Trip Report: Arenal and MA, 2/29-3/5

Welcome home--how well I understand that little syndrome you spoke of! Glad you had a good time. Isn't it amazing the food you can find for $3? We find ourselves thinking that $10 for a meal is a splurge!

Looking forward to hearing more, bostonjenn! Sounds like you had a great time.

Looking forward to hearing all about it, from one CWS sufferer to another

Sounds like a great trip. It is helpful to read of others trips because my husband and I are planning a trip for August. I have heard about the Tabacon and Eco Thermales hot springs. Are they two seperate places or one? How did you get reservations for Eco Thermales? Thanks so much, glad you had a great trip.

Hi mosely,

Tabacon and Eco-Thermales are 2 different Hot Springs in the Arenal area. You should be able to make reservations through whichever hotel you stay in.

Our Itinerary:

2/29 - Boston to SJO to Arenal
3/1 - Arenal: Zipline, Eco Termales
3/2 - Arenal: Hanging bridges, ATV tour
3/3 - Arenal to MA, beach time
3/4 - MA Nat'l Park tour, more beach time
3/5 - local relaxation, MA to SJO to Boston

To Arenal:

Our morning flight out of Boston went without a hitch with a short layover in Charlotte, NC. A quick 20-30 min through customs and we found ourselves emerging from the airport to feel...WARMTH?! Understand, it's been a long winter here in Boston and it was 12 degress in Boston when we left with snow in the forecast!). Hallelujah!! Once at the exit, we quicky spotted our names and were quickly shuffled to our driver.

Our ride to Arenal with Wilson Rojas was the perfect start to our introduction to a new place. Having now seen the roads, I think we could have driven it ourselves, but we really enjoyed the benefit of having, in essence, a private tour guide for the start of our first visit to CR.

And talk about going above and beyond. Despite having a few snacks and drinks available for us in the van, he stopped at a local soda en route and treated us to burritos and iced coffees. He then stopped at a fruit stand on the road and bought us several mangoes because we had mentioned we like them. Very sweet (both the mangoes and Wilson) . We also stopped at the grocery in Fortuna to pick up a few things.

And then the first glitch of our trip (and I believe only). Wilson took us to book our zipline tour together and we discovered our credit card would not clear (of all things, i forgot to call our bank before we left!) He suggested we pay the tour co. with the cash we had set aside for his fee, and leave his fee in MA later in the week with his friend! As a native New Yorker, this was unheard of, but much appreciated. As it turned out, we paid in cash, sat down for dinner together next door while I used HIS cell phone to call my bank and get it cleared up (again, his suggestion), and swung by an ATM for his fee before heading to our hotel. Needless to say, we highly recommend Wilson if you are looking for a driver. email: wilson_elsy@yahoo.com

Arenal Day One:

LOST IGUANA. We arrived in the dark and learned that we just missed the lava flow, but we were ready to settle in and get some rest. The next morning, we awoke to the most amazing view of the volcano just outside our window! I just stood on our balcony and took a dozen pictures as the sun was coming up.

We loved the hotel. Beautiful grounds, comfortable beds, great 24 hr two-tiered pool, one of which is heated with a swim-up bar. The staff was always helpful and courteous. And we LOVED our private balcony with fantastic views of the volcano! And we didn't mind that it was further out from town - we liked the remote and tranquil feeling of the place.

We spotted our first CR critter - a coati - as we were eating breakfast. Breakfast was great and included in the rate. We were then promptly picked up by SkyTrek and were off to zipline.

SKYTREK ZIPLINE. What an exhilirating experience! I had no idea we would be zipping so high above the treeline of the rainforest. My husband, who has a mild fear of heights, later confessed that he was slightly nervous before each line, but was equally thrilled. We had fun guides, met some friendly folks in our group and thoroughy enjoyed our time.

One piece of advice. We were pretty confused about how much to tip throughout our trip. It might be helpful to determine this ahead of time and have small bills on hand for tips.

ECO TERMALES. We were dropped off back at the hotel and relaxed a - on our balcony of course - before heading over to the hot springs. Based on some advice here, we thankfully reserved this in advance. We saw someone turned away for dinner that night.

I might also mention that Lost Iguana has several free shuttles running into town throughout the evening at set times, so we took the 4:30 shuttle to Eco for our 5-9 "appointment."

