We started this morning by driving to La Fortuna, a small city located around 3-4 hours’ drive from San Jose to the north. On the way we stopped and had lunch at Allen’s (our tour leader’s) house. We got to meet his mother, grandmother and sister. The lunch was prepared by his father. It is quite unusual that the men cooks in Costa Rica, but Allen’s father had done a really good job. It was so nice to have lunch at someone’s house instead of in a restaurant.
We reached the hotel around 13.30, but we had to wait for our rooms until 14.30. Since our plan was to do the Arenal Volcano hike, I got a bit stressed. As a hiker I don’t like to go out too late, since it will get dark and it is just stupid to hike in the dark. But Allen said it would be ok and since he has done the hike several hundred times, we trusted him.
At 15.30 we finally started our hike. Only 5 min after it started to rain. No too much in the beginning, but after a few minutes more it was pouring down - as it only can do in a rain forest. I was using a rain poncho, but after a while I discovered that the zipper in the front was leaking. Hmmm… not good! I don’t mind getting wet, but I had my new camera with me and I started to feel that the camera cover got wetter by the minute. Allen asked if we wanted to turn and for once I actually felt it was a good idea to give up. My new camera was not worth the price of my stubborn head. We turned and as soon as we did we noticed that we no longer walked on a trail but in a waterfall. It was REALLY pouring down. At this point I felt how my hiking boots were filled with water and every step made that special noise that only water filled shoes can do.
After a while we reached the start of the trail again and at that exact point it stopped raining. But by now we were so soaking wet we just wanted to leave. We called our taxi driver and went down to the village again.
Just before the village the Hot Springs is located. We had already before decided to stop there on our way back. Allen decided not to join us and dropped the 3 of us off (our Australian friends didn’t participate in the hike). It was really nice to step down in the hot pools and we used the possibility to enjoy a beer while sitting there. When we started to think about the return we realized that none of us knew what was the name of the hotel and we wasn’t even sure where it was located. What to do?? We asked for a taxi and when it arrived the driver asked if it was OK to drop us of at the church and since we didn’t know where we stayed we said why not. Luckily we could figure out the way as soon as we got down to the village. It would have been hard to ask for the way, when we didn’t know what to ask for.
After a late dinner I could hardly stand on my feet but decided to at least write the day’s event. So here we. Now a good night’s sleep and then another adventure.
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