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Friday, I started off my adventure by taking my Spanish midterm. I felt pretty good after it and it didn't take me long, so I had plenty of time to grab lunch and destress prior to leaving for Arenal. We boarded the bus around 1pm and prepared for our long bus ride. We arrived at the resort around 5pm, checked in, and then reboarded our buses to take us to our rooms. I had assumed, like with most hotels, that our rooms would be within walking distance of everything. They were actually placed in an entirely separate area. You had to make 20ish minute trek downhill to get to everything, and then when you wanted to go back to your room, your trek turned into an uphill battle. There was a shuttle, but because the shuttle served the entire hotel, often times it would take a while to get to the rooms or be full when it arrived.Despite the annoying distance, the view and amenities were on point. There were several pools and hot springs and hot tups, both breakfast and dinner were provided, and the views from the rooms and basically anywhere in the resort were fantastic.
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On Saturday morning, I headed down early to the restaurant for breakfast. I strapped on my hiking boots and double checked that I had my waterproof jacket and a change of clothes. Today was the day that I would go canyoning for the first time in my life. Here, canyoning consists of a mixture of rappels, ziplining, hanging bridges, and hiking. I love hiking back home in the mountains, but I knew that this outdoor adventure stuff would be so different in a rainforest, in humidity, at a much lower altitude. We took a tourism van to the "farm" where we would put on all of our gear and leave our belongings. We then proceeded to the trail. We started off with several different rapels. We started off with easy ones and then went on to rappel down a waterfall, which completely soaked me, and rappel straight down in the positions only spiderman would undertake. We later crossed some hanging bridges, and did a couple short ziplines before hiking back to the "farm." While I don't think the experience was necessarily worth what I paid to participate in it, I really enjoyed it. I felt at home, even more in my element when we were hiking. Feeling the air brush through my hair during the ziplining, the enjoyment I could not contain on the rappels, the water dripping from my clothes and filling my hiking boots, and the working of my legs during the hike was so great. I will say that I am happy that I had the opportunity to experience this, through I do prefer the high altitude and dry air of Colorado for these adventures.
After our morning outdoor adventure, we joined the rest of the program for lunch at a sustainable farm. It was really delicious food which they make using from the ingredients in their garden, including coffee. After lunch, we were treated to an informational demonstration about their garden's operation and the history behind some of the fruits and vegetables there. At the demonstration, we learned about the cacao plant and sampled seeds from it. We later learned about the uses and history of sugar cane, with the opportunity to not only try raw sugar cane but also to sample raw sugar cane juice. The gentleman in charge asked for various volunteers to massage the sugar cane, which consisted of beating it with a large instrument, and then to put the sugar cane through some sort of old fashioned grinder/juicer contraption which produced fresh, raw sugar cane juice. Though the samples of the juice, cane, and cacao looked a little gross, I tried them anyways, and actually, they were quite delicious.
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To experience all that the resort had to offer, I woke up early Sunday morning and headed to the hot springs for a morning swim. About an hour or so into swimming, it started to pour, so I headed back to my room, showered, and headed to the butterfly/crocodile/frog garden that the resort had. The garden was absolutely beautiful. Stepping into the butterfly portion of the garden reminded me of my childhood field trips to the Butterfly Pavillion. There were so many different types too! After admiring the butterflies, I headed to the frog portion of the garden. I definitely heard the frogs croaking, but I didn't see any; unfortunately they were all hiding. There was also an ant portion to the garden, which I avoided, because I find ants disgusting and after dealing with them on a daily basis in my homestay, I was ready to have just one day without seeing them for once. I finally passed on to the crocodile portion of the garden. There were two crocs. I figured I would see them roaming around, but they just laid there. I wasn't sure if they were sleeping or dead or what. I exited the garden and headed back to my room to finish packing to go back to San José. Don't get me wrong, the garden was beautiful, but the lack of wildlife within it after they advertised it as being abundant in wildlife was disappointing. It seemed more like a little botanical garden.
We boarded the buses back to San José and stopped in the nearest town to the resort, La Fortuna, for an hour for lunch. I figured I'd grab lunch to go and then explore the town a bit. We had the option of being dropped off in the town the afternoon before after our trip to the sustainable farm, but I chose to head back to the resort. I was not about to put out a ton of money for a taxi back to the hotel. Looking back, I semi-regret that decision, because there is a beautiful waterfall that you can hike to. I saw pictures other students took and wish I would have gone. But, at the same time, I had forgotten to pack extra shoes for after the canyoning trip and was still wearing my dirty, soaking wet hiking boots. Had I stayed in them, I could have picked up some nasty foot disease or something. I made the smart decision in this respect, but at the same time, I really wish I could have experienced La Fortuna waterfall. Anyways, I ordered a pretty cheap lunch. Unfortunately, it took forever to get, probably because it was just sitting back in the kitchen. When I received my meal, we were already late heading back to the bus, so I didn't really get to explore the town. I got on the bus, thinking that maybe it took forever because it was fantastic food, but I was let down once again. My food was lukewarm and not very tasty. I had waited over an hour for a disappointing meal. This was a disappointing end to an otherwise exciting weekend.
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