Sunday May 4, 2008- Day 3
Joel and I spent the morning to ourselves today- I worked out and went to the pool for a while and he hung out and took pictures of the hotel and stuff. It was a very relaxing morning!:)
We checked out of our hotel at 11am and headed for La Fortuna. I fell asleep in an instant once we were in the car and Joel was left to navigate alone. We were expecting a 4 hour drive but actually made it in about 2.5 hours. La Fortuna is where the active Arenal Volcano stands. Its pretty amazing to think that only 60 years ago, the volcano errupted and caused a lake to form over the old city. Things are pretty built up again, but it was crazy to think that at ANYTIME the volcano could spew again!

We got to our little hotel "El Silencio Del Campo" around 2, checked in and were graciously greeted with passion fruit smoothies- delicious! Our room was a bungalow style and freestanding- very Costa Rican!


We decided to go to Tabacon, a beautiful resort where natural hot springs are heated from the volcano.

It was gorgeous- the pictures do not capture the beauty and serenity there. There were several(14?) pools all with varying temps, depending on how close it was to the volcano- the only bad thing about the hot water was that my thighs got FRIED from river rafting, so the hot water stung like crazy for about 15 seconds every time I got in a new pool.



We spent the entire evening there- people watching(lots of thongs and speedo's), pool hopping, and eating!

Monday May 5, 2008--Day Four
We had another early morning because today we went canyoneering(repelling) down waterfalls. We really lucked out becuase we had a private tour with 4 guides- how's that for 2 to 1 treatment? It was a blast and surprisingly not scary at all. Again, the scenery was gorgeous!





When we got back I took a little siesta- I do that well! Joel patiently waited for me to wake up (ok, he finally woke me up) and asked me to go to the hanging bridges with him. I told him to go alone-refer to previous posts regarding my sleep- and then as he was walking out the door I said," Wait, where are you going?" I didn't really think he would go without me-- I guess he was really bored!
The bridges were only suspended at each end- absolutely no support in the middle- and were very rickety. I suspiciously checked out each cable as I crossed praying it would not snap! It was more of a hike through the rainforest than anything- and not my favorite thing we did, but I'm glad we did it.

We then went into town and had a delicious dinner at Don Rufinos. Check out Joel's plate! Thats steak, lamb, chicken, sausage, and pork- and he ate it ALL!