Active Arenal

One week into our trip was spent as a “chill day”.  Kev worked on the Saturday and our plans was to hang out by the pool. Well, we woke up and it was pouring rain. The rainy season starts at the end of April and the local people were saying it was arriving a little bit early. Usually the rain starts at 1ish, but on this particular day it was non-stop. No pool day for us! All good! We had been lucky so far with the weather.

On Sunday morning the three of us woke up nice and early and drove to Costa Rica’s youngest and most active volcano called Arenal, which is in the district of La Fortuna. I had no idea CR had so many volcanoes and in one week we saw two in its finest form! When Jame and I went on our coffee/Poas/La Paz tour we heard that a couple of people tried to see it earlier in the week, but it was too cloudy. We lucked out, just like we did when we saw Poas.

The drive up was clear and gorgeous. We couldn’t have asked for a better day :) We saw Arenal smoking away with barely a cloud in the sky. Awesome! We arrived to hotel Los Lagos around 11am, but we were too early to check in, so we walked around and had some lunch. Like I said it was spot on gorgeous out, but DANG was it hot!! I think it was the hottest weather we had yet! We couldn’t wait to check in and hang by the pool :-) Here are some shots I took while we were waiting:

After walking around in the blistering heat, we had some lunch and then made our way over to the bar for some bevies. Again,  pina coladas. YUMMY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

**Ceviche is very popular in CR. It is a citrus marinated seafood dish and it is DELECTABLE!!!!**

We went to check in again, but were told that our rooms still were not ready. We decided to drive to a lookout point near Arenal lake.

Take 1: 

Take 2:

Take 3…there we go :)

When we got back, we checked in and made our way to the pool ASAP. They had several pools and several hot springs with fantastic views!! The hot springs were neat to hang out in,  but because it was so hot out, it got pretty uncomfortable pretty fast. Off to the pool we went. Chillaxed indeed!!!!!!!!!!

 
**Our view from our room :-)**

**Our view from our loungers poolside :-)**

**This shot was taken the next day at 8am poolside. By 9-10am the volcano was completed covered with clouds. We did luck out! :-)**

**This lil’ guy was freaking out a couple of people tanning by the pool. The next morning Jame and I were the only ones at the pool and he came back!**

We only stayed at Arenal for one night. It was fabulous!!!!!!!!!!!! The scenary, the amenities, the company, the weather!! It was perfect!!! Anyhoo, that night we went into town for some dinner. We went to a cool place called the Lava Lounge. Tasty eats and drinks once again!

We went back to the hotel and hung out at the bar. We heard that at night you can see lava flowing down the volcano. We waited and waited, but to no avail. The next day when Jame and I were hanging out by the pool we started chatting it up with some people from Connecticut. They asked us if we saw the lava and we said NO. They said it was so neat and we were like “What? Really? How could we miss it?” They said that we had to drive to the other side of the volcano to see it. We had no idea. Oh well, next time we will have to check it out for sure!!!

We got back to San Jose that night and made it an early night because Jame and I had to be up at 4am to catch a flight to the village of Tortuguero on the Caribbean side.

That post is to follow :-)