Venado Caves
Breakfast was at 7am and we met at the front desk at 8am for our tour of the Venado Caves. After picking up two other couples at two hotels in Fortuna, it was about a 45 minute ride to the caves. The driver seemed to be able to predict the presence of many roadside critters, including a toucan and a sloth. Once there they had us change into rubber boots, face masks and helmets. It was clear we were going to get dirty. Randy and Assana were a bit apprehensive about things being too tight and confining in the caves, but there were assurance that it wouldn't be too bad. (Did we mention that Eduardo was a lying bastard?)
We walked down a muddy slope and then into the opening of the cave, with water about a foot deep as we went in. The formations on the inside of the cave were pretty cool and Randy got some pictures with the camera that he was carrying in a zip-lock bag. After a few minutes we had to duck down and go through a low passage that was about 4 feet high with about 18 inches of water in it. Randy didn't want to go any further, but everyone said it was just a short passage and opened up right away. That turned out to be true, but there were actually many much tighter and longer passages ahead! Randy was actually feeling pretty claustrophobic and Rick had to calm him down through the rest of the caves to help him get through. No more caves for Randy! There were a large number of bats in the cave, many had dug out niches in the ceiling to sleep in. We finally made it through and rinsed off all of the muck and crud and changed back into dry clothes. What a relief!
Hanging Bridges
Back at the hotel we had lunch in the restaurant and prepped for the afternoon activity. We were met at the desk by Eduardo (a different, much nicer Eduardo) in a red van. He took us to the Arenal Hanging Bridges park. The park has a two mile path through the jungle with six different cable bridges that cross over valleys at the level of the canopy top. They are quite flexible, and move around quite a bit as you walk on them. Once you stand still, you can look around at all of the plants and animals that live in the tree tops. The pathways consisted of concrete blocks about 3 feet wide. The whole thing was extremely well maintained.
Eduardo turned out to be a wealth of knowledge about everything in the forest. We walked slowly and looked at everything, it was a great time. (Caribbean!?) The final bridge was almost 300 feet long, and 130 feet in the air. It was really amazing to stand in the middle and look down at the valley below with a waterfall running under us. On the way back to the hotel we stopped and looked at some impact craters from some of the chunks of rock that were thrown from the volcano in the 1968 erruption. They were about 30 feet in diameter and were caused by rocks about the size of a bus! We thanked Eduardo for a wonderful time, he really made the afternoon for us.
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Toucan that posed for us
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At the hotel we had dinner and then Randy, Rick and Dan sat in the pool for a bit to soak and relax from the day. As we walked back from the pool it started to rain really hard, which continued throughout the night. It made falling asleep really easy, with the rain pounding on the roof.
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