Monday, February 6, 2012

Arenal

Today we hiked the base of the Arenal Volcano. For $10, it was much more worth it than paying $50 to do the same thing with a tour group. We were able to go at our own pace, on our own time. The guy at the entrance told us it would take about 2 hours to hike 6.2k. I told P that we were going to do it in 1 hour and I started sprinting through the hike. P, of course, wanted to enjoy the scenery and all that nature stuff so he forced me to slow down :) We still made it in 1.5 hours.



Breathtaking.

Pura Vida

Today is our second day in Costa Rica. After arriving at the wrong airport, we landed yesterday morning and spent most of the time driving from Liberia airport to our hotel in Arenal. We are staying at the Tabacon Hotel and Spa. It's somewhat amazing here. They have hot springs scattered all through the resort. We woke up and tried to go to the gym but only one treadmill was open so we decided to go running alongside the sidewalk-less road. There were some intense hills but the scenery was completely worth it. We only ran about four miles but with the humidity and the inclines, it felt like more.

This afternoon we ventured into La Fortuna and walked around a bit. The town is small and there are tourists everywhere, as expected. If you are looking for a spot where locals hang out, La Fortuna is not it.

We had lunch at Las Brasitas and then stopped by a panaceria where we picked up some bread for breakfast. The food at Tabacon is pretty expensive. Last night we ate at the buffet in the resort and the food was only mediocre. Today is also P's bday. Unfortunately, we weren't able to do the things we had planned because 1) poor timing and 2) he has been sick. Because of reason #2, he has also been quite the grouch...but we'll save that story for another day :)