Summer 2010 Vacation, Part 2: Arenal Volcano Day 1

Here are the highlights of our trip to Costa Rica! This post was a daunting task. We had eight days in paradise, and each day was amazing! We took almost 300 pictures, so weeding through for the highlights took some time. There's a lot to write about (and for you to read)! Because of that, I've split the trip into daily posts to break things up.

Day 1: Arrival and Journey to La Fortuna
We arrived in Costa Rica around 5:30 Saturday morning and caught a taxi to the public bus station in Alajuela. Costa Rica has an amazing public transportation system, but it's not centrally operated, so there are several companies driving all over the country—slightly confusing! We searched the numerous bus schedules, and eventually a friendly tico (Costa Rican) told us the next bus to La Fortuna would arrive in 10 minutes. That was 10 minutes Costa Rica time, so more like half an hour.

Eventually the bus arrived. There were no open seats, so we rode the first hour or so standing, which was quite exciting! The ride was four hours long, and thankfully we eventually got seats. During the trip we enjoyed beautiful views as the bus climbed higher on the narrow roads.

Finally we arrived in La Fortuna, the town next to the Arenal volcano. Fortuna is such a cute town! We were surprised by the number of tourists, but there was still plenty of local culture. We ate lunch and had our first authentic meal of the trip: casado! Casado ("married man's meal") is meat, rice, beans, plantains, and salad (or some combination of that) and is found everywhere in the country. I was beside myself at being back in Costa Rica and eating Costa Rican cuisine!

casado—note the volcano-shaped rice

After lunch we took a quick trip to an Internet cafe (where we spent most of our time trying to figure out how to type the "@" symbol on a Spanish keyboard), then caught a taxi to our hotel.

Our hotel was about 20 minutes away from La Fortuna, on the opposite (active) side of the volcano. The grounds were gorgeous! They had a large area of land, landscaped with beautiful tropical plants. We checked into our room and took a nap, after being awake for over 24 hours.

the view from our room

We spent the evening relaxing, scheduling our tours for the next few days, and saying over and over again, "I can't believe we're really here!" (OK, that may have been mostly me.) Our trip to Costa Rica was already proving to be an adventure!