The Day Everyone Thought Was Impossible (onto Costa Rica!)

We came into August 2nd with high hopes and a grand agenda, wanting to do as many activities as possible. Our driver, Rolando, was skeptical that we could fit in everything, but he agreed to let us give it a shot. In total, we did three different hikes and spent half an hour at natural hotsprings (after visiting a coffee shop with really good reviews on our way out of town). The first hike was around the Mistico Park, where we were able to view the beautiful Costa Rican rainforest from a few vantage points on different hanging bridges. The rainforest is so green and surprisingly loud (there are a ton of raucous insects). After that beautiful hike, we changed scenery somewhat and Rolando drove us to the valley under the Arenal Volcano, where we did the longer version of the Arenal 1968 hike. (The reason for the funny name is that the Arenal Volcano last erupted 1968; throughout the hike we could see the damage and lava rocks that were thrown miles away by the explosion.) This was also beautiful and we met a nice Indian-American family from Chicago who we walked with for a while. We took a little break from hiking and spent some time at the natural hot springs — I have never been in a hotter river/stream in my life! Just by looking at it, I would not have guessed that it would be so warm, and I was sort of skeptical going into it that it would live up to the hype. It was extremely pleasant and I would definitely recommend visiting. To close the day, we walked 500 steps down to the La Fortuna waterfall and swam a bit downstream from the base. It was also very fun, but the water was remarkably cold, especially compared to the hotsprings. As we were leaving, we got caught in the classic Costa Rican (warm) downpour — it was a nice way to warm up from the cold water!