We pulled up at a private gate. No signs in sight so we had to be told we had arrived. What a beautiful and peaceful place. There are a number of pools fed by natural hot springs - varying in size and temperature with plenty of nice nooks for more privacy. Also a bar for drinks you can take right to the pools. We met some nice folks just lounging and enjoyed hearing of their adventures as well.

The only disruption (a welcome one at that), was a SCREAM from a howler monkey up above. Of course we all gathered to have a look, and one guest even attempted a dialogue with the howler.

After about 1.5 hrs, we stepped out for our delicious dinner served at the open dining area - really fresh salad, rice and beans and chicken/beef - all served family style for the two of us. Also included dessert and coffee. We were pleasantly surprised!

Back to the pools for a final dip and then reluctantly left at closing. We ended up cabbing it back to the hotel (about $16) instead of waiting around for the hotel shuttle.

We thought the evening visit to the hot springs was a good call (again, thanks fodorites). It was a bit cooler at 5pm, but still light out for the first hour. And it was actually very pretty there once the sun set and the lights came on in the dark.

Another tip. We found it very convenient to book tours through the hotel. Not only are discounts often available, but we liked the convenience of having the costs simply added to our hotel bill all at once.

(Wow, this is getting pretty wordy. Still new at this. I will try to be more succinct in my next entries! Stay tuned...)

Welcome back bostonjenn! Sounds like a great trip so far. Aren't the Ticos the friendliest? I had an experience with a guide similar to your and Wilson's. To make a long story short, I dropped my debit card in the middle of a rainforest hike when putting in the dry bag, only to find it missing after dumping everything out of my bag. He got on his bicycle and rode down the road back to the trail entrance, while we had lunch, found my card and returned it to us at the soda. AND he refused to accept any more money for the extra time! What a sweetheart! Anwyay, glad you liked the zips. I didn't do Skytrek, but like you guys I though I was going to be just as high as the tree top, not waaaaaay over the canyones. Yikes! We loved Eco-Thermales too, in the evening. Returning this month and are getting closer to adding the dinner option. Yum!

Looking forward to the rest.

Welcome home, jenn; sounds like you've got the CR bug!

Good report, Jenn! Now that I have experienced CR I love to read other peoples trip reports. We just ran out of Monteverde Coffee that I brought back for my work...so me and Bea decided we need to make a quick trip back to stock up on some more!! LOL

Mosely - If you know what date you want to book Eco Termales, you can book it through Anywhere Costa Rica on line. They will send you a confirmation and vouchers to print out. That way, it's paid before you go which makes it more convenient. Here is the link:

http://www.anywherecostarica.com/arenal-costa-rica/tour/eco-termales.htm

Just go to the bottom and click on "booking."

We Loved Eco Termales!!!!!

Jenn, looking forward to the rest of your report!

Hi, maureen, is dinner automatically included in the Eco Termales booking? What time of day did you guys go? We did Tabacon last time, so we'd like to give ET a try.

Thanks for the tips on booking eco thermales. I think we will go ahead and book it early just to be safe.

Bostonjen-sounds like you guys had a great trip, I think we might follow in your foot steps and stay at the lost iguana.

anybody have any suggestions on whether we should spend extra time in Arenal and M.A. or is Monteverde worth the trek to get to it?

Arenal Day Two:

We decided to "wing it" on day two. Of course by my control-freak-obsessive standards, "winging it" means we booked our tours for Sunday only the night before based on what was available. In fact, in an effort to "go with the flow" on this trip, I'm proud to say that Eco was the only pre-reserved activity.

I did miss out on a couple of things that were booked, but in the end, we enjoyed going at our own pace based on how we felt each day.

HANGING BRIDGES. We awoke to a cloudy morning but over breakfast, the sun slowly appeared and gave us hope for another beautiful day. We bought tickets through our hotel and took their nifty "fantasy island" style cart to the entrance. (Yes, I am a child of the 80's) It's actually just a 20 min walk, but I recommend getting a ride if you can as there are very steep inclines going there.

We enjoyed trapsing through the hanging bridges alone - gave us the chance to go at our own pace and take goofy pictures. We did run into some monkeys and lizards, which was exciting. I'm sure we would have learned more with a tour, but this trip was as much about spending some quality time together so I'm glad we mixed it up. Still, it was every couple of minutes one of us would say, "wow...look at this!!" followed by a "wow...that's crazy!"

