they swelled up and became very red. They burned for hours and I ended up soaking them in a bowl of yogurt. That didn’t work, so I then soaked them in milk. Thank goodness I didn’t get oil in my eyes.
The last day in La Fortuna I hiked Cerro Chato. It is a small mountain next to Arenal with a placid lake at its summit. It is supposedly the toughest hike in the area and on average takes people four hours round trip. I made it to the top in less than an hour and twenty minutes, so it is possible to do it in less than four hours. It was a steep climb criss-crossing up a muddy slope of large and uneven tree roots. At the top I initially felt disappointed at finding a view that provided only a narrow glimpse of a lake with Arenal not visible. Luckily, I continued around to find an absurdly steep drop down to the lake. I wouldn’t have dropped myself down if I hadn’t seen other people doing it. I met a nice couple from Chicago. She works for a company called Rent to Own. The idea is that they rent fridges to businesses or farm equipment to farmers at a monthly rate they can afford and eventually they will own the equipment. The idea came from micro loan companies like Kiva. She just spent 4 months in Zambia and 7 in South Africa. I told them I had done Chimp research in Zambia and the husband got excited because he did similar research but with dolphins. She knew of the reserve I had spent time at and had hoped to visit, but was unable to fit it into her schedule. It was so nice chatting with them that I lost track of time and the urgent need to get down the mountain before dusk. I let the fish eat some dead skin off my feet and a coati watch me pee and headed back up the muddy embankment. On the dash down the mountain (I literally ran down ⅔ of the way with the hope of beating the approaching storm and in the process broke my big toe’s nail off), I saw amazingly camouflaged frogs and several bugs that looked exactly like tree leaves. The huge thunderstorm I had been watching from a distance rolled in and made the last ⅓ of the way back down slow and dangerous. Luckily, I made it back to the car wet, but in one piece.
