The Diva Chronicles : Costa Rica (Part II)

By MzTravelDiva ⋅ July 14, 2008 ⋅  Email This Post ⋅  Print This Post ⋅ Post a comment

In Part I of our Costa Rica Chronicles, we experienced city life in San Jose. Now it was time to leave the city behind and head to ‘The Volcano’.

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Friday morning, we left the hotel in San Jose, hopped on our shuttle, and headed northwest for about 3 hours to our next destination, Arenal Volcano. This majestic volcano, near the town of La Fortuna, is still active, and erupts everyday. That’s right…it erupts everyday. However, there’s no fear here. Life appears to go on without a thought of being so close to this massive…active…erupting volcano. So hey, we went with the flow too. (no pun intended)

Arenal Volcano. source: twojetsetdivas

Our accommodations during our visit to Arenal were provided by Hotel Arenal Paraiso Resort & Spa. Our room had an up-close, front porch view of the mighty volcano. The property included lovely hot springs and my favorite, the wetbar. Sooo relaxing.

MzETravel -The Gliding Diva. source: Arenal Paraiso

Before the relaxation, however, it was time for some adventure! Before we came to Costa Rica, we read all about the canopy (zip-line) tours offered in the La Fortuna area. The thrill and excitement of zipping through beautiful, lush Costa Rican jungles was an experience I knew that we had to try out. We researched several canopy tour companies, but discovered that we were lucky enough to have a tour being offered right at our resort! Talk about convenience. So we signed up for the resort’s canopy tour, which was $45 for an approximately 2 hour long tour.

If we were looking for a thrill…we got it. We zipped through the forest on 11 different lines, varying in length. We had a great experience, and it’s something that I’d definitely do again…even considering the ‘technical difficulties’ that occurred on some of my zip lines. If you want to know more about that story….hit me up in our JetSet community, and I’ll give you all the splendid details involving me, the zip line, and a river. That’s all I’m saying about that on here.

Down hill to the wetbar. source: twojetsetdivas

After the tour, we were NOW ready for lunch and then some relaxation. Like the canopy tour, we researched some hot springs that were available in the area. Luck strikes again and Hotel Arenal Paraiso had about 10 hot springs with various temperatures, right there on the property! We definitely saved up on transportation costs today. So we relaxed our aching muscles in the springs for a while, then headed downstream to the wetbar. We spent the rest of the evening enjoying the music and atmosphere at the wetbar. Don’t forget this is green season, so a shower was starting to roll through, so we headed back to the room to change for dinner. Well…the shower turned into a torrential downpour. Because the rooms are like little separate cottages around the resort, and are disconnected some distance from the restaurant, the rain had us stuck in our rooms for the rest of the night. Oh well..at least we got lunch.

We only spent a night in Arenal. In hindsight, I really liked this place and wish we’d stayed here an extra day. Nonetheless, it was time to move on to our next destination, The Beach!