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| Tabacon Hot Springs |
If the title of the last post was "here we go", it's only appropriate that the title of this one is "here we are". From Fort Lauderdale to San Jose, Costa Rica is only a two and a half hour flight. That's pretty much the same as flying from Dallas to Tampa. There were only two minor hiccups on our travel day. First, for some reason my laptop screen remained completely black when I turned it on in Fort Lauderdale. A quick google search revealed that this condition is known in the IT world as the "Black Death Screen". Certainly not an encouraging name for what seemed like a terminal condition. I was afraid this was going to limit my blogging capability since it's difficult to do on the I-phone. Fortunately once we arrived in San Jose another google search revealed several remedies for this dreadful sounding condition. The first two I tried didn't work, but the third one worked like a charm and the "Black Screen of Death" has been laid to rest, hopefully for a long time!
The second hiccup was something that couldn't be avoided and that was the hour and a half wait in the customs line at the San Jose Airport. It's a fairly small airport. The majority of flights are international and there were eight flights arriving at about the same time. The agent serving our line was a fairly old gentleman who seemed to lack any enjoyment for his job and moved at a pace that would make a sloth seem incredibly fast. What the heck, we survived and it provided me with a paragraph of material for the blog.
We had arranged transportation through the hotel and our driver (Fernando) was waiting for us outside of the secure area and we were soon on our way. We'll be staying in three different areas over the next twelve days. First up is the small city of La Fortuna which is located near the Arenal Volcano. This is an active volcano, although hopefully not too active for the next five days. The last major eruption was in 1968 so I'm feeling pretty good about our odds of getting out unscathed. Plus, it's worth the risk because something commonly associated with volcanos are natural hot springs and this area is full of them. More on that later.
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| Our Costa Rica Loop: San Jose to La Fortuna (A). La Fortuna to Monteverde (B). Monteverde to Manuel Antonio (C). Manuel Antonio back to San Jose (D) |
Briefly, here's a little bit of information on both Costa Rica and the small city of La Fortuna. Costa Rica is a Central American country bordered by Nicaragua on the North, the Caribbean Sea on the Northeast, Panama on the Southeast, the Pacific Ocean to the Southwest and Ecuador to the South. The countries population is around five million. The largest city and capital is San Jose, which has a population of around 400,000. Although they have had some economic challenges with rising government debt (sound familiar?) Costa Rica is in many ways the shining star of Central America. It scores very high on human rights initiatives, healthcare (affordable and often ranked higher in quality than the US), literacy, affordable housing and environmental issues. The primary economic drivers of Costa Rica are tourism and agriculture, with coffee and sugar being the two main crops.
La Fortuna is a small town of around 15,000 that is about a three hour drive northwest of San Jose. It is known as the Gateway to Arenal Volcano National Park. Fernando (our driver from the airport) was born here and shared with us that it was a sleepy little village until tourism, related to the volcano, hot springs and natural beauty of the area began to develop in 1990. He was very proud to let us know that even though it has grown, it has maintained it's quaintness and that it is very safe and filled with friendly people. We're looking forward to exploring it over the next couple of days.
We arrived just after sunset (around 5:30 local time) and although it was a fairly short flight, combined with getting up early in Fort Lauderdale, the wait in the customs line in San Jose and the drive to the hotel we had packed in most of the fun we could for one day. But there was one thing left...…….no, not that! Remember I had mentioned the natural hot springs earlier? The hotel has six small hot springs teeming with muscle relaxing water of various degrees, as well as two large pools also filled with warm water and another with cooler water. We enjoyed kicking back in a couple of different ones before it was off to dreamland.
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| From our hotel balcony. On a clear day the Aernal Volcano is in the background. |
We spent the entire day at Tabacon Hot Springs Resort which is located just a few miles from our hotel. There are several options of day passes that can be purchased. We opted for the full day and one meal pass. It's open from 10:00 AM until 10:00 PM and while we weren't there when the doors opened they hadn't been open for long when we arrived. The hot springs were actually streams of water flowing over waterfalls and into small areas where you could sit and relax while taking in the lush surroundings. To say we got our money's worth would be an understatement. We were there from shortly after opening until around 7:00 PM. We left with full bellies from a very nice meal, relaxed muscles and big smiles on our faces!
If you go to Tabacon Hot Springs here's a couple of things to keep in mind:
Book it as early as possible. They only offer a limited number of day passes. We were fortunate to be able to book ours the morning we wanted to go but we understand it does frequently sell out.
There are options that include either one or two meals. We opted for the one meal and selected dinner as our meal. It was a buffet with a very nice variety of both local and international dishes. I'm pretty sure lunch is also a buffet and it is priced the same. You can choose two meals if you're so inclined to have a buffet for both lunch and dinner...….good luck with that!
Bring some type of water shoes. There are several pools but the real treat is getting in the streams and sitting under the waterfalls. The streams are "natural" so there are rocks and uneven surfaces.
Although the springs are open until 10:00 PM, if at all possible plan to arrive before sunset. The gardens are immaculate.
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| Don't forget your watershoes |
