Costa Rica: La Fortuna

After spending a few days in Manuel Antonio, then Santa Teresa, we headed inland to the Volcanic town called La Fortuna.

Day 8: Drive to La Fortuna, Visit the WaterFall

Everyone warned us how rainy it would be in La Fortuna. While driving there we left the sunshine and entered the clouds and the rain. After checking in at our hotel, we decided to take advantage of the private trail behind our lodge. After that, we went to visit La Fortuna waterfall which was expensive, but still neat to see.  If you go when it is not raining, you can swim in the water right below the waterfall. Because of the weather we didn’t have a lot of options, so we just relaxed!

Day 9: White Water Rafting

Our day started off enjoying the gorgeous view of the Volcano from our backyard. It’s rare to have such a good view (minimal cloud cover) so we were very thankful!

Colby and I have both been rafting – once for him in Colorado and once for me in Slovenia, but we had never been together. When talking about what to do in La Fortuna, we agreed it was time to raft together! We decided to do the 3-4 grade rapids and had a blast. It was a full day excursion, including the drive there, a stop to see Iguanas, rafting down the river, with a stop half-way (they gave us fresh fruit as well as time to swim and jump off a cliff), a local lunch and the trip back.

Day 10: Hot Springs, Arenal National Park, Travel to San Jose

Thanks to Trip Advisor, we started off our last day by enjoying the free hot springs. The hot springs can be a very touristy place to visit, and staying at a nearby resort that features them typically costs about $80 just to enter. That was not an option for us, and the free ones turned out perfect! We got to sit in the middle of the rain forest and enjoy the stream of warm water. The best part was we had it all to ourselves. After, we drove to the Arenal National Park and hiked all the trails there. We had great views of the lake and volcano as well as saw the oldest/biggest tree ever! We left after lunch and coffee to make the drive back to San Jose before our flight in the morning.

Day 11: Fly home 🙁

Our tips:

• If you go white water rafting and you do not have small kids with you, do the 3-4 grade rapids. If you prefer to relax, then I would stick with the 2-3 rapids.
• Don’t pay for the pictures unless you are in the front of the boat. We switched to the front half way through, but the photographer didn’t take any more pictures so now we have too many pictures of people we do not know.
• The waterfall was fun to see, but as said earlier, way overpriced. The water is cold, and we could not swim around it that day, because when it rains it is too dangerous.
• Definitely hit up the free hot springs! Relaxing and awesome and FREE!
• Arenal National Park was also overpriced. It wasn’t anything too special, but we did really enjoy the views as well as the tree!
• Soda Viquez had really delicious smoothies/juices for $1.50! The carrot juice was delish!

I didn’t start sharing our traveling adventures on the blog until the end of 2013, but you can see some of our trips below as well as how to travel on a budget here.

• Pacific Northwest
• Western Caribbean Cruise
• Arizona
• Hilton Head
• South America: Argentina
• South America: Torres Del Paine
• South America: Lake Region
• South America: Santiago + Coast
• Colorado
• Costa Rica: Manuel Antonio
• Costa Rica: Santa Teresa

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