(If you click on the photos they will open larger in another window.)
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| Arenal Backpackers |
This weekend a few friends and I went to La Fortuna, which is about 4 1/2 hours from San Jose where we live, although the trip there took about 7 hours. The bus tickets cost only about $3.. and all I will say about that is you get what you pay for! Anyway, we finally arrived on Friday night and we went to a few bars in the area and had a pretty mellow evening. Saturday morning we woke up bright and early and changed hostels to the one pictured above. Only $15 per night in a dorm room setting, but there were 6 of us so we basically had a private room. There were hammocks and a small garden as well as a bar and restaurant lounge. I would have loved to stay there for more than 2 short days!
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| Canopy |
So our next adventure in La Fortuna was to do canopy (zip-lining). There were 12 cables which were intertwined through a beautiful resort and surrounding forests. The picture above is me "superman'ing." The position appears extremely.. awkward.. but it was an exhilarating feeling gliding over the trees and resort with my arms outstretched. All of the zip lines were amazing.. although I was a little disappointed that the only wildlife we saw was a pit viper snake! I was hoping for monkeys but I am sure another weekend will fulfill that wish.
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| View of Volcán Arenal at Los Lagos resort |
After canopy, we headed into Los Lagos resort. They had hot springs from the volcano which are supposed to be great for your skin and metabolism. I couldn't believe how hot they really were! And the water felt.. kind of heavy, it was strange but felt amazing. The springs were so hot we would have to cool off in some of the cold spring pools and then go back in. The volcano, Volcán Arenal, is the most active volcano in Costa Rica. We didn't get to see any lava, but we did see a few bursts of ash. Either way it was an beautiful view!
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| La Fortuna Waterfall |
Sunday morning we were lazy and took a taxi to the waterfall. Although not so lazy, because once we arrived we needed to hike down what felt like hundreds of steep steps (and thousands on the way back up). Once we got down and saw this image we knew it was worth it. We immediately jumped into the ice cold water and tried to swim to the back of the waterfall. We got about halfway there when security called us back. The water falls pretty far and hits the pool with great force, making it extremely hard to swim. It was a wonderful way to end a great weekend :)
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| Gotta have at least one awkward solo shot... |
It is so beautiful there!!! I can't get over the fact that is a hostel...definitley not what I would have thought it to be. So fancy! P.S. I would like to hear more about the bus haha
ReplyDeletehaha janelle... yeah some of the hostels are amazing! the rooms are nothing to write home about but you only need them to sleep anyway.. the bus.. well we had to take two.. one for about 3.5 hours then an 1.5 break then another one for another 1.5.. there werent enough seats on the bus so it was packed with people standing everywhere, it was probably about 100 degrees in there, it smelt exactly like old gym socks, the leg room was non-existent, and the bus drivers drive like maniacs I though we were gunna drive off of a cliff at various times.. and thats the bus! haha
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