Last Saturday morning, Oky took Kristen and I to a local hotel to wait for a bus service that was taking us about 3-4 hours away for the beginning of our Semana Santa (Holy Week/Spring break) trip. School is cancelled for the week, so we were able to take the whole week to travel. The Gray Line bus service picked us up at 8:30, drove around San Jose to other various hotels and picked up 6 other people. The bus was more like a large 10 passenger van and was so comfortable. We felt very safe and secure on the windy, rugged highways through the mountains to La Fortuna, the closest town to the Arenal Volcano, one of 120 volcanoes in Costa Rica. There are 7 active volcanoes in the country, but this one is the most active of the 7 and one of the 10 most active in the world. In fact, I read that in January of 2005, they recorded 540 eruptions, which averages out to 22 per day!
The hotel staff told us that last week was rainy and cloudy all week, so tourists that were here for even 10 days were never able to see the top of the volcano. God must have been blowing those clouds away for us, because as we drove up to our hotel, we could see the entire mountain. What a sight! Our hotel, San Bosco, as with all hotels in the area, are a safe distance from the volcano, but we had a fantastic view of it from the end of our outdoor hallway. The hotel was nice. We had a double room with two beds, two pools/two hot tubs, and amazing breakfasts with gallo pinto (beans and rice), plantains, fresh fruit, toast, and pancakes. Little by little, I'm trying the coffee here (with lots of sugar and milk/creamer) and I'm liking it. Costa Rican coffee has a reputation for being one of the best in the world, so I'll enjoy it while I can here.
We did some tours through some local companies set up by our hotel. The first one we went on our very first afternoon there was a hike+hot springs+dinner combo. We were picked up at 3:15 by the company (Canoa Aventura) shuttle which continued to pick up about 10 others. We drove about 15 minutes to a starting point for our hike. The hike was really interesting. We went alongside the volcano and got to see some neat wildlife. We came across a coral snake (very poisonous), a howler monkey, some wild pigs, and a toucan! Afterwards we stopped by an observation area and got to watch for some lava action. We were actually able to see lava rocks 4-5 times! It was really neat to see. Here you can see some of the photos: 1) Yes, that's a monkey. 2) The big leaf is about the size of a large couch cushion! 3) These are birdnests, but unfortunately I can't remember what kind of bird they were. Sorry!
After it got dark, we left for the Baldi Hot Springs. Here we enjoyed a buffet style dinner with the typical Costa Rican food: beans and rice, beef/chicken/ham, veggies, plantains, and chocolate covered strawberries for dessert. Next came the hot springs. Baldi has 25 different pools whose "thermal mineral waters flow naturally from the volcano." The pools vary in temperature from 90 to 152 degrees F. The water felt SO good. The hottest one we felt was 116, which was too hot for us. We mainly stayed in one that was around 104. There are also various cold water pools which really help to cool you down. Usually when you get out of a pool, you feel dry and full of chemicals, but this water really refreshed your skin, moisturized and just made you feel all around great. The van picked us up and took us to our hotel around 9 pm, just enough time to soak in the thermal mineral waters. It was a busy day but lots of fun!
We're home now, but I'll continue to post the rest of our trip as fast as I can!
Love you!
Molly
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