La fortuna/arenal
I'm on the bus to la fortuna, it's a bus/boat/bus deal for $20.
We are 1 hr into the ride and an English bloke in his 60s asks the driver to pull over. He is absolutely hurling his guts up beside the bus then jumps back on and says "sorry guys, too much jack Daniels last night"! Good for you old mate!
This is a gnarly bumpy ride back down the mountain but I've gotta say I've not been in one crappy vehicle, they are all brand new.
We travelled through beautiful country side with actual rolling pastures! Which brings me to the devastating fact that Monteverde had a cheese factory and I didn't go to it and eat my body weight in the creamy goodness. How could I have missed that?
Anyway we got to the river and jumped into a boat headed straight toward the volcano which looked awesome. Off the boat and back on a bus headed to la fortuna.
On the way in its noticeable that it's very tourist orientated with huge spa resorts everywhere.
We dropped one passenger off at arenal backpackers which is where I was going to stay but I kept going with the other 4 German girls to check out gringo petes. Straight back to the first one thanks driver!
This hostel is more like a resort with a pool, 5 star tent option etc. not bad for $14 a dorm.
I went for a walk into town........hello burger king!
Its almost Xmas so little towns like this crank out the out of tune marching bands and fake policeman santa's, it's cute.
I went into a little shop that had the beautiful table runners I saw in Guatemala but he is charging a fortune.
He wanted $100 for one, I want to pay $40. He came down to $60, I walked.
I think I'll head to baldi hot springs
tonight. They have a much cheaper package than I expected. For $30 you get entrance and dinner, must be low season price because I saw it in the guide for about $100.
I really wanted to do the lava tour but I've been told there's been no lava for about 4 years!
I'm also going to head to San Jose on the
8am shuttle tomorrow because I'm hanging to get to puerto viejo and my sloth friends!
So I get back to the hostel to book the hot springs and the shuttle but alas it's now not the price quoted.
My
8am $40 shuttle is now $47 and
at 1.35pm and the $33 hot springs and dinner does not include transport so is now $45. Oh costa rica why do you shoot yourself in the foot all the time?
So I've bailed on the hot springs idea and don't really have a choice with the shuttle freakin mofos.
3 hrs later and we've hooked up a cabbie to take 4 of us to the free hot springs for $20 split return.......in your face tours. We are meeting this cabbie down town
at 6pm so hopefully he shows otherwise we will just catch a cab anyway for a few extra bucks.
Well none of that happened because it was pissing down with rain and we all bailed on the idea!
I went for a walk with the 2 Canadians and Swiss woman I met staying in my dorm. It really is so expensive here, I payed $12 with taxes for pasta and the poor Canadians were trying to get a tour they could afford so they can actually enjoy this country.
It's so beautiful but almost out of reach of your average traveller sadly. It's a cute little town la fortuna but way too touristy. The backdrop of the volcano is stunning really but I hope it doesn't decide to erupt anytime soon because there was a small earth tremor last night!
