New Years...
Hi there...
These last few days have been action packed and full of adventure...so much so that I decided to extend my tour through Costa Rica and continue to the Caribbean side of the country so that I can say with confidence that I have seen the best of both worlds in Costa Rica.
After saying goodbye to our old friends from the Central Tour, we joined up with our new travel buddies and headed off to La Fortuna. A beautiful drive through the country side took us to the spectacular Arenal Volcano (well I was assured that it was spectacular but bad weather hampered any view of it for us!) which boasts a lot of adventurous activity for the young or young at heart. Arriving just after lunch we were whisked away to the Tour Agent where we booked our tours...a cave hike, a canyon and an afternoon of white water rafting.
The caving was good, but not spectacular. It was a wet cave, so we were issued with gum boots and were told to be prepared to get wet...which we certainly did! It was dark, cool and mucky, but there was a few interesting things to see such as cave dwelling grasshoppers and plenty of insect eating bats. Probably not worth the money, but you never know if you never go. That evening we went to the Baldi Hot Spas which is a little bit like the Disneyland of hot springs! There were dozens and dozens of pools with waterfalls, fountains and jets as well as pools at different temperatures. The hottest pool was 60 something degrees...Impossible to put any part of your body into!
The following day (New Years Eve) we had a combined canyon and rafting trip booked and I must admit that the canyon was a highlight of the trip to La Fortuna. The canyon was stunning and there were five waterfalls of different heights that we had to negotiate. It rained, but seeing as though we were already soaked it really did not matter that much! The scenery was spectacular and the guides were excellent resulting in an awesome time all round! After a very tasty lunch (local chicken which was to die for) we headed off to one of the local rivers (Rio Arenal I think) for a few hours of white water rafting. It was not particularly challenging, but I think it was just about good enough for me and nice way to spend an afternoon!
New Years Eve was fantastic fun. We opted out of eating in a local restaurant as we had been invited to the home of the Travel Agent for a party. There was plenty of rum and a local BBQ complete with fireworks and even a pinyata! It was lots of fun and a great way to see in 2007!
Nursing a little bit of a hangover (well a lot of a hangover for some!) we made our way via truck, boat and 4WD to the town of St Helena and the famous Monteverde Cloud Forest. On the way to Lake Arenal on our way to the other side, we passed a family of strange possum like creatures who were eagerly feeding off some local crackers thrown by some passing motorists. The trip across the lake was peaceful and combined with the drive to St Helena the views were stunning!!
At Monteverde there was a few options of doing some zip lining as well as walking through the cloud forest via some suspension bridges. It was lovely and peaceful and provided an opportunity to see some the local flora and fauna (well if you knew what you were looking for!). We had a guided tour of the park where our park guide came armed with a Swarovski telescope and 
managed to spot an amazing array of birds and wildlife. We spotted the rare Quetzal bird (very colorful with a lovely long tail) as well as an Emerald Tucan, a two toed sloth and a bunch of other birds. We also took in a night tour of the park where we got to see lots of birds sleeping, spiders (to include a brown legged tarantula....ewwww), snakes and giant cockroaches!! A fantastic night and well worth it!
From St Helena we traveled by bus to the Pacific Ocean town of Manuel Antonio. There were fabulous beaches and three types of monkeys which were friendly enough to come out of the trees and pay a visit to passing tourists. There were crocodiles, Iguanas, woodpeckers and more sloth's to see, again with the help of our park guide (armed with the ubiquitous 
telescope). Our afternoon was spent on a sunset sail and snorkeling trip which was excellent fun - even though it rained (and I mean tropical rain) for the sunset. That did not stop us from having lots of fun and drinking far too much rum punch!
The trip was due to draw to a close, but I had heard so much about the Tortuguero National Park that I was really keen to extend my trip and head out there with the remainder of the group!! Fortunately I was able to change my flights and successfully extended my stay so that I could see the Caribbean side of Costa Rica!!