The bridges are much more dramatic and impressive than I had imagined! SUPER elevated, amazing views and pretty shaky going across. I loved the height and the shakiness. My husband...not so much. Still, we both had a lot of fun - and was glad to get some exercise walking around.

Tip: flip flops are probably since you are walking on a path of concrete blocks, but I was glad I was wearing my trail shoes.

We decided it would be convenient to stick around for lunch. And what do you know...the food at their little restaurant was actually VERY good! The menu is extensive and affordable and we had great views of the volcano. By then the clouds had cleared and we could see clear to the top of the volcano. We even saw billows of smoke pouring out of it. Took advantage of some great photo ops at the entrance area and on our walk back.

ATV TOUR. This was not something we had not planned to do, but after leaning that the horseback ride to Arenal Falls was booked, we decided to take an ATV there instead.

We lost track of time during our afternoon break on the balcony, and when we realized that we had 3 min. left before our pick-up, we called the front desk to give them a heads-up. They were kind enough to book it over to our room with their fun carts and zip us over to the reception where the ATV guy was waiting patiently.

It was then we learned that the tour doesn't actually go TO the falls, but only to an overlook with a VIEW of the falls. wah wah. But what can you do. We were looking for something active so maybe it would fit the bill anyway.

And was it ever! We actually didn't expect to be riding over very rough terrain and ACROSS a river on the ATV, so it was a nice surprise. It wasn't much of a tour. A young ATV dude basically led the pack - first to the overlook and then to Rio Arenal, where we spent some time. But it sure was fun. And we enjoyed driving through some of the back roads where we saw what looked like more typical Tico life.

Oh, I misspoke earlier. There was a second glitch (or near glitch, rather). The river was pretty and serene - so much so that began to wade in the water knee-deep snapping pictures. I then proceed to fall IN the river...WITH THE CAMERA! (no suprise, if you know me) Thankfully, we were able to salvage our camera (and more importantly our pictures) with a blow-dryer. phew!!!

Dinner was included and was back at the hotel where the tour operates out of. Not great, not terrible, but we enjoyed the company. A couple from LA and young Tico newlyweds.

One of the things we noticed was that there seems to be a comraderie or understanding among American and Canadian tourists that says, "Hi! Great to see you've discovered Costa Rica too!" Was I imagining things? We had such memorable encounters with other tourists...unlike some of our other trips to Europe. Just another aspect to what we loved about our trip!

BACK AT THE RANCH. After a very very dusty ride, we enjoyed the heated pool back at the hotel while sipping on a cold Imperial brew and debriefed. ("Remember when...") And wouldn't you know it. Just before we turned in, we saw a bit of lava flow from the volanco. A perfect conclusion to a perfect couple of days at Arenal!

(next up...MA!)

Volcanogirl - When you book your reservation at Eco Termales, you can book entrance only or with dinner. We booked the 5 pm to 9pm slot and were very happy with that. It was so pretty and peaceful at night with subdued lighting and mist over the pools. Check out that website I posted the link on and you can see what the price is for entrance only as opposed to entrance and dinner.

Thanks, maureen; I think 5-9 looks good, and I'd like to try the dinner too. I'll put it on the list!

jenn, we liked the food at the Hanging Bridges too; we were surpised it was so good because we expected it to me more like "snack bar" food. We had casados and batidos fruit shakes - very good. Looking forward to reading more.

Manuel Antonio: Days 3-5

I will try to wrap it up here and work on getting some pics up. We have some good shots of Eco that some of you might be interested in seeing. Also, Lost Iguana and Villas Nicolas in MA.

TO MA. We were picked up at 7:30am by Interbus (booked directly through their site) and shuttled door-to-door, which was convenient and stress-free. The 5 hour ride, with one 15 min rest stop, was just fine for us, but we happen to be used to long drives. Small world - we shared the van with a family of 4 from the Boston area! It was interesting as we're looking forward to a family of our own at some point and have always wondered what it was like to travel with young kids.

Boy, did we get a taste. After spending a bit of time packing all their gear in the van (including a car seat and booster seat they brought from home), we were off. Not 30 min later, the 2 y/o threw up so we had to pull over. Poor thing. And of course 4 hrs into our trip, the 4 y/o went into a tantrum. But all things considered, we really impressed with how they did...how the parents really took things in stride. We didn't really mind. Thought of it as a learning experience and decided we'd definitely travel with kids.

