Day Three - Hard Times

With the exception of the beautiful birds and bats at Cinco Hormigas Rojas in San Jose, today presented us with the most natural beauty we have yet seen in Costa Rica. However today was also a difficult day in some respects; a real testament to the challenges of international travel even in an era of internet booking and information.

We started the day early again catching a 8:40 AM bus from San Jose to La Fortuna where we will be spending the next two evenings of our vacation. Kate and I haven't had more than four hours of sleep since we left the states and the early mornings are beginning to take a toll on us, but we press on. We'll be taking it easy tonight. The ride was absolutely beautiful. The bus was quite nice and I had an excellent window seat from which to snap a lot of pictures. We both also dozed off now and then until a bump on the rough roads woke us.

Most of the drive was spent meandering up and down thin, curvy mountain roads until we got close to La Fortuna and the land flattened out. As we drew near, the object of our journey loomed overhead, Arenal Volcano, one of the most active volcanos in the Americas today. Earlier in the century it erupted violently, wiping out a few surrounding villages. It still spits out plumes of ash and even a few lava runs. A half hour before we arrived an earthquake shook the town.

After 5 hours of bus travel we stumbled off and found our way to the rental car place. Turns out that in spite of what I thought, we didn't have a rental car reserved. But they had a vehicle available and we were on our way. We drove east to the edge of town and pulled in to the Cabinas La Rivera, a small group of cabins around a garden of fruit trees. Kate and I had booked a cabin over a month before, paid a down payment, and were really looking forward to it based on the description in our travel guide.

However, when we got there it was not the paradise we were promised. The woman who greeted us told us that the place had changed ownership recently and that all reservations were void. If we wanted to stay there we'd have to pay again. Additionally, the woman who owned the place now was not there and we'd have to wait for her to get into a room. The place was also overrun with feral cats and their feces. As we sat on the porch of one of the cabins waiting for the new owner to return we grumbled about the situation. In response the skies opened up and poured rain on La Fortuna for 4 hours straight. We grew frustrated and left. A quick search in our travel guide book (Kate is very good at navigating the Lonely Planet books) led us to Las Colinas hotel. The hotel is pretty standard but there is a great balcony with the most awesome view of the volcano directly in front of you.

Not having eaten anything but some bread and jam at 7:30 AM we headed out in search of food and settled into the Lava Lounge, a tiki-like bar on the main street (by the way, La Fortuna is a very small town consisting of one main street no more than 15 blocks long). The food there was quite good but the best part was a new friend we made during dinner. It's unclear whether Bosco the cat (Kate named him that on the spot) belonged to the restaurant or was a stray, but he was very friendly. He wanted to cuddle, but his eyes had a bit of a feral glint; we petted him a bit.

After dinner we walked back to a little coffee shop across from our hotel. It was just a hut and seemed very simple but served the best coffee we've had in the country yet. Since then we've made a quick run to the grocery store nearby and are chilling on the balcony watching Volcan Arenal in the night. It's truly beautiful!

Tomorrow we plan to drive up into the volcano and hike to a beautiful waterfall around the base of the mountain.

Buenas Noches!