La Fortuna, Costa Rica

Travelling to Costa Rica

We went to the airport around 7pm. Our uber driver took us to the wrong terminal, where there was no one around and lots of construction. But then he took us to the other one for free so that was sweet of him.

We waited at the airport until check-in opened at 10.30, then our gate changed and we boarded around midnight. Susie was really unwell and apparently spent most of the plane ride lying on the floor in the galley and vomiting. I was sound asleep and didn’t notice anything until 5am when I was woken for breakfast and she was no longer sitting in her seat!

Then we had an one hour stopover in Panama, a very American-style airport. That flight passed quickly. Next we got a cab to the bus terminal and caught the four hour collectivo public bus. It only cost $5 but it stopped about every two minutes. At it’s worst, there was no airconditioning and about 20 people standing in the aisle for lack of seats. A little boy kept grabbing my hair and babies were crying.

We arrived in the tourist town of La Fortuna about 5pm. It was easy to find the hostel with a bit of walking around and lots of Costa Ricans trying to sell us tours but actually pointing out the way when they realised we weren’t going to buy.

We are in a shipping container room. This place has a great vibe and outdoor shared space with murals on the walls. We had dinner next door at a local place – I had mexican food! It was so fresh and vibrant after the rice based meals of Brazil. Now we are exhausted and ready for bed!

La Fortuna

I woke up nice and early, at about 9am Rio time. I got up and walked down to a yoga class I found at reception. A smiley woman welcomed me to a class inside a big spacious room with windows all around. It was cloudy and rainy outside, that meant class was very humid and sweaty! We could hear tucans in the trees outside and the river running. It took my body about 30 minutes to untense after our very long travel day.

After yoga we had breakfast at this cute restaurant called Mimo. It was like a garage with seats outside and one man running it. I had the tipical Costa Rican breakfast of stir fry rice, haloumi, fried banana and scrambled eggs. Because we ordered in rusty Spanish the man gave us a free coffee.

It was absulotely bucketing down with rain, to the point we had to yell to hear each other, so we sat there for an hour. We had to run back into the hostel. We decided to have a day of errands – getting money from the ATM, finding a laundry service, booking tours, and buying tramping boots! Mine are dark leather with orange laces. I also received an email from Icebreaker saying they would like to interview me for a role!

Around 3pm we had lunch at ‘the chicken restaurant’, not it’s actual name. It was a place with rotissery chickens on an open fire. I had a traditional Costa Rican rice dish served with fried banana chips (so yum). We also received a free shot of something containing chili for doing a TripAdvisor review – pretty sure you’re not allowed to do that.

Susie ran to get her shoes from the shop – she had to buy mens because of the sizes. I went a bought a thin yoga mat after realising how tense I’d been from travelling. We missed a sloth tour we wanted to do, but it was okay because it runs everyday. I called Icebreaker while the hostel’s adorable labrador puppy attacked people’s river shots at my feet. Then we bought supermarket food for dinner (guacamole and corn chips), plus water and snacks for our tramp tomorrow.

At 8pm we went to the eco hotpools. They were expensive to get in, but so nice once we were there. Our hostel couldn’t believe we’d left it so late (or not booked) that the manager drove us in his own car. But it was great at that time, it was open until 10pm and no one else was around. There were six different pools with cascading waterfalls created by riverstone walls in a big jungle garden. They even had stone deckchairs inside the pools. We got a taxi home.

The Two Volcanoes walk

We had breakfast at Soda Mima’s again – the tipico breakfast was perfectly filling for our big day. The van picked us up at 9am, along with 12 other people from our hostel.

Our tour guide Augusto was super friendly and talked at a million miles per hour, swapping between English and Spanish without a breath so everyone could understand. I think he repeated himself a lot because he forgot which language he had said the information in. Every monologue ended with ‘Welcome to the rainforest’ or equivilant location. The van was cramped and steamy as we hurtled toward the Arenal volcano park.

