About two weeks ago, I travelled to La Fortuna situated at the foot of the active volcano, Arenal. I had a really good conversation with the woman sitting next to me on the bus. I feel my spanish is improving. I arrived in town and stayed in the hotel of a friend of a friend. No time to settle in as I made the most of the warm sunny weather and went on a hiking tour around the volcano. The volcano is famous for its erruption in 1968 when it blew its top, surprising the residents nearby who up until then weren't even aware the mountain was a volcano. There was no activity the day I went. In fact, it's been quiet since mid 2010.
At the top of our climb, the afternoon rain shower came and myself and a few others on the tour came unprepared and we got absolutely soaked. However, that just made us even more keen for the second part of the tour which was a few hours at the Baldi hot springs. Relaxing in a hot pool as evening fell was very welcome after spending the last half hour in wet clothes.
i thought maybe the hot springs were going to be natural being so close to the volcano but, no, the temperature of the pools were controlled. The place was like a luxourous water theme park. There were many pools each one hotter than the last. I had learnt my lesson from when I went to some thermal baths in Budapest and had to hire some swimwear and ended up having to wear bright speedo's. This time round I brought my own board shorts.
The pools had different features. A few had bars in which you could order a drink. Others had water falls and some had built in deck chairs. There was one pool that had three slides. One slide was a straight down open slide of about 20 metres - nothing too scary or fast. There were two other slides that were tubes, and they twisted and turned all over tha place. One was laballed fast and the other slow.
Immediately, I went for the fast one as I was keen to experince the rush. I paid little attention to the warning signs of possible speeds up to 45kms. The pool attenedent told me to stay sitting upright, not to lie down or otherwise I'll go way too fast. Well, fck me, within a few seconds I was already going so fast that I couldn't stay sitting. The speed pushed me on to my back and then I experienced what can only be described as a washing machine. It wasn't fun at all. I was tossed around from side to side, in the dark, at great speed as the slide twisted and dropped. As my body was taking a beating my arm flung back and it felt like it was going to come out of its socket and I hurt my shoulder pretty badly. Then with no warning, all of a sudden, I was under water as I gingerly swam to the surface to recover. Ow, that hurt. I went straight to line up for the slide again. Haha
I wanted to see, now that I knew what to expect, if I would enjoy it the second time. As I waited, I could hear the thuds and crashes of the people in the slide being thrown about. I went down again and I was right the first time. I was roo busy bracing myself for the next smack into the side of the slide to be able to enjoy it. I didn't go a third time. I did go on the slower slide which was a lot longer and also a tube. I thought this slide was pretty fast as well but it wasn't ludicrous speed and was quite enjoyable.
The next morning, I went and had a mesasge session for my sore shoulder. It was really soothing and long over due. I've been meaning to get a massage since the start of the year.
