The vulcano and the hot springs

Arriving in Costa Rica we hadn’t made a specific plan of which places to visit… We knew that we’d definitely have to go zip-Lining in the jungle and improve our surfing skills at the beach (they’re supposedly perfect for beginners).

So we decided to book a car ( since we intended to stay in Costa Rica for about 4 weeks a car is pragmatic). The first days of these 4 weeks we nonetheless had to spent in  San Jose. Although there are neither beaches nor jungle and it’s more of a busy than a relaxing place, it was to plan the next stop – our hotel was full of German tourists, which could recommended us a lot of possible next stops, i.a „La Fortuna“.

So we immediately booked an AirBnB with an amazing view of the volcano… and a for Bella and Ferdi even more amazing pool. 

After driving for about 3 hours (trough cloud forests (pretty scary actually), scenic landscapes, lovely villages…) we all were a little tired and decided to just rest instead of checking out the town, which we sure did the next day tho. There were a lot of those expensive looking restaurants but also hotels and a lot of shops – a very touristic region. But also a nice park with vulcano view.

After looking around we got hungry, we found a small restaurant-buffet (soda) kind of thing (I think it’s kind of common here, we ate in one of these on our car ride). Ordering was a little hard tho, since the staff couldn’t speak any English… but you know who could – Pedro – a tour guide. He helped us out with ordering and we also made an appointment for the other day with him – a Volcano hike through the jungle.

Per se the jungle wasn’t scary at all (there was a path even) but Bella still got a little afraid, due to Pedro mentioning poisonous snakes and the last volcano outbreak from 2010 way too often. Finally we reached the outbreak area.

We luckily didn’t really see any scary animals at all, besides this little lizard being bizarre.

The tour included lunch (from same little restaurant-buffet thing where we had eaten the other day). But before lunch we went swimming in the lake right next to the volcano (the water was acid green but there was a rope… so it evened out).

We also went to a hot river that day – quite interesting experience actually. It must have been at least 35 degrees. So swimming in there was really enjoyable.

A couple also brought their dog with them to go taking a bath in the hot springs (they let us pet him), unfortunately they only spoke Spanish so we couldn’t really talk to them no more.

The day wasn’t over yet, so was our tour – we finally got to a kind of outdoor pool but united with the hot springs. Pools with temperatures between 30 and 50 degrees and a waterslide even.

We cannot recommend the 50 degree pool tho (at least do not stay in there for longer than 5minutes) – Lottis legs where red like a Galapagos-crab afterwards.