The first part of the day was an uphill hike on narrow trails covered in roots. It was raining constantly – swapping between torrential downpours and light mist. The was a break at a pretty lagoon where I got a few photos. We also saw Costa Rican red-eyed frogs near a pond! Augusto found them for us.

By the time we were at the top – where the rainforest became volcanic scree as you weren’t allow to go any higher I was more wet inside my raincoat that out from a mixture of sweat and torrential rain. Augusto yelled above the rain as we sat on the rocks dejectedly, unable to see the amazing views of the volcano and lakes he described.

We descended back to the first lagoon and each had a turn swinging off a tarzan rope into the lake, where hot and cold water mixed making it a nice temperature. I went in my undies as I was already soaked.

Then we walked up the jungle path in our togs (or undies), barefoot, to an open air lodge for lunch. Some women had prepared rice, blackbeans, palmito stew and cabbage. It was really good as we were so cold!

We left and went to a ‘hot pool stream’ literally under a road underpass. There was graffitti on the walls and you had to jump down the drain into the stream. If you looked the other way it was just natural rocks and trees. The water was so warm, clear and nice you forgot about the dubious location. We were given Costa Rican moonshine, and mud for facials. The current started getting really strong from rain, that was our cue to leave.

Next was a nature walk on paths through a conservation park. It was really beautiful but pouring once again, so we didn’t really enjoy it. We were meant to be able to swim in another waterfall but the water was raging, brown and dangerous.

At the end we walked back to the main building, to be greeted to a view of the volcano at last and a bright sunset. It magically appeared from nowhere!
We were dropped home around 7pm and immediately had showers to warm up.

Everyone’s clothes and shoes at the hostel were hanging outside. Susie and I had dinner next to the hostel at a little cafe. I had mexican food and chocolate cake.


We had a funny little day today. Breakfast at Soda Mima’s again, it was great and the man spoke to us in more Spanish, I learn a new word from him everyday. Then I spent some time updating my photos online and Susanna wrote postcards. I did a job interview screening for New Zealand.

We had lunch at another Soda. My tummy had been playing up so I just had a beef sandwich. Susie had a massage and I did yoga in our room, as it was pouring with rain outside.

Then at 4pm we went to the Bogarin sloth trail. It was a little bit random, just three people sitting in an open wooden room. The main guide, William, seemed a little gruff but once we started he was really talkative explaining the forest to us – the smell of different plants, pointing out a howler monkey there, an owl butterfly there.
We saw about 5 sloths! They were all sleepy, up the tops of different trees so we had to use a telescope to see them. He was really keen for us to get a good photo, leading us out of the park at one point for a better angle on the farmland side.

He also showed us a red ‘blue jean’ poisonous frog. I have no idea how he manages to spot all the animals at a distance, at one point he was pointing directly at a yellow frog about a metre away from us and I couldn’t even see it!

We also saw more red eyed frogs. William told us about his life, he was in La Fortuna when the Arenal volcano erupted in 1968, killing hundreds and submerging a town underneath the now Arenal lake (you can see pictures, it’s very creepy!) It’s why the town was renamed La Fortuna – because it was the fortunate one not to be covered in lava. He’s climbed to the top of the volcano and grew up in forest, not owning shoes until he was 9 years old. A very interesting person! We ended the tour by eating a fresh pineapple he cut up in front of us on a banana leaf.

We had dinner at the hostel, tomato pasta. An English girl in the kitchen told us about the tourist bus to Manuel Antonio, where we are heading tomorrow! It’s only 3 hours, versus 8 hours on the public bus. We booked it immediately!

La Fortuna has been a very pleasant stay, the extreme touristy-ness of the town that would probably put some travellers off it has actually been great for us – being able to easy do washing, yoga, hiking, hotpools all in walking distance is vastly different to the rest of our trip! Now we head to the Pacific coast.