They fly through the air with the greatest of ease – it’s the Hals soaring over canopy trees!
Today was marked with another adrenaline rush – although this time our fate was much more in the hands of others…not reliant on our coordination and ability to repel.
To start, we explored La Fortuna last night, checked out the park in the town center and some of the little shops, and enjoyed strolling through the streets. After that we had a fantastic dinner at La Choza de Laurel – we started off with a salad of radishes, heart of palm, onion, red pepper, corn, and other greens. Daniel hardly used any dressing. Our meals had many different tastes – but the highlights included fried yucca, baked plantain, heart of palm salad, to-die-for pineapple smoothie, and unbelievably flavorful pork tenderloin. We ended our evening with a dip in the pool and crashed early.
We woke up, grabbed another fabulous breakfast of papaya, pineapple, cooked plantains, and rice w/beans, and were off for another awesome day. We saved twenty bucks by driving ourselves into Arenal National Park where we headed up some very steep hills and rocky terrain for our canopy tour. We were greeted by friendly people and soon found ourselves amongst some very nervous people who were pretty anxious about the ziplining. After repelling the day before, the butterflies didn’t really kick in until we actually started flying through the air…
We took the sky tram up to a big main platform – I spotted wild howler monkeys in the trees on the way up and they stopped all three cars and backed them up so we could watch the monkeys jump through the trees – really cool!! After that we reached the top, enjoyed a great view, and were briefed on how exactly we were going to get from platform to platform.
We ziplined in Jamaica on our honeymoon, but this was a little different. It was much higher up, much longer lines, much much much faster, and, they had you position yourself in a way that you were essentially in the upside down fetal position…flying at about 45+ miles an hour at least 1,000 feet in the air. Yikes.
They had two really short runs to make sure we were comfortable and then gave us the chance to wimp out. Nobody did, and so we were soon flying down the line over the rainforest with a gorgeous view of Lake Arenal and the Arenal Volcano on lines up to a half mile long. It was really awesome. You had the rush of a rollercoaster – of going fast and free and then the unbelievable scenery all around you.
We took turns trying to get photographs and videos of each other, but weren’t really able to film the actually ride in progress itself – although we did stick the flip in Daniel’s shorts pocket and catch one or two decent videos that way.
After our canopy tour, we headed out for an afternoon on our own – just us, a really terrible local map, and the car. We did a lot of exploring and caught some great views of the lake and volcano. We even drove up to the famous Observatory Lodge hoping to grab lunch, but at noon they told us they would open lunch in fifteen minutes…and 30 or 40 minutes later they were still buffering the floors, putting the chairs down, and setting the tables. We left.
We ended up finding a good lunch after all and enjoyed another plate of fairly local food – this time some of the highlights included coconut-cream baked yucca, mango-strawberry salsa chicken, and really amazing beef.
After that we stopped by the hotel, grabbed our swimsuits and switched to our new (and really awesome) waterproof camera. And saw the top of the volcano!!! It was fleeting…and only lasted a few seconds at a time, but for two or three minutes we could see the uneven tip! So excited! We headed to the local swimming hole. Now, to get there you drive to a bridge, park on the side of the road (preferably the side of the road that has an incline mild enough that all four of your car wheels remain on the ground at all times…we watched someone else make the mistake), and then scramble down some steep embankments to an area with fairly swift running water, boulders, waterfalls, and a tarzan swing. It should be noted that we were the only non-locals there so we stuck out like a sore thumb – I will use the cliché – I pale in comparison. But seriously, I’m pathetically pale and I’m sure I was a sight-to-see for them. There were two of us and probably about fifty or sixty Costa Rican natives lounging around on the rocks, swimming in the different pools, standing along the edge of the jungle taking turns on the tarzan swing (some of the guys could do some impressive dives), and wading through the water. Most of the people there were boys under 20. There were also no women swimming. There were young girls on the rocks (but they weren’t jumping off ledges), women with babies, and two women who were not mothers and swimming. We stood for a few minutes, watching taking it all in, and while we felt really out of place, decided we would look like chicken if we didn’t jump in.
We ingeniously strung our car keys to the camera lanyard, ditched our shoes and towels, and started braving the boulders and natural pools barefoot. We waded across to a ledge and jumped about ten or twelve feet down into the main pool and enjoyed the wonderfully cold water, watched more of the guys take their tarzan jumps, and then climbed up a steep rock ledge back to where our possessions were. We had cooled off, we had checked out the swimming area, we had met our goal…we were getting out of there.
But, we decided to try the other location we had set out to enjoy as well. One of the girls we met on our canyoning tour had told us that if you didn’t want to pay to get into the hot springs (entrance for half a day is about 65-75 dollars) you can drive past Tabacon (the most luxurious resort), park by another bridge, and make your way down to another river. But this river – as opposed to the one we had just been in was at least 90 degrees. Wow. It was an amazing difference. The element that remained constant? Again, we were the only pale, pasty people going down to swim. And in this case we were the cheapo foreigners who weren’t willing to pay for Tabacon. But…the water felt fantastic. I don’t think I would have believed that it naturally flowed at that temperature if I hadn’t checked it out myself. We also got to sit and relax in a beautifully scenic spot.
After our somewhat awkward adventures, we headed back to our hotel to relax for the evening and will soon head to the hotel restaurant for dinner. Another awesome day! Tomorrow is supposed to be another adrenaline pumper – I’m more worried about this one than Daniel is, but as I promised my mom – I’ll tell you about it once we’re back safely!
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