Day 43 22.08.15
Today was an early start, and we quickly dropped by the panaderia to get another apple strudel. It was delicious! We hopped onto the bus and drove towards Arenal or La Fortuna (as the volcano there is called). It was quite a bumpy ride. I had planned to write a bit of my blog but it was too bumpy to do any of that…
We got to a place in the middle of nowhere and were told that this was the place of the ferry. There was no ferry in sight and it seemed like there was only a little stream. So where was a ferry going to stop?
There was a boat and it did stop at the foot of a little hill over which the street we had just driven on was winding. It was a small and slender boat but we all including our luggage fit on well. We set of quickly too and got to see some of the beautiful scenery that this man made lake had to offer.
Through the boat ride we saved ourselves some long hours on further bumpy tarmac and what we got to see in terms of flora surrounding this lake made up for any inconveniences we might have experienced.
We got to the other shore and from there we drove to the town of Arenal. We quickly went out to see the town and to book a tour to the hotsprings in the evening, as well as our tours for the next day. A large group of us decided to head to the hotsprings of El Baldi, which we were looking forward to (especially after the zip lining and horseback riding of the previous day.) While in town we were lucky to see a special parade that is only set up once a year. While we were there a parade of marching bands passed the town.
It seemed like some schools with their marching bands came from literally nothing, others so it seemed, were better equipped and seemed like their school was investing a lot more money than the marching bands at the front. Nevertheless it was a great time and we even recognised some of pieces they performed.
At 16:00 we headed out towards the hot springs. This was truly a Disneyland for hot springs as our tour guide had said to us earlier. The hot springs consisted of several pools with bars, all heated up by thermal water, different pools with temperatures, a sauna, a children’s park, several water slides, and a VIP area, where they supposedly had a great waterfall under which you could massage you shoulders and back
We all lost several years of our ages when we went running up the stairs towards the waterslides, sliding down them and repeating the process of running up for more several times.
I think had there not been a security guide at the kiddies pool, we would have went sliding down there as well.
At one pool loads of music was playing, it had a bar and so we spent a little time there, enjoying the music and at the same time dancing in the hip high water.
We then took on the challenge of an all you can eat buffet that was included in our price. I had a soup, I had a salad dish, I had a pasta dish, I had a meat and fish dish and last but not least I had some desert. At the end there were even enough marshmallows left to play the game chubby bunny.
We then hopped in a taxi and drove back into town to meet the others at a bar called the Lava lounge. We had a couple of cocktails here and then walked back to go to bed.
