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From the cloud forests of Monteverde we headed to La Fortuna, a town situated by Volcano Arenal. The bus ride winding down from Monteverde and then the small launch boat we took across the lake were was absolutely breathtaking and reminded me a little of the Lake District except with a blinking big volcano in the distance! What is so fascinating is that no one realised it was a volcano until 1968 when it suddenly erupted. It very sadly wiped out a nearby village, killing a number of people. What made this volcano so famous was that from then on the volcano exploded (to varying degrees) almost daily, making it one of the most active volcanoes in the world. The tourists starting flooding in and a town La Fortuna was clearly purpose built to accommodate them. I say that because what greeted us on arrival in La Fortuna was a grid town lined with shops, hotels and restaurants and zero personality or attractiveness. That said our hostel was great and it was all about getting out to see the surrounding area not hanging out in a town anyway. And it's not just about seeing the lava roll down the volcano at night....which is a good thing as after 42 years of near daily explosions, in 2010 it stopped and hasn't erupted since! Arenal isn't thought to be dormant now though, just having a quiet period! When this happened though it obviously rocked the tourism industry built up around it. However it still looks blooming gorgeous sleeping and as we discovered over the next couple of days there are lots of other things to do in the area.
One of the big recommendations is to go swim in some hot springs. The road into La Fortuna is lined with hot spring resorts which offer a number of pools with water heated by the volcano, beds, restaurants and bars.
They aren't cheap but meant to be great. But then we discovered there were some free hot springs not too fat away which obviously appealed as saved us money but more than that the reason they were free is because they were natural ones. Seemed a no brainer to see something in it's natural environment. So on our first afternoon we headed there and surprisingly and very pleasantly so it wasn't crowded, and most of the people there were locals not tourists (they all obviously hit the resorts). I was so chuffed at our decision that I probably went on about it for the entire time we were there (and that evening....and the following morning)! They were stunning though....so warm and lots of different coves you could go into and have a waterfall from the cove above cascade onto you (with some crazy force)! The water we were told was really good for us (full of minerals from the volcano) which has only added further to our very youthful appearances from visiting all the other lagoons and waterfalls on this trip. Which also meant that the huge and delicious steak supper at a family restaurant that night obviously didn't count which was great news.
The following morning we were up early(ish) to climb Cerro Chato which is a smaller volcano next to Arenal. It's took us a couple of hours to reach the top with a constant steep incline walking along very rocky and narrow "paths" in the forest. We reached the top and unfortunately we were unlucky with what should be a stunning view of a green lagoon in the crater of the volcano and also of Arenal, as the cloud had rolled in. Was a shame but we had really enjoyed the hike (first decent bit of exercise we've done in a whole) and had the return to look forward to. We decided to go back down a different path to what we thought was a view point but after some time we soon realised we were going back to another part of the volcano. Oh well we didn't have a car waiting for us so no problem we thought....until we realised we were on the complete opposite side and quite far from La Fortuna. The upside was we ended up at a beautiful hotel in the middle of nowhere surrounded by unrivalled views of Arenal and the lake so we grabbed lunch and a beer before getting a (long) taxi back. We slept the rest of the afternoon before going to another restaurant for equally yummy steak! We spent the rest of our evening hanging out at the hostel drinking wine in hammocks before hitting the sack as an early start to head to the coast.
Mucho gusto
SM
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