Bridges,Butterflies, and Volcanoes

La Fortuna, Costa Rica

Tuesday morning, we left Tamarindo and embarked on a beautiful drive inland to La Fortuna. La Fortuna is a little town at the foot of the Arenal Volcano, a volcano that was considered dormant until, in 1968, it suddenly erupted and wiped out three other nearby villages. Apparently there is a popular myth that La Fortuna was named for having the good fortune to be situated to the east of the volcano when all those neighboring villages on Arenal's  west side were, well, less furtunate. It isn't true, as the town was already named before the eruption occurred, but it is still a good story. The volcano is still active and until 2010 would regularly glow at night, but all we witnessed while we were there was a bit of steam rising from the top.

Our home in La Fortuna was tucked away behind a restaurant and the parking space was adjacent to the house manager's outdoor kitchen, where we frequently encountered her family as we came and went. Inside, the house was beautiful with the best equipped kitchen we have seen yet, but the only two bathrooms were attached to the two bedrooms and instead of doors they featured only sheer curtains, probably why Ronan opted to be on the living room couch again and let Fionn and Liam have the two beds in the extra room.

Our first adventure was Hanging Bridges Park, which was basically a hiking trail through the rain forest that involved a lot of bridges, many of them being suspension bridges. I am simultaneously fascinated by and scared out of my wits by bridges, particularly ones that swing in the wind, so of course I thought this would be a great place to go. It was a beautiful hike and the bridges really are pretty cool, even if some of them did seem to sway violently even when Ronan wasn't intentionally rocking them. Thanks to some hikers ahead of us who were all standing and staring up, we spotted a sloth way up in the tops of a tree.  Other wildlife sightings were pretty limited: lizards, small birds, a butterfly and leaf cutter ants. The ants were actually very cool and we watched them for a long time. A long line of ants coming and going up a huge tree, along the edge of the trail, and into and out of tunnels of leaves on the ground. They were very intent, when Kris tried to pick up a leaf piece that one was dutifully toting along, the ant refused to let go. The park was a tad expensive for what it was really, but still a nice way to spend an afternoon.

The next day we went to the Butterfly Conservatory. I loved this place. The owner bought a ranch, reforested it, and now raises butterflies there. They have four butterfly enclosures each representing a different biome of Costa Rica and each swarming with butterflies. Most impressive was probably the one full of the blue morpho butterflies because there were just so many of them and they were in constant flight, but I loved them all and the varieties of butterflies were amazing. In addition to the butterflies they also had a lizard and frog habitat, the care keeper there was very anxious to show us all his pets. He would explain that the frogs were very poisonous and then open the enclosures so we could get a better look! After we had our fill of butterflies, lizards, frogs, turtles, and the gorgeous botanical gardens, the way out was a hiking trail through the reforested land. It was beautiful, though I wish I had noticed when we left the house that Fionn had chosen flip flops for the day, not ideal hiking shoes. Now I can stop feeling badly that I never took my younger kids to the Butterfly Pavilion in Denver. Whew.

For our last day we went to the Arenal 1968 Trails, we chose it over the actual national park that is right next door mostly based on online reviews of the trails. Since we didn't do the national park also I can't really say if we made the right choice, only that we did really enjoy the trails here and not only because they provided hiking sticks at the beginning of the trail, though that was a perk. Our trail started out through a sort of demonstration area where they grew sugarcane and pineapples, its the first place the kids have actually got to see pineapples growing, so that was cool. Then we headed through a lot of rain forest and around the edge of a lake. All along there was plenty of large, boulder sized lava rocks and the further we got, the more they took over. Unlike the lava fields we were at in southern Utah this summer though, these lava fields have trees and grasses and all sorts of things growing through and over them. At one point the trail was steep enough and sandy enough that we used the guide rope installed along it to pull ourselves up the incline. We ate our lunch at the far end of the trail while staring at the volcano in the distance and eavesdropping on another group's paid tour guide.  While there, we met a charming little girl from England who is traveling the world for a year with her parents. Freya chatted with us a good part of our hike back, all about her favorite authors, the highs and lows of visiting India and what she likes best about traveling ("the beachy parts").

In between adventures, we explored La Fortuna's stores and bakeries and restaurants and park, did some school, killed more cockroaches, and enjoyed the considerably cooler weather in comparison to the coast. Then Saturday morning we packed up our car and headed to San Jose where we are now living on the fourth floor of a very modern condominium building, Liam and Fionn get the couch this time and Ronan is luxuriating in the second bedroom, pleased that his bathroom actually has a door!