Ziplines and Hot Springs

Greetings from La Fortuna, near the Arenal volcano! We arrived here from Monteverde on Tuesday by what they call the "jeep-boat-jeep" route, which entails a small tourist bus (they're ubiquitous, with yellow "Turismo" signs mandated by the government, and providing private transport for tourists all over the country) that drives you from the town of Santa Elena (near Monteverde) about 1.5 hours to the banks of Lake Arenal, where you catch a boat (roughly 40 minute ride) and are met on the other side by another tourist bus that then takes you the final 20 minutes to La Fortuna. All in all, a pretty good option, considering that the whole ride, with wait time, comes to about 3 hours...as opposed to 7-8 hours by public bus! The irony? The two towns are only about 25 kilometers apart. But, as the guidebook notes, there's this volcano and the country's biggest lake in the way...not to mention ridiculously unpaved roads. Anyway, we were sad to leave our comfortable and fun digs at Pension Santa Elena, but before taking off from Monteverde, we did what any self-respecting tourist in this part of the country does...ziplining! We chose a place called Selvatura, which as I understand it is the only zipline (or "canopy tour," as they call it) in Monteverde that actually takes you through the rainforest. We had a blast...turned out not really to be scary at all, except when you're coming into a platform and even though you're trying to brake, it still seems like you're going to plow right into the tree. But luckily they have an automatic brake built into the line, which slows you down quite a bit right at the end. So after we got comfortable with that, we could really enjoy the scenery that we were zipping by! The last line is over half a mile long, and they let you go two-at-a-time for that one...it was really cool, very scenic, though we did wind up stopping about 10 feet short of the platform and had to have a guide climb out to help bring us in before the next group came barreling into us. Debbie then did the Tarzan swing, which, as I understand it, is a rope that you're attached to...and you jump off a platform, free fall for a few seconds, and then swing across a big divide a couple of times. Afterwards we walked for about an hour on their hanging bridges tour, which again takes you across the top of the rainforest...a great way to complement our experience on the floor of the rainforest the day before. Brief interlude to note that I just got pooped on by a lizzard while I was writing this. Ahem. So we got to La Fortuna yesterday and were a bit disappointed by the town (for a few reasons...one, the weather was bad and we couldn't see Arenal; two, the town seems seedy; three, everything is really spread out and unlike other places where there are cheap transportation options, here you have to take expensive cabs everywhere or have a rental car, which we don't). Our hotel is also a little lame...not terrible (it has free wifi and cable, afterall, so we were able to watch the premiere of Lost), but just a little random. So after marinating on what to do, we decided to take it easy yesterday (we napped, read, watched TV, wandered through town, had dinner out, then settled in for Lost), then spend today at the Tabacon Hot Springs (again, taking it easy...we basically soaked in naturally hot water on and off for eight hours...delightful). Tomorrow we're going to switch accomodations to the Arenal Observatory Lodge, a nice-looking lodge in the national park with great views of the volcano. The lodge is also closer to the rest of the hikes and other activities we're interested in doing here, so it should work out better than having to take dozens of cabs from town. So that's the last few days...we've been cooking/making burritos & sandwiches to save some money, and have become much more social in the last week...we've met some really nice people (some of whom may be reading this blog now...if you are, hi!)...and are starting to think through our Australia plans. We even booked our hostel in Sydney...a new place near the harbour, overlooking the opera house! I'm thinking we'll be dining on the rooftop terrace frequently!