On Friday we explored the Arenal Volcano region after enjoying the Costa Rica typical breakfast at our resort. During breakfast, it started raining. We knew to expect rain so we had jackets, ponchos and umbrellas. We started off the rainy day by visiting La Fortuna waterfall, a private waterfall that has lovely walking trails, an overlook, and 500 well maintained steps down to the bottom of the waterfall. It was raining so my photos are limited, but I did get a short video at the bottom with my GoPro.

When we first started our waterfall visit, you could see it from the top despite the rain. It rained the whole time we climbed down the steps to the bottom, and most of the way back up. It was done raining by the time we got back up, but the waterfall view was then blocked by fog.

Bottom of the La Fortuna waterfall

There’s a waterfall back there somewhere

After the waterfall we headed to the Arenal Volcano National Park. As we parked, there was an Agouti in the parking lot – they kinda look like large guinea pigs.

Then we walked down the gravel road to the Volcano overlook and during the walk saw tons of birds, including Toucans! It was quite exciting. We still need to figure out what some of these birds are, but one is definitely a Toucan.

After the overlook walk, Carl and I headed out on the volcano hiking trails so that we could walk out on a section of rock created by a lava flow in 1992. We got a great view of Arenal lake and almost saw the top of the volcano.

On our way back to the car we went by a GIGANTIC tree that is supposed to be over 200 years old. It’s so big I thought it should definitely be older than that.

During our trip we saw numerous Brahman cows which must be well adapted to the climate given their prevalence. They are very wrinkly and kind of ugly though and I finally got a photo of them.

For lunch we headed into La Fortuna and stopped at a little cafe that had good drink specials. After that we walked around the church and little town square.

For dinner that night we went to a place called Lava Lounge right off the town square.

The next morning we headed to breakfast and saw a two toed sloth just above the resort dining hall.

We took a stroll around the resort grounds, checking out the pools and hot springs in daylight.

Carl and I took an exciting zip line trip, photos and videos to come. It was just at the back of the resort where there is a valley and river and some really long zip lines.

After that we headed to San Jose for our last night in Costa Rica. We stopped at the little town of Zarcero which has a cute church that maintains an elaborate topiary garden on its grounds. We also had another typical Costa Rican meal for lunch there.

After an adventure in finding our reserved hotel, realizing it had no AC, then finding a new hotel, and finally finding a gas station and returning our rental car, we had dinner at a Peruvian restaurant and finished the night with some Christmas photos.

It was a lovely trip!