BubblesandBugs.com - Travel and Scuba

Pura Vida!

Willits, Julia, and Travis arrived on August 2nd and it’s been a whirlwind ever since. On Sunday morning we picked up our rental car and headed north to La Fortuna. We stayed at an amazing place called, Arenal Observatory Lodge. Just look at the views of Volcano Arenal from our rooms!

This place was beautiful and Cesar at the front desk took good care of us. And the free breakfast was SO good! The volcano put on quite a show for us too - when we first arrived we heard a few rumbles and soon figured out that it was not thunder. At night we could watch the lava flowing from the comfort of our rooms. It was crazy!  (or as Jason says, ¨Nutty!¨)

The first day in La Fortuna, we decided to just relax by the pool and hot tub and decide our plans. Monday we took the Sky Treks Canopy Tour. This was by far the best canopy tour I’ve done. The longest line was over 2400 feet and we were over 600 feet above ground. We soared through clouds and trees and our guides were fantastic. I highly recommend this.

The next day we went with Wave Expeditions and did the Class IV white water rafting trip down the River Toro. It was one of the mose fun rafting trips I’ve taken. We were fed pineapple and watermelon on our morning break and then Jason, Willits, and Travis decided to take the next rapid without the boat. They went down (helmets and PFD’s) with only a few scrapes and bruises, but seemed to have a great time. Unfortunetly I don’t have any pictures of the river. But Travis bought the CD of about 75 pictures from the rafting company, so hopefully he’ll share a few.

That evening we went to Baldi Hot Springs. We decided on this one because it was about $40 less than Tabacon….but it was still great. We were entertained watching people being thrown around like rag dolls on the waterslide and we hopped around to the different pools that ranged from about 90-117 degrees. It was a perfect end to a few busy days.

Yesterday we made the trek down the 8 km bumpy road from our hotel for the last time and headed to Tortuguero. We drove to La Pavona, parked the car and took an hour boat ride through the canals to arrive at Casa Marbella B&B. We walked around for a bit, grabbed some caribbean dinner at Miriam’s and then headed to the beach from 8-10 pm to watch a GIANT green turtle lay her eggs on the beach. This was one of the coolest things I’ve ever witnessed. These turtles lay eggs 5 times per year and they are all over the beach. We were put in groups, because apparently about 700 people were viewing this last night. So we just watched one turtle during the entire 2 hour process. Taking pictures is illegal, as it disturbs the turtles, but if you google ¨Tortuguero green turtle eggs¨ and look at the images, you’ll get an idea of what we saw.

This morning we woke up at 5:30 to go on a canal tour of the Tortuguero National Park. It started our a little slow (and rainy!) but we ended up spotting howler monkeys, white faced monkeys, spider monkeys, parrots, toucans, a caymen, an otter and a whole lot of other birds that i don’t remember. Now we are just hanging out today (in the rain!) and tomorrow we head to Puerto Viejo for the next 4 days.

Here is a picture of the sunset we saw last night from our hotel dock:

It´s pouring rain and we all just took a 3 hour nap. Now it’s time to kick the boys butts in spades.  Have I mentioned the RAIN???

Cheers!