La Fortuna, Costa Rica

Our transfer to La Fortuna felt like an excursion in itself. We started in a minivan and after we waited for the driver to have breakfast, (for some reason in Central America if you get a bus at meal times, the driver will always stop for food, even if like this case it’s only 10mins into the journey! You would think they would just eat before they left for work.) We headed down south until we reached a lake, we then boarded a small ferry that took us across a scenic lake for an hour. We had great fun, me and Jess had taken to making boiled eggs in the mornings for day snacks, much to Grace’s dismay as she can’t stand them. So we decided to eat them on the boat, mainly to annoy Grace. Unfortunately during our egg photo shoot some of the egg got caught in the wind and hit a woman behind us. Thankfully she took it well but Grace was less than impressed and we weren’t allowed boiled eggs again after that!

We disembarked the ferry at the other side of the lake with a view of a huge volcano, before boarding a bus to La Fortuna a town close to the volcano. Once we had checked in at our hostel we went to meet up with two more of Grace’s friends, a couple called Rob and Hannah who would complete our group of five for the coming week.

Jess was less than impressed with the back packer lifestyle.

We went for a quick lunch in a local cafe or ‘soda’ as they are called here. Hannah was excited to try the food here so they both ordered the local casada dish which is normally a meat of your choice, salad, rice and beans and plantain. Minus the meat for vegetarians. Casada is always filling but very average and uninspiring as food goes.

Once we were full we headed out to find a local swimming spot with a Tarzan style rope swing over a river. It was located under a road bridge for cars to cross the river so we scampered down from the side of the road to take a look.

The swing turned out to be a lot higher than it had looked the the photos and all of us, except Rob, were less keen to try it now. After a lot of peer pressure from Grace, Jess also agreed to give it a go and after a few attempts to build up the courage, she swung in unharmed. Next it was Grace’s turn but after talking the big talk, she decided it wasn’t for her after all! So I decided to have a go, although I’m scared of heights I tend to be okay with stuff like this as you just have to get on with it before you get a chance to get scared, once you’ve let go of the rope it’s too late to chicken out! I nearly didn’t get my attempt on video, as Hannah had assumed it would take me a while to work up to it, but I just grabbed the rope the first time and went for it. After we had all been in, except Hannah and Grace, the tables turned in terms of peer pressure until Grace had been bullied into going in too. After we were bored of swinging in we had a sit in the river for a while until we were cool enough to walk back.

In the evening we decided to check out a Mexican restaurant and bar and had great fun sampling their chilli tequila and their huge sombreros!

On day two, the others did the volcano hike, but after hitting my knee two days before I decided to rest it rather than strain it on the two hour descent. I stayed behind and had a lay in before buying previsions and making them all a packed lunch. Once they were back on flat land, I brought them their lunch and we headed to some free hot springs.

There are lots of hotels and restaurants where you can pay $80-$100 to use the hots springs but we’d heard about some free ones you accessed again under a road bridge. The hot springs were actually more like a river of bath temperature water, which was very odd at first but the others appreciated it on their sore muscles.

There was a deeper pool near to where we had initially sat, but we couldn’t all sit there together as our bags were on the banks and we had been warned to watch them closely in case they were stolen. So we took it in turns to sit in the deeper pool with our backs against the small waterfall. When it was my turn to swap back to bag watching position, I had the bright idea to just float back over. However, I didn’t realize how strong the current was, and got washed away towards the edge of another pool. I became effectively beached on a small collection of rocks, which I then had to wriggle over before flopping into a pool full of attractive German guys. It was certainly one way to make an entrance! Luckily they found it hilarious and said it was the most life-like portrayal of a salmon they had ever seen.

Once it started to get dark we ordered an Uber back to the hostel, we were just paying the driver when Grace did the most smelly fart ever. We all started to shout and hit her and the Uber driver seemed lost and quite concerned about what was happening until the smell reached him, at which point he couldn’t get us out of his taxi quick enough!

In the evening, after we’d recovered from Grace’s chemical warfare, we decided to check out a Mediterranean restaurant. Me and Grace were looking forward to the BBQ meat and the other three veggies were planning on having fallafel. Unfortunately for them the meat smelt so beautiful that none of them could resist it!

On our last day we decided to go for a horse ride. I don’t think I’ve ever been on one quite like it. There were 20 horses and only one guide, who was content to just let the horses guide themselves. It’s common for horses to know the routes and to guide themselves. However, instead of a single line, we were in a large group with the horses all jostling for position, which lead to them all squeezing past each other and smashing or legs into other horses. Grace’s horse was in a very bad mood and kept biting the other horses, she asked the guide why her horse was so grumpy and angry and he said it was because ‘the horse channels the rider’s energy’ which we all thought was hilarious and would repeat to her every time her horse barged into ours.

The ride itself was quite enjoyable, when we weren’t barging into each other, we rode around the national park and got to see parts that were destroyed in the volcano’s last eruption including a cool church with a view of the volcano that we stopped in.

After the ride we were allowed to use the horse riding hotel’s hot pools. They were a lot fancier than the free ones, with a pool bar and also some slides. We spent all afternoon playing about in them like big kids, at one point coming down the slide as a group and nearly drowning Grace.

We headed back in the early evening to pack, ready to move on to our next stop Tortuguero.

Tell you all about it soon, lots of love, Alice x

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