I again woke up early -- sadly, this is my new middle aged reality -- no more sleeping in possible! I dragged Ian out of bed for breakfast (surprisingly extensive, great mangos, juices and some decent quesadillas and other "seems awfully like lunch to me" items) and then it was off for our La Fortuna waterfall hike. Booking this tour with a guide would have meant a 7:30AM pick up, so we opted for the "call and Uber and do it on your own" option. Uber came surprisingly fast, and super cheap!
The waterfall is accessible through a series of stairs they've built into the rainforest -- I wish I had taken some photos of the cute signs they put up throughout the hike, every 100 steps or so, they'd have an encouraging quote - 550 steps in all! Here's the first glimpse from the very top:
Going down was of course quite speedy. Probably just 10 minutes or so. And it stayed sunny the entire way down!
We wore swimsuits because you're allowed to swim at the bottom...but it was a bit too cold for my taste.
About 5 minutes after we got to the bottom...it started raining. Hard. Even with a poncho on, turns out pelting rain is apparently a good motivator to climb up quickly. Fortunately, they had a covered bench halfway up for us to wait for the rain to let up a bit.
By the time we got back to the top, we had just a little time for some shopping (sloth themed gifts for L&R!), snap some pretty orchids, and then Uber time back to the hotel for our hanging bridges tour.
The tour was arranged through the hotel, there were 7 of us in all, and the rain, while not so hard, was still coming, so ponchos it was. Not expecting to sneak up on much wildlife in the park...
Spoiler: no sloths were spotted. I think the rain made seeing animals hard, and also time of day. But there were some pretty amazing trees growing in the rainforest. Like this one. So cool! The leaves were so perfectly spread that it looked almost fake!
There were a total of 5 hanging bridges. Here's the first one!
I was surprised by how bouncy they were. I guess it makes sense given they're "hanging" and all. But it was actually really hard to walk straight without getting jostled from side to side. Glad there were no bullet ants in this forest...(there were lots of those in Pacuare, to the point where the guides recommended you NOT hold on to any of the railings, getting bitten by a bullet ant apparently hurts as much as getting shot by a bullet, thus the name).
I must admit, after a couple bridges, they start seeming a bit "same old, same old." But the scenery off to the side was always impressive:
This was the highest bridge -
Okay, I guess we did see ONE animal. Ian's favorite!
It was so big!!
By now, it was actually starting to get dark. The rain had mostly stopped but the mists were still pretty low. Made for some cool "I'm in the clouds" type views. Very San Francisco.
Sun trying to peek out through the rain on the bus ride home.
Tomorrow, it's off to Papagayo, last stop of the trip!
Beautiful shot of that tree!
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