Welcome to Part 2 of my Costa Rican adventure with my wonderful mother!  If you haven’t checked out Pura Vida: Part 1, please do–you definitely want to check out our adventures in Tortuguero.  Two words:  zip lining!  🙂  And now…

Day 4 (continued):  Arrival Day in La Fortuna!

Our last morning in Tortuguero was beautiful–hot and sunny with bright blue skies.  It was tough to leave, but leave we did (after a final breakfast).  After the boat ride back to the mainland, we hopped on a bus and took a ride to a restaurant for lunch.

Lunch was buffet-style with the BEST FRESH SALSA I’VE EVER TASTED.  (Let me say this right now–one thing that did not disappoint during this trip was the food.  I’m a vegetarian, and I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to find enough options while I was there.  Not only was there wonderful fresh fruit at ever meal, there was frequently salad with fresh veggies and lots of other tasty meat-free options!)

After lunch, a van picked us up to drive us to La Fortuna.  The trip was lengthy, but just like before, we were able to see a lot of the smaller towns on our journey.

As we got closer to La Fortuna, we could start to see the volcano.  Yes, an actual VOLCANO!  Was I a little scared that the volcano would spontaneously erupt and we’d die from the molten lava?  Absolutely.  Was I willing to sacrifice that to take in the beautiful view of the volcano from our hotel room.  ABSOLUTELY.  Just look at this beautiful view!

 

The hotel we stayed in had a few more amenities than our previous place in Tortuguero.  We had wi-fi in our room.  We had towels folded into cute animal shapes.  We had a TV with premium channels.  We had multiple poolside bars.  We had room service.  And we had…(wait for it)…air conditioning!  #thankyoulord

After we got settled in, we walked around the rest of the site.  Our room was awesome, and the rest of the place was even better–check out some of the cool stuff on site:

 

We eventually made our way to one of the poolside bars…

Happy hour was going on, so we enjoyed a few drinks and watched the Costa Rican national soccer team on TV.  (They won!)

After the game and drinks and dinner at the bar, we went back to our room to get some much-needed rest.

Day 5:  La Fortuna!

This was the first day that we didn’t have any excursions or tours planned–we could do what we wanted, when we wanted.  Turns out, what we wanted was a relaxing day of shopping in town–and that’s exactly what we got.

We had another good breakfast at the hotel, then took a cab into town.  We purchased souvenirs for our loved ones back home including, but not limited to, Costa Rican coffee.  I bought eight bags of coffee to bring home–Mom ended up getting about 10!  We needed to share the blessing of authentic Costa Rican coffee with all of our friends and family back home.

 

We bought so many souvenirs we couldn’t even carry them all comfortably–we ended up buying tote bags to put the souvenirs in!  All that shopping worked up a definitely appetite, so we stopped for a bite to eat.

After fries and milkshakes in a cute open air restaurant, we went back to the hotel for more relaxation.  Since we were in Costa Rica during the rainy season, we spent a lot of evenings chilling in our room because of the torrential downpour that started at about 6:30 each evening.  We got a lot of reading done and slept very comfortably after our full day in La Fortuna.

Day 6:  Journey to Guanacaste!

Luckily we got some good rest during the night, because we got picked up at 6:45am the next day to head to our final tour stop–Guanacaste.  Check back soon for Part 3 of our Costa Rican adventure!