Costa Rica Day 5 - Lake Arenal Drive

Today we pick up our rental car to make the trip out to Papagayo (the Pacific Coast of Costa Rica). You might ask why we are doing so much traveling within the country when we have so few days in total. I planned the trip around Pacuare, because I knew I wanted to experience that, but then we also wanted some beach time at the end, which in Costa Rica at this time of year, sun is only guaranteed over on the west coast. So we went ahead booked our departing flight out of Liberia. Arenal was more a stopover point between Pacuare and Papagayo. 

So, picking up the rental car was a little interesting. The Avis agent immediately claimed we needed to purchase mandatory loss/collision insurance. I was like, my friend, this is not my first international trip, no thank you. He then proceeded to tell me I could only use the credit card insurance if I could produce a letter from Amex saying my specific card was covered for Costa Rica. I'm pretty sure many folks would have given in at this point, but I viewed this as a challenge. 🧐 I got on the phone, Ian immediately went to go find a seat as he assumed we'd be in for the long haul...but surprisingly a mere 5 minutes or so later, I found the self service website and Amex emailed me a waiver letter. Apparently this is a well known rental company money-making scheme, a couple we ran into told us their insurance ended up being three times as much as their rental! If anyone else rents a car in Costa Rica, don't get taken in! 

Fantastic weather today, almost a waste since we'd be in the car all afternoon, but I suppose we avoid driving those curvy roads in the rain. The clouds even parted so we could get a parting shot of the Arenal volcano.

Pretty cool. Would be a great hike! (Ian doesn't agree).

A lot of the drive was basically just going around Lake Arenal. Here's the very tip by La Fortuna.

Halfway though we stopped for lunch at the Lake Arenal Brewery. Ian opted for the full flight of craft brews. Review: decent. 

Nice views! Something about the lake made it feel European to me. Like we were in Switzerland or Austria. 

We also passed right under a bunch of windmills. 

As an aside, the lake (which is quite large, took us an hour to drive just around a third or so of it) is entirely manmade for power producing purposes. Apparently 1/3 of all power consumed in Costa Rica comes from Lake Arenal!

Because I made us stop for more souvenir shopping in Liberia, we didn't arrive at El Mangroove, our last hotel, until after sunset.  Good thing we have no plans for tomorrow!