Part 2: Arenal

We drove from the Monteverde cloud forest to Arenal Monday morning.  It took us 4 hours to drive 85 kilometers. The roads were still unpaved dirt/rock but not nearly as steep and way more manageable than the road to Monteverde. And the drive was beautiful. We drove around Lake Arenal at the end. It was so blue! (It reminded me of Bear Lake).

For the most part I did my job well as navigator.  But somehow allowed us to pass right through the town of La Fortuna (where our hostel was) without realizing thats where we were staying. We loved the hostel we stayed at.  It was called Arenal backpackers hostel. We stayed in the tent city and loved lounging by the pool. (and spent way longer in the internet lounge than planned. I was emailing our parents and we thought it would be nice to send them some pictures but the tower was blocked so I had to try sliding our SD card into it without looking and accidentally put it into the CD slot. Evidently we spent a while in there trying to get it out. We succeeded obviously.)

Our second day in Arenal we went to the Arenal Observatory Lodge where you can get really good views of the volcano.  The volcano in Arenal is still active. It was way cool to see smoke coming out. We bought honey, peanut butter, and bread at the store earlier in the day and made some sandwhiches up there. I spilled some honey and attracted some guatis (not sure if that's how you spell it). He was not scared of us. And he loved my honey. You're welcome guati guy.

We check out the sun deck at the lodge where you have good views. Check out these Chinese tourists' HUGE cameras?!!!!

Hanging bridge:

Taking in the views (volcano and Lake Arenal)

Waterfall:

We happened upon a huge assembly line of ants carrying leaves. So cool!

Guys.  I found it:

The bark of these trees was so cool!

While in the observatory lodge we walked through the network of trails and went on a hike to the top of a dormant volcano called Cerro Chato.  We had no idea the hike was going to be so hard! It was really steep and muddy.  One huge stair stepper. The crater of the volcano was filled with a lake. 

We finished our hike just in time.  It started raining when we got back to the actual lodge.  Thank you mother nature for cooling us off. The staff at the lodge weren't as kind. We really wanted to swim in the endless pool. Before the rain we watched some pretty cool birds hang out on the trees by the observatory deck.

The town of La Fortuna:

Our typical tico breakfast:

You can't tell but that plate has a huge volcano shaped pile of rice on it. It didn't even look like a lot. But it was. By the time I was totally stuffed it didn't look like I'd eaten any of it. Also, if your ever in La Fortuna try the cactus fruit icecream. It was so good--and so bright!!

We got pizza on our way home from the Observatory lodge. Reminded me of Setabellos.