Today was a mellower day compared to yesterday. We started with a sloths-and-birds naturalist tour with our rad guide Jason. We toured a farm that used to be a dairy cow farm until the owners went into preservation mode and turned it into a tourist/naturalist area. We were the only folks on the tour, so we had him all to ourselves. He was great with H, engaging her, listening to her, and asking her lots of questions. It was grey and misty, but not unpleasant.
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| Jason and H |
Jason had eagle eyes and spotted sloths and iguanas hundreds of feet away in the trees.
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| Can you find the iguana? |
Of course, there were lots of other critters and beautiful flowers in the preserve too!
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| A huddle of bats hanging out under a big leaf. |
After the naturalist park, Jason drove us to a local place where we had a snack (black bean empanada, papaya, and pineapple) and watched dozens of birds come in for their own papaya snack.
The site was a small cooking school that was also building a restaurant, and one of the workers had found this docile-yet-deadly snake. He put it in a construction bucket and we all got to see it. No idea what became of the snake after we left - I'm curious about the rules about this sort of thing...
After Jason dropped us back at the resort, we tried to book a last-minute horseback ride, but they were filled up. Then, we tried to book a last-minute coffee-and-chocolate tour, but they too were booked up. So, we headed into town for lunch at Organico Fortuna, which was delightful and a nice healthy break from fried empanadas. S and I each had protein bowls, and H had a chicken-and-bean quesadilla. By the time we were sitting down to lunch, the sun was finally out and it was actually pretty warm. I was afraid that my pants would be too warm for the hike that we were planning for after lunch.
We drove to the Arenal 1968 park for a hike on the lava flows that formed after the Arenal volcano last erupted in 1968. The hike climaxed in a pretty scenic viewpoint, but as we pulled into the parking lot, the clouds were rolling in over the volcano.
Undeterred, we started our hike. We didn't even blink an eye when we had to stop 45 seconds into our hike to put on ponchos.
The rain got very intense, and by the time we were at the scenic viewpoint, visibility was 20'. We were in thick pea-soup fog. But, we didn't hike this dang trail for nothing, so we took an ussie (hoping we were facing the right direction) and just put the volcano in behind us.
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| Yes, I know it's a hack job. Don't judge. |
By the time we finished the hike, we were wet, but the rain had stopped. We dove back to the resort and H and I got in the pool for an hour. Then, back to the bungalow to clean up before a quick dinner and packing. We leave La Fortuna tomorrow!
I asked H what her favorite parts of the trip were. Her answers: rappelling down waterfalls and zip lines.
More zip lines tomorrow!
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