Driving to Arenal
We had an early start at 7am and grabbed some breakfast. After asking Smokey McSmokerson to move his car (he was a dumb kid who had parked his car in the middle of the one lane road down to the cabins), we packed the car and checked out. We drove back to the main road and headed NW towards the volcano. The fog started to clear and the vegetation started to become more and more lush. We stopped at a bend in the road with a few waterfalls to take some pictures.
The road was windy and twisty, but in quite good condition. We passed through the small town of Fortuna, which is at the base of the road up to the top of the volcano. 8km later we arrived at the Hotel Arenal Paraiso. It was composed of about 60 small bungalows set up the side of a hill, each with large windows and full views of the volcano. There were clouds around the top of the volcano, but we actually had a really good view of it. We had arrived at 11am so our rooms were not ready yet, but we got checked in and decided to keep driving to get some lunch.
| Did You Know... The Arenal Volcano was actually unknown until 1968 when it exploded, completely unannounced. The explosion killed about 80 people and covered the surrounding area with ash. Since the mid 70's it has become a tourist attraction because it is quite active, but not in a violent way. The dam that created Arenal Lake generates around 30% of the country's electricity. |
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Lake Arenal and the Coatimundis
We continued along the road, past the Tabacon resort, and down to the dam at Arenal Lake. We stopped at the side of the dam to take pictures of the volcano. While we were there we noticed a small gray cloud of smoke coming from the top, and then a few seconds later we heard a bang; the volcano had 'burped'! There were a number of other people around, but we weren't sure how many others realized it.
Continuing on the road we found that the general condition of the road was getting worse and worse. Fortunately our four wheel drive was right at home. As we rounded a curve we saw a car stopped with a large group of cute animals surrounding their car. The car drove away and the animals came towards our car, obviously looking for food. We later found out that they were Coatimundis (kwah-tee-moon-dee), in the same family as raccoons. Rick grabbed a couple of nuts from the trail mix bag and jumped out, and they surrounded him. They made a high pitch squeaking noise, like a plastic squeeze toy. Before Rick ran out of nuts he threw the last of them to one side, and ran for the car while they were distracted. No telling how they would treat him once he ran out of food! (They had very sharp teeth)
After another 20 minutes we came upon a restaurant that looked like a Swiss chalet, named Heroes. It looked like a fun place for lunch, so we drove in. The place was owned by a woman from Costa Rica and a her husband from Switzerland. The wife seated us and served us a tasty lunch. Randy of course picked Indian Chicken, Assana had French Onion Soup, Dan had Swiss Potatoes and Rick had chicken and rice, of course. They had a little train that went to the top of the hill which sounded like fun, but we didn't have enough time. Instead we drove about half a mile down the road to a stand of giant bamboo which we had been able to see during lunch. Some of the stalks were 8 inches in diameter and 80 feet tall! It was really amazing to see bamboo that big. Afterwards we backtracked to the hotel and got our keys.
Tabacon Hot Springs
The rooms were very nice and we unpacked a bit and changed before our afternoon tour. At 4pm we met at the front desk where a tour bus from Aventuras Arenal picked us up. We were supposed to see the volcano, but the fog had come in so it was obscured. Instead we drove around to the places where we would have been able to see it if the weather had been better, I guess they wanted us to get our money's worth... Then we drove to the Tabacon Hot Springs resort. It's a hotel which has a number of hot pools, all driven by natural hot springs which are heated by the volcano (though Dan thought it was all a scam and was really heated by the world's largest hot water heater).
As we arrived the skies opened up and it started to pour. Fortunately we just changed into bathing suits and jumped in the water. The further up the hill you went, the hotter the water got. We went from pool to pool, checking out the different temperatures and water speeds. One pool near the top turned out to be downright cruisy! Once we had boiled ourselves sufficiently, we got out and changed, then grabbed a drink at one of the bars. There was music playing really loudly and the seats were all wet there, so we started looking around for another place to hang out before dinner. We found it next to the other bar, an umbrella covered table and four chairs, perfect! We sat and talked for about an hour before dinner was ready, having a great time. Dinner was buffet style, not bad, but not great. Afterwards we all piled onto the bus and drove back to our hotel.
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At the hotel we walked over to the pool. Along the way Rick amazingly spotted a frog in the middle of a plant! At the pool we got some drinks, pulled four chairs close together and looked at the outline of the volcano in the clouds as we sat and chatted. Then we all headed to our rooms to get some sleep, with Rick looking for more 'plinky' frogs along the way.
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