Hot Springs and Lovely Things

Having finally mde it out of Honduras I ws delighted to see from the plane that Costa Rica looked every bit of the jewel it promised to be. If i had to come up with one word to describe it from the air or the ground I'd have to say GREEN! Costa Rica enjoys an 8 month rainy season and therefore everything grows in abundance and its one of the best wildlife and nature places i've been to.

On arriving at San Jose airport, i immediately got out of there as its not a very lovely city, and boarded a bus to La Fortuna. To be fair, i didn't really have a clue what there was to do there, but it was recommended by a couple of people i'd met so it seemed a good place to start! As it was, i arrived in the small but charming town to find that the hostel everyone raved abou was full so i lugged my backpack to another hostel they told me about in what turned out to be a very good move! I immediately met my two dorm mates (a 3 bed dorm is a lovely rarity and it felt more like a private room) who were really fun american girls (monica and Jericho) and decided to join them on a tour of the volcano at night and a trip to the hot springs. The volcano (Arenal, the most active in Costa Rica) was pretty much obscured by cloud as it is most evenings in the rainy season, but as the clouds began to clear, we did glimpse large lava rocks bouncing down it which was pretty cool. The best bit by far was the hot springs. They were at this extremely posh hotel which is probably the nicest place i've been in 9 months and we got to begin the experience by feasting on an all you can eat buffet that included strwberries and a chocolate fountain- simply fantastic! Once we were stuffed full we headed up to the pools- there are 25 in total of varying temperatures and they were VERY relaxing! There were also three terrifying enclosed waterslides which plumeted us downwards in the dark and made huge wedgie inducing splashed on the way out! We met up with three guys who were ona 3 week holiday and, as they seemed like fun we agreed to meet them for Kareoke later in the evening.

Despite the hot spa induced relaxation, we managed to make it out for a crazy night and started an english language speaking take over of the kareoke as the latin americans only want to sing very slow and dull love songs and we all preferred a bit of Bohemina Rhapsody! We staggered home at about 2am feeling very happy and chilled out!

The following day we weren't really able to do too much as we were feeling somewhat the worse for wear and it was raining quite a lot but we managed to check out the town which was very cute and full of local art, and visit the spa to be pampered by local mud products from the volcano. That evening we headed out to the big local disco called Look and had a very amusing evening dancing with the locals to an allegedly famous dancehall group. I won a bet with Ben, one of the hot springs guys as he foolishly told me he'd buy my drinks all night if i went up and did the Macarena dance during a breakdancing competition! Silly boy clearly doesn't know me that well- free drinks all night for me!

The following day I decided it was time to move on, although I could have spent days just lazing in La Fortuna with my newfound friends. The options for getting to Monteverde, the famous cloud forest reserve were 8 hard hours on a local bus or a 2 nd a half hour jeep,boat,jeep combo- needless to say, being the lazy traveller that i am, i chose the latter! After a final lovely girly lunch, i sadly said goodbye to my new friends and headed off for more nature adventures