La Fortuna Lizard
Friday
After a short morning at work I arranged a 15 person taxi to La Fortuna, where we spent my first weekend in Costa Rica. Last time I missed the chance to see lava at night, so we jumped in a taxi and drove out toward Arenal National Park where we joined a bunch of other cheapskates watching the volcano from the bridge over the entrance, thus avoiding the park entrance fee. We could see an orange glow at the summit but nothing much came rolling down the sides.
Unfortunately on the way back the taxi driver tried to rip us off by claiming that the taxi price quoted was only for one way, so we owed him double. His mistake in all this was to have already driven us back to town before trying it on so we paid for one way and got out. He drove around town a bit watching us, but didn’t get any more money and left to bother someone else.
Saturday
With the others failing to decide what to do for the day we got picked up and taken Canyoning. Donning a harness and helmet we were driven to the top of a hill and made our way down river by walking, wading, slipping, sliding, jumping and abseiling. This was all quite energetic, but great fun, and we met some fun Norwegian girls who we kept bumping into for the rest of the weekend.
After being dropped back at the hotel we met up with the others for a disappointing lunch at the Soda Pasada then waved goodbye to Emily, a 17 year old American cheerleader that everyone had really come to like.
Later that evening we went to the Baldi Hot Springs, an artificial rock formation containing 25 springs, bars and restaurants. The springs range in temperature from lukewarm all the way up to 67C.
After being driven back to the hotel we played cards and drank beer until the early hours
Sunday
A minibus full of elderly Americans arrived promptly at 8.00am to join us on a river kayaking day trip. A short drive out of town we swapped the van for our kayaks and set off down the river. The paddles were mostly unnecessary apart from a little steering as the fast flowing current carried us along at a swift pace, which is possibly why we saw so few animals until we reached the end of the river and joined a different waterway. By this time though I wasn’t paying much attention to the river banks though as I’d managed to capsize the kayak quite early on in the day and was sitting in wet clothes, which despite the baking sun just wouldn’t dry. I’d fallen out when one of the girls crashed into the river bank, then me, somehow capsizing both boats, and her complaining easily warned the animals we were coming.
After a very nice, but slightly pricey lunch we went our separate ways to look around the town. Most of the gang went shopping or sat around the pool, but having been to La Fortuna before I retired to the quiet little park to catch up on some writing until it started raining heavily.
Talking to the owner of the largest hostel in town I discovered they get notice that the Lonely Planet guidebook writers were visiting that day, so they’d just finished a bit of retouching and installed new sofas and an improved sound system. All this seemed to entirely negate Lonely Planet’s claims of impartiality.
