White-Water Rafting in La Fortuna

Next up after Monteverde was La Fortuna and it was another great time in Costa Rica.

We arrived in La Fortuna, like we arrived in a lot of places, after a long, arduous drive across Costa Rica.  Upon arrival, we checked into our hotel and then went to a tour shop to try and plan our activities for the next day and a half.  The activity that most people were interested in was white-water rafting.  I’m not big on water and it was expensive, but I opted in anticipating that it would be fun and safe enough.

We went to get some food after our meeting at the tour shop and there were a few beers downed.  (My favorite Costa Rican beer turned out to be Pilsen, though I ended up with an Imperial t-shirt because it has a much cooler logo.)  We went back to the bar at the hotel and had a few more drinks until everybody met for dinner.  Not being able to pass them up when I see them on a menu, I had some hot wings and more beer.  On the way back to the hotel, we purchased some wine and, ultimately, we ended up with the usual suspects back in the girls’ room passing away the evening.  It was all pretty mellow until one person in the group decided to hurl an empty glass of wine off of the balcony, at which point everybody sobered up immediately.  End of party.

The next morning, we went white-water rafting and it was amazing.  (I wish I had photos but I couldn’t bring my camera and the tour shop wanted way too much money for the photos that it took.)  A few people were disappointed because we spent too much time stuck on rocks and the water level was a little low, but it was my first time and I really enjoyed it.  I went into the water twice unexpectedly – the first time was when my English friend decided to dive in and horse-collar me into the water backwards and upside down; and the second time was when I fell out of the raft and got pinned in between a large rock and the raft.  I never let go of the rope on the raft, so I wasn’t in danger, but as the raft kept moving perilously across my chest and got closer to my neck, it was a tad daunting.  Even that experience turned out to be fun, though.

We mostly separated after the rafting trip and then met later to go to a hot springs resort.  This turned out to be rather disappointing, in part because the hot water was wreaking havoc on the sunburn that I had incurred during the white-water rafting earlier in the day.  I just wasn’t feeling it and it really wasn’t my type of place.  I only went because I knew the group only had two more nights together, but in retrospect, I should have just avoided it completely.  The food was okay, though.  And at least it wasn’t my clothes that were stolen.

After the hot springs, I went to bed.  It wasn’t in a good mood and I was ready to head out of Dodge.  We weren’t leaving until around noon, though, so in the morning, after flooding my room with the shower, I headed over to a Costa Rican coffee place and got the specialty, which ended up being poured through a little bag and finished as one of the best coffees that I’ve ever had.  I bought some souvenirs at a nearby shop and then went back to the hotel to prepare to head to San Jose, where the third leg of the trip was to end and the final leg was to begin.  We’ll talk about that later.