Mortaine’s Blog

Edit: Wonder where the first half of this entry went? Me too.

that she understood that we needed them by 2, at least. (sigh)

As a result, we got going pretty late in the morning, but we´d already booked our main adventure tour, a late-afternoon hike up the Volcán Arenal, followed by volcano viewing after dark (when you can see the lava), and a soak in the hot springs until 10.

However, this wasn´t enough for us, so we rented bicycles and rode out to the Ecocentre Danaus, which is a small nature preserve outside of town. It´s about 4 km out, and downhill to get there, but a gentle slope, so returning, while challenging, was not the end of my existence.

At the Ecocentre, we paid the extra $2 for a guided tour (self-tours are $6), and we had a very small guided tour by a nice young man named Fabian, from Germany. He´s volunteering at the center, and is apparently a forester by training, so this is just about the best job evar, is my guess. In any case, he was very helpful. Had we not gone with a guide, we would have seen the butterflies (inside the butterfly house), and the snakes (inside snake habitats), but would not have seen the herons, the 5 foot long iguana, the endangered bat, nor the rare bird who followed us through the park.

The ecocentre was established 9 years ago and, aside from maintaining the trails, nothing has been done to the center to plant anything– all the trees and plants and wildlife have occurred there naturally. In nine years, an entire jungle has cropped up in this place.

By the time we got back, it was 2:59, and our tour bus arrived at 3. We had just enough time to grab our swim suits and get on the bus. The trip up the volcano was challenging, mostly because I was already tired from the bike ride. So I got to see a lot of the ground, since every time I looked up to admire the trees (we saw very little wildlife, since we were in a group of 20 tourists), I would trip over a rock or tree root. Erg. Still, I made it without death, which is really saying something.

The tour bus stopped a couple times to observe the volcano, which periodically spewed lava down the hillside. Usually when I wasn´t holding the binoculars and couldn´t see very well. Ah, well.

The next stop was the hot springs, which were very well resortified, and quite enjoyable. John and I had a kind of “amusement park” feel as we went from pool to pool. At about 8, we went down to the restaurant and had a leisurely, if expensive (for CR, not for California) dinner of chicken for me, and some kind of beef with jalapeños for him. Also a bottle of red wine. We finished 2 minutes before the tour bus left, got back to the hotel, and collapsed.

So today is a rest day, with travel to Monteverde this afternoon. Quiet day. Maybe some postcard-writing. Nothing big.