Sunday 3/12 afternoon- hot springs + rainforest walk (and SLOTHS!)

Sunday, 3/12: Part 2 (afternoon)

Okay, so in last post I shared the volcano pics and ziplining adventure! Picking up there.

Hot springs/pool time:

After ziplining we drove back to the resort (it was maybe 12:30 or so). My mom had stayed back just relaxing on her own (ziplining is not her thing).

The plan was to let the boys get in the pool!! And grab some lunch at the hotel pool bar. We wanted to swim and soak a little too.

Ivan, my mom and I floated around in this medium-warm pool for a while. Like I said, the pools are all different temperatures. Most are at least “warm” to “very warm”, and some are HOT. Plus some colder ones for refreshing.

The boys couldn’t wait to get on the water slide. It is so amazing to vacation with kids that can just go off on their own. I have mentioned this before, but really- it’s pretty awesome! We don’t even have to watch them.

We ordered a couple pizzas for lunch in the pool bar restaurant. There was live music playing and it was very nice.

After lunch, the boys swam some more and my mom and I went to one of the hotter hot tubs. I literally could have sat in there all day. Felt so good! (It was pretty warm and humid out, but this still felt good in the shade.)

Saw some iguana friends right outside the pool bar:

We had to get out by 2:30 or so because we had plans at 3. I had reserved a private guided nature walk rainforest tour to hopefully spot some rainforest wildlife.

The boys started searching from the landing outside the hot room… haha.

Bogarin Trail

A little before 3 we drove the ~10 minutes to the Bogarin Trail and checked in for our tour. We were assigned a fantastic guide in his 60s who was super passionate about the rainforest and the animals and had grown up in Costa Rica. He had a lot of stories to share.

The best thing was that he has this magnifying telescope thing for us to use. Honestly, if we hadn’t had a guide, I don’t think we would have seen a single animal. The rainforest was beautiful, but we just would not known where to even look.

Pretty soon into the walk we saw our first… SLOTH!! This is pretty much the quintessential Costa Rican animal that is a huge fan favorite. I was super excited to see one! (Though again, I would never have seen it way up in the tree just sitting there without the guide’s expert eye.) They don’t really move much, so it just looks like a clump of leaves or a dark spot, mostly. (Without the binoculars).

Here’s a closeup photo taken with my phone, through the telescope.

We also saw these awesome poison dart frogs! How cool are they!?

Here’s me looking at something in a tree:

Family volcano shot in an opening that the guide took:

I loved walking around in there. So lush. It started lightly raining about halfway through our tour, but due to the dense trees, not much made its way down to us. We had rain jackets along but didn’t even put them on.

I actually feel like the light rain enhanced our experience, because it made the most relaxing sound as it fell on the leaves. It sounded, well, like a rainforest! I took a video at one point to try to capture the sound.

We saw so many cool things. I don’t remember every exact name, unfortunately, but this was a really amazing experience. Highly recommend!!

Here’s a little rundown of some I got pics of:

We also learned about the trees, plants, saw a huge termite nest and more. Wow.

At the end, the guide cut up a fresh pineapple for us to snack on, which was delicious.

La Fortuna (the town):

The tour ended a little after 5. We were already near town, so we stopped right away for dinner.

First we walked around a little. There isn’t a whole lot to this little town. The primary attraction here is the volcano and rainforest, etc, not really the town itself.

It’s a nice and cute little town though!

We went to a fun looking place called Lava Lounge. It had twinkle lights and a good atmosphere and live music.

We really were enjoying the great music, but we finally had to go. We still wanted time to use the hot springs again before bed.

The hot hot pool proved to be too hot for us to really hang out in for too long. After a bit we switched to one of the medium hot pools- one where we could float and stay in comfortably for a long time.

This whole hot springs thing is so awesome!!The magic of the volcano’s heat. 🙂

And that was our first full day! Loved everything about it! From the ziplining to the relaxed pool time to the rainforest walk, it was a pretty perfectly balanced day.