VILLAS NICOLAS AND AREA. The first thing we noticed was the HEAT! Much hotter than Arenal! Intially we thought our pasty New England skin would just singe right off, but after cooling off and getting on the spf 50, we were ok (shade was nice too).

Villas Nicolas is a group of privately-owned condos run as a hotel complete with reception, pool, bar, towel and maid services and breakfast (not included). Though it wasn't as refined as Lost Iguana, we really liked it! Our unit (3 down, type 3) had 2 comfortable double beds and a living room/kitchen area. It was probably more space than we needed, but it did have a great balcony with views and dining table for 6, hammock and rocking chair. Again, we LOVED kicking back on our balcony. We enjoyed the pool as well - very quiet and relaxing.

It's also in a great location - between Quepos and the beach (20 minute walk to beach, but easily accessible by bus), very close to Cafe Milagro (we loved this place), walking distance to the supermarket and Angels (delish $3 casadas) and next to Si Como No (with more extensive ammenities like full restaurant, shop and internet services).

MA NATIONAL PARK. One of the highlights of our trip! We decided on a guided tour and were SO glad we did. Our guide was Dago (booked through Villas Nicolas, $40, including snacks and entrance fee good for whole day). As far as we're concerned, he's the Bear Grylls of Costa Rica (for discovery channel watchers). He was GREAT! He came with a younger assistant named Giovanni (so sweet) and his handy binoculars and telescope. Aside from his enthusiam, wealth of information and obvious love for what he did, he had an ability to spot things we would never have noticed and hear things approaching. He even made the experience "fun" with all kinds of demonstrations. We saw and learned so much - sloth and her baby, a whole fleet of leaf-cutter ants in action, a mess of white-faced monkeys, all kinds of birds, etc.

Speaking of traveling with kids, we decided CR is a great destination grade school kids...and plan to do that some day. not only chock full of fun activities but extremely educational as well!

BEACHES. Our favorite beach (like may others) was Playa Manuel Antonio, aka beach #3, which is at the end of the trail in the park. It's only accessible through the park so we took advantage of our one day ticket and spent the afternoon after the tour on the beach. The spot on the far end has the calmest water, and though there were others sharing our favorite spot, it was extremely peaceful and relaxing. very picturesque. it reminded us of st john (water isn't as crystal clear). we loved it!

Tip: Hang your belonging on high branches! At one point, we spotted a pack of raccoons tearing into someone's backpack and took 2 guys with big 'ol bamboo stick to chase them away. So relentless! Of course, that only sent them to other bags lying along the beach. It was pretty comical.

The public beach is lovely as well. Bigger waves though and less private. We spent some time watching sufers navigate the waves. It's a great scene and we enjoyed a BEAUTIFUL sunset there.

CAFE MILAGRO AND EL PATIO. Cafe Milagro is run by two young Americans, which is perhaps why we felt so comfortable there - it has a familiar cafe feel. Great coffee, tasty sandwiches and YUMMY banana pancakes! El Patio is a restaurant by the same owners in Quepos and it was one of the best meals we had in Costa Rica! I guess you can call it fusion (though I'm not crazy about that term) - but it's more american style with familiar costa rican flavors. We had the grilled calamari, mahi mahi and pork loin dishes and they were all DELICIOUS. Oh, and we can't forget the chocolate flan and banana crepes! Highly recommended. A little pricier but you can get a 10% off coupon from Cafe Milagro.

Homeward:

As they say, all good things must come to an end. We spent our last day with breakfast at Cafe Milagro, strolling the MA strip, picking up last minutes gifts and soaking in the last bit of sun at the pool before heading back to chilly Boston.

Tip: the supermarket has a great selection of coffees if you plan to take some back for friends. The same exact products are hiked up 50% or more at souvenir shops. And as a last resort, the airport carries tons of coffee and Britt chocolates as well which make nice last minute gifts.

Our hotel called Sansa for us to arrange a pick-up and we got to the small airstrip with plenty of time to spare. We were a bit concerned about flying into San Jose at 1:50 with a 3:35 flight to Boston, but it all worked out perfectly (but perhaps we were fortunate.)

