Show me la fortune La Fortuna
Our first stop in luscious, tropical Costa Rica was La Fortuna. Arrived at San Jose airport, jumped in the hire car and drove ( on the wrong side of the road ) for five hours, for only 120 kms distance - many steep windy mountains in a Suzuki hatchback that needless to say will not pull Jorje any hot chicas.
La Fortuna is wonderful. An adventure filled town, all centred around hiking Arenal Volcano. It also competes with Perth and its "Perth prices" ! The people pay a lot to eat there and do the outdoor activities. We ended doing alright, the trick is to suss-out what the locals eat and go to the "sodas" ( cafes ) which do the authentic and cheaper Costa Rican cuisine.
Was astounded at how much English is spoken. For the American tourists which we later noticed all of Costa Rica is inundated with. So no Spanish practice here.
Out hostel was fantastic, highly recommend Mayol Lodge, the pool and outdoor bar are great.
Spent the first evening just checking out town as we always do first, wander around. And authentic eats for dinner.
Did an amazing walking tour of the Costa Rican rainforest with Giovanni ( his pic and contact details are in the photos as he appreciates the publicity ). He has borrowed 60 acres of rainforest from the government to build his project on. He's making a walking trail that is wide enough of a golf buggy to go on and smooth and flat, so that disabled people and blind people can use it. The wildlife we saw in just two hours on his free guided tour was fantastic, sloths, vultures, frogs. Even had a rescued baby sloth in the the office that we got to play with and pat while G cut up fresh pineapples for us after the tour.
We were up very very early in the morning as the alarm on the iPhone got set for 7am, even though it was still on Cuban time, so we were awake at 5am. Which meant we had lots of time to hike Arenal Volcano. Very easy hike, maybe 5kms around the volcano and its lake. Stunning views of rolling hills, brightly coloured greenery in between black volcanic rocks, and all of the wildlife, including a hog-nosed viper. A very scary and deadly blue and purple snake.
Amusing that we had to reverse park our little Suzuki matchbox at the bottom of the volcano for a quick getaway in case of emergency - wouldn't use 'quick' to describe our rental car. And lucky for us, the volcano didn't erupt the day we were there ( was active daily until 2010 ).
Jumped straight in the hostel pool after the hike and spent the afternoon there until the daily afternoon tropical shower came and cleared.
Rio Catarata waterfall made La Fortuna for us. It's absolutely stunning. Like something out of a fantasy fairy-tale setting. The 500 steps to the bottom ( and back up again ) were worth it for the swim in the pool at the bottom of tonnes of fresh water gushing off a 70 metre mountain edge. Not sure about the pictures you see of princess and women frolicking at the bottom of waterfalls though, it's much more difficult to do than it looks - the current coming off that volume of water pouring into the pool is very very strong and a challenge to stay in one place in.
Hiked Cerro Chato, a dormant volcano, to the peak and the Green Lake at the top. Was a very hard hike, the path wasn't a path, just the cracks made in the mountain edge from the rainfall, huge crevasses to climb and a steep ascent for the last half of it. Good training for the Inca Trail hike. Going downhill is just as hard, steep and sometime slippery. Was great to conquer, especially when we passed many tourists who were only beginning the hard ascent and we were on our way down.
Had to make a visit to the doctors for Juanita's ear-ache that hadn't gone away after three days. If we had any other ailments at all Jorje was happy to go back to the cute Costa Rican chica speaking sexy Spanish that was the doctor, unlike his grey haired male doctor in Perth.
Had one more dip in the pool before getting in the car to our next destination, Monteverde.
