Hello dear Blog Followers, Friends, and Family!

My friend Diane and I went on a nine-day-long tour through Costa Rica. It was our first time in this country that everybody we knew, who had been there, raved about. They were right; it is a truly magical place. Interesting exotic animals–sloths, monkeys, bats, just to name a few–friendly warm people, excellent food, gorgeous landscape, jungle, beaches, cloud forests. It was an intense time and I’m still trying to absorb the many impressions.

Let’s start with some pictures. Since my flight from Los Angeles and Diane’s from Cincinnati arrived several hours apart, we were met at the airport separately by a representative of the travel agency and driven to our first hotel in the Arenal area that was three hours away. Passing through customs was a breeze with the help of our “welcome person” who taught us three words we needed to remember during our vacation. Sadly, I forgot two of them but the most important one stuck with me: Pura Vida, which is used everywhere and means something like “Life is good.”

On the way to our hotel, Mountain Paradise (and a paradise it was, indeed!) next to the town of Fortuna in the Arenal area, I had my first cup of the famous Costa Rican coffee at this little coffee shop/gift store.

Our hotel in Fortuna was a real gem, situated on a hill overlooking the gorgeous landscape and the Arenal volcano in the background. We had our own casita. There was a swimming pool with wet bar and a waterfall on the property. In fact, our bathroom had both a normal shower and a waterfall shower, which was more fun than practical, but we truly enjoyed it.

Our Casita

The day we arrived we spent relaxing and enjoying a delicious dinner outside with a wonderful view of the Arenal volcano.

The next morning after enjoying a scrumptious buffet breakfast, we were picked up by our personal guide who accompanied us on our tour through the Arenal National Park. It was a warm day, interrupted by a few cloud bursts–May is the end of the dry season, but rain showers are frequent albeit short already during this month. It was a wonderful hike, during which we discovered tiny but poisonous snakes on trees (I can do without snakes, thank you very much, but fortunately our guide knew how to spot them). Other animals that we enjoyed more are the many different kinds of birds, some sloths hanging from the trees, and so-called holler monkeys (they really do holler!). In addition, there was a enormous variety of exotic plants and colorful flowers.

This plant above is called “Blood of Christ.” The population of Costa Rica is mainly Catholic, including a variety of other Christian groups, so Christian names abound.

More pictures of plants animals and the ever-present Arenal Volcano (which once destroyed several villages but hasn’t been active for many years). The hike brought us to a place with a wonderful view of the volcano as well as Lake Arenal (a man-made lake we’ll be visiting the following day).

That fur ball above is one of the Holler Monkeys. He was quite far away and therefore somewhat out of focus.

Our friendly guide on the right who knew the names of thousands of plants and animals. It was his first tour after college and he was really great!

Lake Arenal

This is at the bottom of the volcano with Lake Arenal in the background. I just took off my yellow rain poncho after one of the short downpours that are so typical of this area. Now, we need sunglasses again.

On the way back, we enjoyed scenes of the always green, fertile landscape of this area. It reminded me of Switzerland. In fact, as someone told me, Costa Rica is sometimes called “the Switzerland of Central America,” because it’s so green.

The next day, we went on a Kayaking tour on Lake Arenal. But before that we had a close encounter with a sloth by the name of Sammy. Stay tuned for more!