Arenal: Part 2

Early on the second day of our trip, we took our car right back up that decrepit dirt road to the park with the ziplines. The weather didn't look great, but the place looked good enough to warrent some risk of getting soaked. George and Nick both wanted to take the ziplines, but George opted not to given the cloud cover over the views, the likelihood of rain, and the extra cost and instead went with his parents and me on the long trail around the park.

For those of you who haven't experienced ziplines, they look like this.

Looks like madness to me

So the four of us left Nick in the lodge awaiting his turn riding precariously on those thin cables high above the treeline. To his credit, he appeared more excited than nervous.

The trail turned out pretty well, all things considered. It was well kept, such that even with the heavy rain there were few puddles and almost no muddy parts. The heavy rain came though, in torrential downpours, thoroughly souring George's experience at least. He desperately held his backpack over his head, managing to keep himself just a little bit less wet than if he had just taken it completely. George hate hate hatse to be cold and wet.

A thoroughly doused Saines family

We went on though, and got some amazing views regardless. There were several tall bridges along the way that looked over the forest and were suspended well above the trees and flowing rivers below. They bounced and rocked a bit as you walked across them, but even with my general dislike of heights I got used to them pretty quickly. As we walked we even got to see some people zip by us on the cables above our head, buzzing all the way. And when the rains came we sought shelter when we could, in a bathroom house halfway up the trail and at the end in a small butterfly garden (mariposario) filled with blue and red beauties.

Similarly awesome views as the ziplines, but without all that pesky going awesomely fast

When we returned to the lodge under another downpour, Nick was already waiting for us. He told us of his ziplining, which was as exciting and satisying as he could have wished for, incliment weather or no. We talked some more about our experiences at the park while we huddled around a table and ate our grocery food of breads, peanut butter, yogurt, cheese, fruits and cookies. Finally we packed up and headed for our next destination: the free hot springs of La Fortuna.

Now, there are lots of hot springs around the volcano, fueled by the activity in the earth, but most of them have big businesses built right on top of them selling their natural pools at $30 to $60 per day per person. This was completely unacceptable to us frugal travelers, but the night before we found a video online giving directions to a hot springs which had been partially developed before the company lost the rights to continue doing so in a court ruling. We knew this is where we had to go.

We followed the directions to an established hot springs location, parked, and walked down a little ways to a side road and found a nice steamy river running under a bridge, with already a half dozen people or so enjoying the warm water.

This river is powered by the Earth itself

We ended up staying for some time. It was just glorious. After getting all cold and wet from the hike that morning the hot springs was the perfect thing for it. We explored up and down, going as far as the people there would let us (too far down was dangerous, too far up was the business that had tried to build there previously). We chatted with the locals and the foreigners both, finding Ticos, Europeans, Americans and Canadians all enjoying the free, naturally hot river. We also raced down the underside of the bridge, the flat rock with hot flowing water over it making the perfect slide.

Satisfied with our day, we returned to the hostel, looking to the volcano still shrouded in clouds as we drove by it. We had ourselves a good pizza dinner in town and then returned, thoroughly exhausted, to our rooms. The next day looked like better weather, and we would have ourselves one more adventure in Arenal before we left.

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Photo creds:

http://www.adventuredrop.com/AdventureTypes-Zip-Lines.html
http://www.virtualtourist.com/travel/Caribbean_and_Central_America/Costa_Rica/Provincia_de_Alajuela/Fortuna-1649998/Off_the_Beaten_Path-Fortuna-TG-C-1.html