Day 1 in Costa Rica
Day 1 in Costa Rica was truly amazing. We woke up pretty early and headed down to eat some breakfast. It was an hour behind, so since we were used to waking up at 7 a.m. back at home, we got up at 6 a.m. We took a short walk down to the resorts restaurant. Since breakfast was included in our stay, that was definitely a plus. It was buffet style, so I thought for sure I would go back up a few times. But no, rice and beans fill you up quickly. And they give you great energy. By the way, the food was amazing. The rice and beans came with a yogurt type sauce, I would never imagine it to be so good, but it was delicious. They also had the softest, sweetest plantains I have ever had. I had tasted plantains before, but these were amazing. They did serve coffee, but that is one thing I was picky on, I needed cream. I have tried multiple times to drink my coffee black, even with sugar, but it's terrible to me. So I just stuck with orange juice.
It was rainy out, all morning, with random showers and so much fog we couldn't see the huge volcano right outside our resort room door. It was there, it was just hiding behind the fog. Which made it kind of creepy, because you knew it was there but you weren't able to see it.
Day 1 adventures consisted of hiking a volcano. Not the one we could see from our room (Arenel Volcano) although that would be awesome, no one is allowed to hike that one. We have read that Arenal volcano is not to be hiked because people have died from the toxic gases around the rim. Although I've heard some of the locals may show you the trail for a price. So we chose to hike the one close by, called Cerro Chato. This volcano, which everyone calls "The Sleeping Indian" is completely dormant and sits at 3500 feet tall. There's two trail heads that you can reach it from. One is from the Observatory Lodge and the other is from the Green Lagoon side. The Green Lagoon side is said to be a little more strenuous. We chose to do this path because it is conveniently located near La Fortuna Falls, which we had planned to visit after our hike. We read the hike was straight up and at times we would have to do a little climbing and use tree limbs to pull ourselves up. It would be worth it though, because at the top, and a short descent down there was supposed to be a blue lagoon formed in the crater of this volcano. I couldn't wait. Me and my husband both love to hike. We try to go every weekend, but sometimes we can't always find a sitter for our babies. We are pretty active, and are constantly training for Spartan races from around January through October. This was our first sort of "event" that we would be doing for the year. So I was a little nervous, it was going to be hard to do, since I hadn't been training hard or for long yet for this coming season. But off we went. We went through the town, stopped at the cutest grocery store ever to get a huge jug of water for our Osprey pack and headed to Green Lagoon. The Green Lagoon is a 400 acre property with its own private trails. The trails lead up to the start of the trek up Cerro Chato. There's other trails that lead to their wildlife and nature preserve where you can view birds, multiple views, and glorious plants. We paid for our tickets which cost us $12 per person and we were off. The hike was only 3 miles round trip, which seemed like cake compared to the 11 miles spartan race in Asheville, NC that was practically all hiking. But they said it would take us about 4 hours to complete. 2 hours up and 2 hours back. We started at 8 a.m. which was perfect because we would be back down in time for lunch. We started out the hike going up, what switched off from gravel to grass.
It was pretty, every time, we would go up a little bit the view of the city just got better and better. Although, we were literally hiking in the rain forest, you don't expect it to just rain the whole time your hiking, but it did. For about the first 30 minutes, and then it started clearing up, though the fog stayed. We finally started hitting the part where we were surrounded by lush greens and trees everywhere. We were hiking through the rain forest and it was just magical.
My husband joked a couple times, he thought a dinosaur was just going to come out of nowhere. It reminded us a lot of Jurassic Park. We kept climbing, got really muddy, and wet. There wasn't any traffic on the way up. In fact, the whole way up we only saw 1 person on the trail. We finally made it to the top in a little over an hour! Yay!
We were way ahead of schedule. We stood at the top for about 15 minutes and couldn't see a thing. Which was pretty disappointing. There was just to much fog up there, there wasn't a view at all. So, we decided to go on down to the blue lagoon. Which by the way, they don't recommend because of how steep it is...but a lot of people do it anyways. Let me tell you, it was a little crazy getting down. I had to practically sit on my butt and slide down the whole way. My hands got pretty scratched up from letting them slide down the rocks. And the backs of my legs were pretty beat up. Hey, this was pretty much like a spartan race! My husband of course made it look easy, and just jumped down from rock to rock holding on to branches and vines. A couple times though I thought for sure he was going to bust his head open, but he managed not to.
And finally we were down at the lagoon, which was beautiful. The water was so different, a different color, a different feel. It wasn't really like anything I had ever pictured it to look like. The only downside was that we couldn't see the other side of the crater. The fog would clear every few minutes and we were able to see and it was breathtaking. We got some really cool pictures down there, including an awesome shot of me and my husband.
After we stayed there for a good hour we finally made our descent back down the volcano. It was hard going back down because of how steep it was. We had to be careful where we stepped to make sure we didn't fall or twist our ankles. We passed a lot more people on the way down. It was around lunch, so I would suggest if you don't want a big crowd to go in the early morning. After a successful trek, grateful for our health, and starving from the trip we found a cool place to eat lunch. This little restaurant was called the Gecko. It was cute little place, that was open air, and served smoothies and tacos about a half a mile from the trailhead. After we ate we drove back up the road a little ways and entered the La Fortuna Falls ticket booth where we paid $12 each to see La Fortuna Waterfall.
After climbing down 400 steps we reached the bottom. This was probably one of the most wonderful experiences I have ever experienced. The waterfall was so beautiful. The water was so cold and refreshing. But too cool to not jump right in. The waterfall is about a 200 foot drop. If it rains a lot, they don't allow you to swim because of the strong current. Fortunately we were able to walk out far enough to get good pictures, and was able to swim.
They had another swimming hole right down the stream from the waterfall. After leaving the waterfall, we had to climb back up those 400 steps, which was long and hard. We drove the short 10 minute drive back to the resort and as we were walking back to our room, in plain site was Arenal Volcano! And it was absolutely breathtaking. I was so glad he was finally ready to come out and show us how beautiful he really was.
We decided to go down to the pool to enjoy the sun and relax in the natural hot springs at our resort. The resort offers a swim up bar with fresh drinks down by the pool. They have 3 different soaking areas which is naturally heated by water coming down from the volcano. They range from different temperatures depending on how hot the water coming from the volcano is. We grabbed some fresh cut fruit smoothies from the bar and headed to one of the springs. It was so relaxing, I could have stayed there all day.
A few hours in the hot sun made us hungry so we were ready to go grab some dinner in the little town of La Fortuna. As we headed out we drove down the road and found a little restaurant that served the typical costa rican dish. The food was delicious. We had gotten used to eating rice and beans for every meal. But, I'll be honest even since being back home in America I have missed eating that on a daily basis. After dinner we returned back to the resort to get some much needed rest to prepare for a day of swinging bridges and zip lining. Below is a picture of our first date night in Costa Rica.
Equipment we brought with us on DAY 1:
Equipment we brought with us on DAY 1:
- Gopro Hero 5 Black
- Osprey-syncro-10-hydration-pack-25-liters
- Costa Rica Travel Reference Map
- Neewer 50-in-1 action action camera accessory kit for GoPro
The shoes we wore that day were reebok all terrain shoes and I wore my chacos for the waterfall. (link to buy below):
Places we went and how to get there:
Picture of Gecko restaurant is not mine:
Our amazing resort:
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