February 18th: Costa Rica Day 5

So this was the day we were going on an excursion to the Arenal volcano. We had to be up at the lobby by 7:30 so we could get on the bus. Our tour guide's name was Alonso (Mom kept calling him Alfonso which was funny) and he was really smart. He knew a lot about the area and the wildlife and filled us in on interesting facts all along the way. We drove for a while and stopped for a quick bathroom break and bite to eat around 10am in a little town that I don't remember the name of. Then we continued on our way to the volcano. The driver and the guide were good at spotting wildlife and at one point they saw a sloth in a tree, so we just stopped in the middle of the road and all hopped off the bus so we could go get a better look. Alonso had a telescope he let us use to get a better look and he even let us take pics through is which was amazing. It just looked like a big fuzzy up in the tree if you didn't know better.

We also got to see a Guanacaste tree, which is what the region is named after and that was kinda fun.(I think it is a beautiful tree and I have a bit of a decorating project in mind for use with that picture - I will let you know if/how that turns out)

We stopped on the way again and got to take some really good pics from this one spot by the Arenal lake - which is actually a man-made lake by the volcano.

Then we went further and saw some coati (or maybe they were cotamundi - I don't know) on the side of the road, so we pulled over again to take pics. They are like raccoons too, but a little more anteater-y than the other ones we saw.

Then we went further around the lake to a different spot and we got in a little boat and got to go to an area that had a beautiful view of the volcano. When we first got there it was a bit overcast, but it cleared up pretty nice and gave us some really nice photo-ops. (I am not sure I mentioned this before, but I got a new camera for Christmas, and every single day on the trip I was so glad to have gotten it!)

After that we had a quick stop in the city of La Fortuna to do about 45 mins of shopping. It was a really neat area and we got a pic of us standing in front of this garden-y area right in the middle of the city. 

Then we went for lunch at this different resort that had a lot of beautiful greenery on the grounds and after we ate we walked around and took pics of the grounds. I even got to hold a parrot which was cool (he was not indigenous to the area). But we saw a green macaw later that IS indigenous and that was fun. I was walking along a path kinda alone and suddenly off to my right I heard a whistle as if I was a beautiful girl walking by some construction workers. I looked around and said 'what the crap?' and a voice repeated after me. I kept looking and then suddenly, it was like one of those 3D eye puzzles and he appeared there. He was the same color as the tree he was in so he was hard to find at first. That was cool. There were lots of other pretty flowers as well.

Then we went to these hot springs called the Tubacon hot springs which were naturally heated by the volcano. They had 16 pools with different temperatures (most too hot for me with my sunburn) and they also had three water slides. The slides were not too hot for me. There was one that you just shoot out the end of like crazy and so we got a sequence of photos of me coming out of it - I know it mostly looks like a splash of water, but it was caused by me! I actually came out of the water to a round of applause because of how awesome the splash was. :D

 Then it was back to the bus to head back to the resort. We were back by a decent time and went to eat dinner. Then we did the same thing we did most nights - hung out in the bar chatting with the people we met at the resort, and went to bed pretty early since we had to get up in time to be in the lobby by 530 the next morning for our trip. Where were we going? Find out in my next post!