48 Hours in La Fortuna, Costa Rica

Around the same time last month we started our winter break by flying to Costa Rica. It was an adventure of a lifetime! 

We took a red eye flight on the 21st of December landing in San Jose bright and early on the morning of the 22nd. Picked up our rental and drove for 3 hours straight to our first destination. GPS worked perfectly, we didn't have too many issues with connectivity and the roads were in decent condition. 

When we were home the forecast in Costa Rica did not look so good. Thanks to global warming the rainy season which was supposed to end in November seemed to be extending far into December. We saw a solid 7 days of rain ahead of us and while we were not happy about it we were prepared to make the best of it. 

San Jose had been nice and sunny but the closer we got to our first destination the rain started to pick up. Our first destination was La Fortuna home to the Arenal Volcano (active, last eruption in 2010), Chato Volcano (dormant), the La Fortuna Waterfall as well as numerous hot springs. La Fortuna means The Fortune (for its fertile lands) is Spanish. It has a population of approximately 15,383 inhabitants.

Our first stop was lunch at Mercadito Arenal. We ate some of the best birria tacos ever!

Next stop Místico Arenal Hanging Bridges. You must buy tickets online in advance. The park consists of 16 bridges, a tunnel and a waterfall. 6 bridges are hanging while the other 10 are fixed. The longest bridge is 368 ft long and the highest bridge is 148 ft high. The main trail is approximately 2 miles long. 

It rained the whole time we were there.. it added a bit to the mystery of the rainforest and a bit to our misery. :(

We (the adults) tried to fake positivity and optimism. The bridges.. especially the hanging ones were very cool.. even a little frightening at times especially when other people were on it with you causing it to shake. Not at all recommended for those who have a fear of heights. I made a little video.

 

We saw a total of 1 animal. This lovely bird, the Broad Billed Motmot. No one wants to be out in the rain, not even the animals. 

Afterwards we headed to the hotel to check in. We stayed at the Los Lagos Resort which featured it's very own set of hot spring pools. After checking in we quickly changed and found our way to the warm comforting hot springs. Throughout La Fortuna there are several natural hot springs with temperatures ranging from 30 to 50 °C, which emanate from the depths of the volcano through rivers located in the Earth's crust.

That night we had dinner at El Jardin de Frida. No pictures were taken. ps. it was still raining. 

The next morning we had breakfast included with the hotel stay. The rain was taking a break. The view from our room is above. 

I knew we are supposed to be located at the foothills of a volcano but due to the rain and fog we had yet to see it. We didn't even know which direction it was in.. 

Our first activity of the day was zip lining. We zip lined with Ecoglide and had a brilliant time. After we were geared up we along with a large group of other people had a safety demo and then we drove up to the first line. The tour consisted of 11 cables, 13 platforms and a suspension bridge. Nine of these platforms are in the trees where we were immersed in nature. The longest was 688 feet long and the highest was 1410 feet high. Yikes. Again not for those with a fear of heights. But it was otherwise very safe and the people at the platforms helping you were extremely kind and accommodating. 

It started to rain as we reached our first zip line but it wasn't so bad. All the mist and fog created a cool rainforest-y atmosphere. It was a surreal experience. At certain moments the rain would stop and the clouds would lift and sun would break through and then it would just start raining again. 

It was a two hour experience. They provided us with photos and videos of the tour at $10 per person. We paid. 

Afterwards we were in need of some food. We stopped at Pollo Fortuneno to have a delicious lunch.

We ended up sitting too long for lunch. We had two activities left for the day and time for only one. Most activities and parks close at 4pm. We chose to do the hike as it would take longer and save the waterfall for tomorrow morning. Oh I wish we had chosen differently.. this trip was about to take a downward turn but we just didn't know it. 

There was a break in the rain again but by the time we pulled into the parking lot of Mirador El Silencio it had of course started to drizzle again. There are three primary hikes in La Fortuna that bring you close to the views of Arenal Volcano. Something we had still not seen btw. After reading many posts comparing the hikes this blog post convinced me that Mirador El Silencio was the way to go. We paid the entry fee and grabbed a map before starting our hike. 

As suggested by the man at the desk we started at number 1 passed 3 and went up to 5 to get a view of Lake Arenal before continuing on to the lava at number 6 and then while not planned we did detour off to 7 walk by the green lake (which I am glad we did) then down the main road and back to the entrance. The whole thing took us about 2ish hours to do.

It was really coming down. The thick foliage was shielding us from much of it but any bug spray we had applied had been long washed off. Things were biting me.. no animals in sight, my poor boys sucking it up but obviously not happy. We get to point 3 and turn towards the lake when the rain finally stops. I tell M my forehead is so itchy and that's when he first stops to get a good look at me. 

The picture was taken after liberally applying a topical Benadryl. We took a moment and then carried on to the lake view. We made the turn towards it and there right in front of us, the clouds moved and we spotted the volcano. Moments later it disappeared once again. 

On the way there we also spotted a coati. But the people behind us were so loud it ran away too quick for us to get a decent shot. People! You can see it's upright tail just left of the tree.

                                    

Next we headed towards number 6 - the lava fields trail. From here, we could see the old lava flows from the biggest eruption that occurred in 1968.

Right there behind H should be the Arenal Volcano. All the little glimpses of black you see among the trees is all lava.

D is touching lava. So cool right. 

Now we were supposed to head down the main road to our car but M wanted to check out the green lake and since it wasn't raining we continued on to number 7. Which was a good decision. One because almost no one continued with us and two we saw some birds! 

Not sure if the above birds are the same.. they are not very clear in the first picture. But I believe this is a Crested Guan

Above is the Orange Bellied Trogon and below a Toucan. I really wish I had better picture but the birds were quite far.. especially the toucan. We only spotted him/her because of the barking sound it was making. 

We also spotted the Oropendola. The sound it made was like.. I don't know I don't want to say car alarm, maybe one of those long door bells. A few clips of the birds and the sounds they make are here

Some of the plants we saw along the way.. I'm not even going to try to identify these.. but they were pretty and unique. So here they are.

On our way back to the hotel it seemed like a traffic jam until we realized it was an animal spotting and all the cars were slowing down to see what it was. M slowed down so I could hop out and get a better look. It was a sloth!!!

JOY

We headed back to the hotel and spent some time soaking in the volcanic hot springs before heading out for dinner. Now the problem with no sunshine and constant rain is that you never feel dry. Our clothes, our shoes, the car, even the room just felt moist and worse, smelled moist.. :(

Dinner was fine. On the way back to the hotel we stopped at a pharmacy to get some allergy meds for myself. My face was not doing so good. We had kids allergy meds but we didn't have anything for adults. The pharmacy sold us THREE Allegra's for $16! Like three individual tablets. At the moment we bought them but honestly I should have just taken a double dose of the kid version. Because when I woke up the next morning I looked like this

Fun. Thank God for oversized sunglasses.. I don't know how many kids I scared during breakfast.

That morning we were blessed with another viewing of the volcano. Right outside our freaking window.   

We checked out that morning with one stop left. La Fortuna Waterfall. The waterfall drops about 70−75 meters and is at the base of the dormant Chato volcano. The hike to the waterfall was pretty easy.. 530 steps down. The way up was a little more strenuous but nothing too bad. 

You could swim near the waterfall and while H and M did dip their legs in we didn't have enough time to fully enjoy the waterfall. Video here.  

On the way out of town we were blessed with another animal sighting.. coati's. Seeing the animals out in the wild was so much more satisfying then seeing them in a zoo. 

                       

         

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