Erica
These last few days have been action packed and full of adventure...so much so that I decided to extend my tour through Costa Rica and continue to the Caribbean side of the country so that I can say with confidence that I have seen the best of both worlds in Costa Rica.
After saying goodbye to our old friends from the Central Tour, we joined up with our new travel buddies and headed off to La Fortuna. A beautiful drive through the country side took us to the spectacular Arenal Volcano (well I was assured that it was spectacular but bad weather hampered any view of it for us!) which boasts a lot of adventurous activity for the young or young at heart. Arriving just after lunch we were whisked away to the Tour Agent where we booked our tours...a cave hike, a canyon and an afternoon of white water rafting.
The caving was good, but not spectacular. It was a wet cave, so we were issued with gum boots and were told to be prepared to get wet...which we certainly did! It was dark, cool and mucky, but there was a few interesting things to see such as cave dwelling grasshoppers and plenty of insect eating bats. Probably not worth the money, but you never know if you never go. That evening we went to the Baldi Hot Spas which is a little bit like the Disneyland of hot springs! There were dozens and dozens of pools with waterfalls, fountains and jets as well as pools at different temperatures. The hottest pool was 60 something degrees...Impossible to put any part of your body into!
The following day (New Years Eve) we had a combined canyon and rafting trip booked and I must admit that the canyon was a highlight of the trip to La Fortuna. The canyon was stunning and there were five waterfalls of different heights that we had to negotiate. It rained, but seeing as though we were already soaked it really did not matter that much! The scenery was spectacular and the guides were excellent resulting in an awesome time all round! After a very tasty lunch (local chicken which was to die for) we headed off to one of the local rivers (Rio Arenal I think) for a few hours of white water rafting. It was not particularly challenging, but I think it was just about good enough for me and nice way to spend an afternoon!
New Years Eve was fantastic fun. We opted out of eating in a local restaurant as we had been invited to the home of the Travel Agent for a party. There was plenty of rum and a local BBQ complete with fireworks and even a pinyata! It was lots of fun and a great way to see in 2007!Nursing a little bit of a hangover (well a lot of a hangover for some!) we made our way via truck, boat and 4WD to the town of St Helena and the famous Monteverde Cloud Forest. On the way to Lake Arenal on our way to the other side, we passed a family of strange possum like creatures who were eagerly feeding off some local crackers thrown by some passing motorists. The trip across the lake was peaceful and combined with the drive to St Helena the views were stunning!!
At Monteverde there was a few options of doing some zip lining as well as walking through the cloud forest via some suspension bridges. It was lovely and peaceful and provided an opportunity to see some the local flora and fauna (well if you knew what you were looking for!). We had a guided tour of the park where our park guide came armed with a Swarovski telescope and 
managed to spot an amazing array of birds and wildlife. We spotted the rare Quetzal bird (very colorful with a lovely long tail) as well as an Emerald Tucan, a two toed sloth and a bunch of other birds. We also took in a night tour of the park where we got to see lots of birds sleeping, spiders (to include a brown legged tarantula....ewwww), snakes and giant cockroaches!! A fantastic night and well worth it!
From St Helena we traveled by bus to the Pacific Ocean town of Manuel Antonio. There were fabulous beaches and three types of monkeys which were friendly enough to come out of the trees and pay a visit to passing tourists. There were crocodiles, Iguanas, woodpeckers and more sloth's to see, again with the help of our park guide (armed with the ubiquitous 
telescope). Our afternoon was spent on a sunset sail and snorkeling trip which was excellent fun - even though it rained (and I mean tropical rain) for the sunset. That did not stop us from having lots of fun and drinking far too much rum punch!The trip was due to draw to a close, but I had heard so much about the Tortuguero National Park that I was really keen to extend my trip and head out there with the remainder of the group!! Fortunately I was able to change my flights and successfully extended my stay so that I could see the Caribbean side of Costa Rica!!
Erica
posted by Erica at 2:26 PM
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