La Fortuna Waterfall/ Arenal Volcano

Sorry for the lack of posts recently. I am currently taking a class that requires us to write a thirty page group paper so I've been a little busy with that. I will write more about my class in a later post. 

Last Wednesday the entire Kansas group took a day trip to the La Fortuna Waterfall and the volcano at Arenal. It took about three hours by bus from San Jose to get to our first destination: the waterfall. We hiked for about ten minutes to reach the waterfall. It was amazing. The water was a clear teal-blue and the nature surrounding the waterfall was vibrantly green. The water was cool but it was still comfortable to swim in. I think everyone had fun playing in the water and swimming around. There was also a nearby pool that had fresh water fish and a small river with rocks that we climbed around on.  It was a really neat place. 

After the waterfall we got back in the bus to drive to the volcano. We at lunch at a very nice hotel. I had a steak; it was the first steak I've have in Costa Rica and it was delicious! At the hotel there are a series of hot springs that have been changed into man-made pools. Some of the pools had a temperature of 104 degrees. They were too hot to stay in very long. Another cool thing was the water slide. With much experimentation we figured out that going down head first was the best way.

Even though the hot springs were really nice, my favorite part was the volcano. Volcán Arenal is an active volcano, but it has not had an eruption since 2010.  Usually the dense clouds around the volcano make it impossible to see the crater (the top). Many people who travel to the area never get to see the volcano in it's entirety. However during our visit, the clouds cleared up and we were able to have a great view of the rarely seen volcano top. We got pretty lucky. 

On the way home, exhausted from our day of fun, most of us fell asleep in the van.

La Fortuna Waterfall 

Volcán Arenal 1

Volcán Arenal 2