Christine's Costa Rica Adventure - I'm an Action Figure!

Ok. Now, where was I...

Day 5
Today we left Crocodile Bay and headed back to San Jose. We were headed for Tabacon, a resort and spa that are very close to the Arenal Volcano. The place is about 3 hours from San Jose. We took a cab (!) there, as there was only one (inconvenient) flight there via puddle jumper. It was a beautiful drive however, as we wound our way up and down the mountains, passing through small towns, souvenir stands and one very odd toll booth (it was a rickety little shack with hand painted information on the side. Our cab driver stopped, said hello to the lady in the booth and drove on, without paying a dime (or a colon, the currency in C.R.) We deduced it was probably a toll only for the gullible "turistas"! And then we were there...and it was beautiful!

The place was gorgeous - lush landscaping, beautiful architecture, friendly staff. Our room was luxurious as well (really comfy bed). This part of the trip was dubbed "mine" as there was nowhere for Paul to fish. Until...

If there's an opportunity to fish, Paul will find it. He went over to the concierge to make sure all of our eco-tours were booked and discovered he could go fishing in Lake Arenal for indigenous Costa Rican rainbow bass, or Guapotes. So, of course, he booked this and this part of the trip became "ours". (And "GUAPOTE!" was Paul's battle cry for the next 3 days!) One thing I noticed while Paul was talking with the concierge was the video running behind her desk. It featured all of the eco-tours that were available through the resort. They showed zip line tours (which we were going to do) ATVs (which we also were going to do) horseback riding and such. The video also spotlighted the hot springs - which I guess sell themselves, because the folks in the video did not provide any additional temptation! It was 5 minutes of pasty, old, fat white guys shuffling along and sitting like a lump on a log in the water. Eeeewwwww! But I digress...

As soon as we settled in, we walked down to the hot springs. "Hot springs" is definitely not a misnomer! The scenery was breathtaking, with natural waterfalls and even more beautiful flora and fauna (and one little iguana scooting across the walkway.) The volcano was awesome, I had never seen one before. It's an active one, so we could see smoke coming out of the top of it. The springs are hot because of the volcano - some were so hot, I couldn't even get in. Paul, of course, plunged right in to each and every one! The swimming pool was really the only place where I could stay in the water for more than a minute or so (maybe it was because it had a pool bar? Yay, pool bar!) We had a light lunch there because we were having our big dinner that night (it was also my birthday dinner.) The restaurant was lovely, and very fancy-schmancy (with the 9 million forks, knives and spoons on the table - "Oh, that's your asparagus fork!" and even sorbet!) The food there was so good (we didn't have a bad meal on the whole trip actually.) We were sleepy after dinner, so it was off to sleep and onto our next day's adventure.

Day 6
Today was my favorite day on the trip. We had a bountiful breakfast buffet (more gallo pinto for me!) and were off to the Sky Tram tour. This was the canopy tour through the rainforest. I always thought that they were laid back affairs, where you move yourself leisurely across zip lines from tree to tree. Imagine my surprise when I got to the base and found out that "laid back" was definitely not happening today! We had to get into harnesses and those helmets that would even make Albert Einstein look like the "Ding, Fries Are Done" guy. We the got into a tram that took us waaaaaayyyyyy up into the mountains. That part could have been laid back, if I wasn't starting to freak out about how we were going to get down. You could see the zip lines - they were long and, instead of taking you on a horizontal, tree to tree path they did an almost 90 degree drop from platform to platform (guess that's why they're called zip lines, huh?)Guess what? I'm spent! I will give you a teaser...to be continued...