It was another great weekend in Costa Rica....I took a bus to La Fortuna (5 hours) that left at 6 am and stayed at the 5 star backpackers hostel. It was by far the nicest hostel I have seen. It had a pool, free internet, and great cheap food all within the grounds of the hostel. You did not even need to leave the place if you didn't want to, and it was only like $12 per night.
I met this guy that was probably 60 years old there that was from the states, but has lived in Costa Rica for 10 years now. He was comical! He has grey hair and wears this white button down shirt that has only two buttons buttoned up, and his chest hair flaring out. His name is "Bobby Love," and I mentioned to him that I was going to be heading to Panama eventually. So, he told me to go to this Hostel in Bocas and mention his name "Bobby Love." He said they will take care of me because they LOVE him down there. Supposedly he plays the piano at a piano bar down there, and they LOVE him...lol. Anyways he was interesting to talk to and gain some information from, and I guess he is a piano player at piano bars for supplemental income.
After talking to Bobby for awhile I booked a hike to the Arenal Volcano and the Baldi Hotsprings trip and also signed up for the jeep boat jeep trip to Monteverde at 8 am the following morning that is a 3 hour trip. Then I planned to do the ziplines in Monteverde because I was told they are the best in the country. Unfortunately, my plans had to be modified because it started pouring rain at about 2 pm, and they won't refund your money after you have paid for any of the trips/tours. As a result, I talked them into letting me cancel the jeep boat jeep trip to Monteverde and I put that towards this canyoning adventure with waterfalls. Then I switched my volcano tour and hot springs for Saturday afternoon as well.
The canyoning was awesome. On the way there they packed us into these trucks that had seats on the back bed of the trucks with about ten people in the back of each truck, and we drove down this bumpy road for about twenty minutes. Then they gave us all of our gear (helmet, harness, and a dry bag for the cameras). The first canyon that we went down was 165ft and basically you just grab onto this rope as you are harnessed in and slide down the canyon on the rope pushing out from the rocks as you go down. They had a couple other ones that we went down that put you right through the waterfalls and end up quite wet. It was definitely a fun wet adventure. Then they provided us lunch after the adventure and I cruised back to the hostel with these three canadian guys that I met through staying at the hostel. They were all really nice guys. They were also doing the volcano and hot springs tour as well in the afternoon.
The volcano tour was not that great. It was basically just a hike where they explained about different plants and animals that we were encountering on the way up to the volcano, and when we reached the volcano it was not very active and it was also a little cloudy. From there they took us to the Baldi Hot Springs.
The Baldi Hot Springs are pretty cool. It is definitely very touristy and the food etc. is all VERY expensive there. It was cool to see though because there are 25 pools with 12 different temperatures, from 32 - 67 degrees celsius. There are 3 falls with thermal water, a giant jacuzzi, natural sauna, 4 pools with cold water, and a couple water slides. The water slides were awesome! I guess they must not have any regulations on water slides because on the last turn of this water slide it literally shoots you three feet off the surface of the water slide before you are plunged into the water. It was awesome! We all cruised down it several times. I'm glad I was forewarned by one of the guys before I went down the slide the first time because if I would not have been ready for it I would have been awfully SHOCKED!
On Sunday, I was either going to book the Jeep boat jeep trip to Monteverde and head back to where I live in San Pedro on Monday seeing the rain changed my plans, but I decided to just head back to San Pedro in the morning and skip Monteverde. I asked the guy at the front desk what time the bus left to San Jose (15 min from San Pedro...and the transportation hub that I always need go to from the other cities before I catch a bus/taxi to San Pedro), and he said not till 12:30, or I could take a local bus at 8 am a few blocks away that would stop at a bus station where I could leave to San Jose from there. I figured this was the best route to get home earlier, so I walked to the bus station and hung out till 8 am and caught the bus that he told me to take. I asked the bus driver in Spanish if this bus took me to a bus station that would get me to San Jose, and he said yes. Once I was on the bus it was stopping at every corner to pick up people, and it felt like forever. So I asked the guy next to me how far the next bus stop was to get to San Jose. He told me another three hours, and we had already been on this bus for half hour. I was a little concerned that this was going to be an awfully long trip. However, it only ended up being another half hour to the bus station and then it was only about 2.5 hours back to San Jose from the town San Carlos that I ended up going to. So in the end it was about the same time frame as the way there, but just an extra bus stop.
All in all it was a great weekend. I met some great people (those really nice canadian guys, a couple really nice girls from Israel, "Bobby Love"...lol,) and had a couple more great adventures. I cant wait for White Water rafting this Sunday. We just got a lot of rain the last couple days, so the conditions should be pretty good!
