Staying near Volcano Arenal

From Monteverde we took the "Jeep-Boat-Jeep" trip to La Fortuna, where most backpackers and travellers go to to see and visit the Volcano Arenal. Originally we planned to skip La Fortuna and Arenal and visit the Poas Volcano instead (which is much closer to San Jose and the airport). But we still had some days left and were offered a nice hotel , the boat-jeep ride plus a night at a hot spring resort ( The pictures alone made us drool).

We road with a mini-van to lake Arenal, across the Green hills of Monteverde and boarded a small boat which took us across the lake and near the volcano. Volcano Arenal is the most active volcano in Central America and rated nr 4th most dangerous. It's not only very dangerous to be climbing the volcano (so we didn't), it is also quite active and shows lava flowing from the top of the volcano. Unforunately we didn't saw any lava since it was really cloudy and foggy at night.

Lets spoil ourselves on the last days

After looking at the clouds covering the volcano, we went to Baldi, a hot spring resort with 13 swimming pools (all around 39degrees celcius) and a couple of wet-bars. We had dinner here and enjoyed the warm water and quiet atmosphere.

The next day we booked another trip to a hot spring resort, but this time to the famous Tabecon resort . http://www.tabacon.com/

We thought we got a great deal, for 50 dollars pp we would be picked up by the same touring company and dropped off at this super resort. Here we would be spending the day and night ( including buffet dinner) and be picked up again at 9 pm.

Unfortunately, we got misinformed (along with alot of people , including our hotel owner who sold us the tickets). The 50 dollar deal was only valid from 18:00, and we arrived at 16:00. To make things worse, the company who arranged the deals (Eagletours) came to pick us up again or asked us to pay the extra money to allow us to enter before 18:00 (Which is rediculous).

So after much debating, refusing and blaming the company we got in at around 17:15....thanks to the management of Taberon, who decided that we didnt need to pay extra, and thanks to the hotel owner, who decided he would pay the extra 23 dollars (which got returned). anyway,...Taberon is GReat! it has a real hot spring river running through the whole 5 star resort, and you feel like a king during the few hours we stayed there. Taberon makes Baldi seem like a simpel tropical swimming pool. We left Fortuna with a public bus, after rejecting rediculous prices offered by various tourism companies. Fortuna is much too touristical and doesnt offer that much to those who do not want to live in luxery nor want to meet hordes of rich americans.