After the weigh-in (bags AND person; bags are limited to 26 lbs.), we had a prompt 1:20 take-off and 1:45 landing. 5 min walk across the street to SJO airport. After paying our departure tax ($26 person) and passing through security, we still had over 30 min to kill before boarding.

Tip: Apparently, they do not accept boarding passes printed online. We were confused but just checked in in person and it worked out fine.

We arrived in Boston to feel the chill in the air. All I could do the next day was shamelessly bemoan the cold and talk about how beautiful CR was - only to be told that Boston was in the middle of a "heatwave" (a 45 degree heatwave, that is).

Last thoughts:

> We really enjoyed meeting so many people on this trip and found that the tourists were as friendly as the locals. Just a little bit of effort and we had such wonderful encounters with people there.

> Next time: We are not huge wildlife/flora buffs, so we thought CR might be a bit wasted on us. For that reason we skipped the highly praise Cano Negro and Mangrove tours. But after spending a few days, and enjoying the MA Park tour so much, we will definitely do more of that the next time around. Always more to learn!

> I'm sure we would all like to do everything on our trips, but my advice is to decide on a couple of MUST-DO's, book those in advance and play the rest of it by ear. There are always good options available. I'm pretty sure if I planned every minute, we would have done too much and missed out on our moments of much needed tranquility.

> Now that we are bit more familiar, we will probably be more adventurous and drive around to different areas next time. But for our first visit, the driver, bus and sansa connections worked well. There were times we felt a bit stifled (we enjoy our freedom and mobility), but again, I think it not having a car also forced us to just kick back and relax - which is always good.

> We should have brought back some more coffee with us!

> Turns out I CAN survive 6 days w/o incessant internet. Good to know!

Thanks for reading! Will post pics soon.

Great trip jenn! I only have a quick minute, but approx how long do you need for the hanging bridges in Arenal?

Also, at MA beaches, did you take your camera and stuff? I assume my daughter and I will both want to swim at the same time, so that's a problem. I thought about digging a hole and burying our stuff...ha-ha! Then I imagined losing our marker and having to dig around all day to find our stuff!

Also, El Patio is on our list as well. I printed out the menu a month ago from the website!

More later...glad you had a great time!

hipvirgochick -

I think we spent about 2-2.5 hours strolling through the hanging bridges. We took our time, stopped for pictures and went at a pretty easy pace. We noticed that the tour group we saw at the start was way behind, so I would imagine a tour would last 3 hrs or so (but I'm speculating).

Regarding the beach, we felt the same concern the first day - especially at the public beach. We are NYers after all and have learned to live with the assumption that theft is looming. But we left our things near a group of sufers and it turned out to be fine. I imagine you will draw MORE attention if you dig a hole!! If you're REALLY concerned, I suppose you can just take a disposable camera to the beach and leave it with your towels and flip flops.

At the private beach, however, we felt perfectly safe. We parked ourselves at the far end and hung our bags on branches (which you'll see is common there). The coast is pretty short (shallow?) so you're never really too far from your things even when you're in the water. And if there are others around, they are likely other tourists.

Believe it or not, this is just a small sampling of our photos. Hope they're helpful!

http://picasaweb.google.com/bosjenn/CostaRica2008

Jenn, I loved your pictures; they are really beautiful. I'm surprised Eco Termales looks so posh; I guess I've never seen pictures of it that show waterfalls, and now I'm excited to check it out. Thanks for sharing them.

hip, we always take a waterproof disposable camera with us to the beach, so we don't have to keep an eye on it.

Ok..now I want to go back to CR. Thanks for a nice trip report!

bostonjenn: Did you book EcoThermales through your hotel prior to your arrival or directly on the internet? We are thinking of doing the volcano hike when we arrive along with EcoThermales and dinner. Don't know if we should book through Sunset directly or the hotel prior to our arrival.

We booked Eco through our hotel about 2 weeks prior to our arrival. Just sent a short email asking for 5-9pm reservations on the date we wanted.

I do know, however, that some tours offer packages. I see that there is a volcano hike/hot springs/dinner package at anywherecostarica.com: http://www.anywherecostarica.com/arenal-costa-rica/tour/arenal-volcano-hike-eco-thermales-hot-springs.htm Perhaps you can compare prices, see what's included and see if the times work for you to determine the best deal for you. Enjoy it!!