Arenal area - La Fortuna, hot springs and Cerro Chato

After visiting Rio Celeste we drove to La Fortuna. We had booked Hotel Villa Fortuna first for only one night. The hotel's location is a bit out from the centrum, which did not matter since we had a car. It wouldn't have been a problem by foot either, but this was more convenient. The hotel had received good recommendations and it didn't disappoint. The room was clean, there was a shared kitchen where we made breakfast and there was even an outside pool. :)

Room #8 if we remember correctly 

Kitchen area

Outside pool

We happened to be in La Fortuna on Costa Rica's Indepence Day (15 September). We were just driving to the city and we heard music and saw a lot of people on the main street. We parked the car and went to see what was going on. There was a parade, consisting mainly of students of different schools. Different groups showed their talents in the ~30 degrees celcius (and really humid!). It was a great parade and a lot of locals were watching it. Many of the locals had also dressed themselves in red, white and blue - the colors of CR's flag. It was lovely to see many small children dressed up in traditional CR clothes :)

Beautiful group of girls in the parade

Cheerleading

A group playing in the Independence Day parade - interesting instruments!

One part of the parade was a group of traditional Costa Rican dancers. The show was great, but a small girl stole the show :D She knew all the moves and stole everyone's hearts!

Great dancers - especially the little one!!!

A really great group of young talent playing pop songs in a group. They had choreographs too! 

Overview of the park in La Fortuna (sorry for the dark picture)

After the parade we visited the Tabacón Free Hot Springs. We had read about it on Tripadvisor and found it rather easily. It was around 15km from our hotel, near Tabacón Grand Spa & Thermal Resort. People parked their cars on the side of the road but we could also park it on the resort's parking spot for a fee of $2. Then we had someone watching over our car while we were away.

The hot springs were really cool! When we visited the river for the first time, there were not that many people and we could wonder around and test different spots for relaxing. The water was so warm! We had never experienced something like that. The current is rather strong so we had to find different spots where we could hold on to a stone somehow :p After a while, a few local families came to the springs to have a picnic. The hot springs are popular also during night time. We could see many melted candles on the rocks and - unfortunately - also many empty cans of beer, or other trash. It is rather sad when people don't take care of such place - especially when it's free for everyone!

There is one location in the hot springs where one could get the best neck and back massage! The power of the water was grand and the warmth was soooo relaxing :D

Markus relaxing under the hot springs

After the hot springs we were extremely tired and slept like babies (such babies that don't cry ;) )

We decided to stay one more night in La Fortuna. Our hotel was nice so we booked another night there and the receptionist helped us with any queries we had regarding the surroundings (or other parts of CR) and activities. We wanted to hike to Cerro Chato, a volcano that has been inactive for some 3500 years. We had done some research about the hike online and were prepared with hiking shoes and good clothes and a lot of water and a little snacks. We saw some animals during our hike, mainly different lizards but also different birds and butterflies. Below is a picture of a hummingbird that we saw in the beginning of the trail.

Quite beautiful jungle, don't you think? 

We were warned about a difficult trail :p 

We were sweating like crazy! The humidity was really high.

We had seen online that the path can be challenging at some points, but it was maybe even a bit more challenging than we thought. So far the most challenging hike we have done. After about 1km, as the sign said, the rest of the trail is not for people with heart problems, but neither for those with bad condition. Luckily it didn't rain, because there were few small rivers and many very steep sections with not much room for steps. Below you can see a typical narrow and steep section of the trail.

Some steps were rather high - we could feel this in our legs the day after :p

A big part of the hike is in the jungle and you don't see "out". But at some points there are "holes" in the jungle and you get awesome views over Lake Arenal and the Arenal Volcano.

View of Lake Arenal through the jungle

The trail at Cerro Chato ends to a green lake. We had started our hike from the other side of the volcano (not La Fortuna's side), because we thought there would be less people. This might've been true, but unfortunately our "beach" at the lake was the worst one :(. We saw two other beaches at the lake and they were small sandy beaches. Our was just branches in the water so it was not very inviting for a swim. We saw people swimming on the two other beaches.

But the lake was beautiful itself and it was pretty cool to think about where we were actually sitting - on the top of a volcano. :)

Green lake on the top of Cerro Chato. 

On our way back down we got nice views of Arenal volcano and it showed its top with only a few clouds this day too! (usually the top is covered in clouds)

Look closely to the picture - there was a big bird with an mohawk (about 40 - 50cm high) running in front of us on our way back. 

There is a tree on the trail, that is about 600 years old - quite amazing!

Markus swinging on a liana like Tarzan :D

After the hike we visited the hot springs again. The hike took approximately 6 hours and we were sweaty and exhausted so the hot springs, especially the massage part, felt amazing!