Hi all and thanks again for all of the wonderful advice!!!! We had such a great time in LaFortuna and Arenal. Hubby and I came to celebrate a belated 25th anniversary. We are ready to come back with our kids, 20, 23, 24. We flew in on Sunday lunchtime and had no problem with customs. Figuring out the airport, well.... We got our luggage and found Carlos Bogarin, our driver with no problem. We had a nice trip out to the Lost Iguana and got settled in. There was a downed tree outside La Fortuna that was there the entire time we were. I cannot imagine a big tree taking up half of the road staying there for days here in the US. Thanks volcanogirl, we had a low number room upstairs with a hottub. The hottub didn't work well and a couple days later we switched to another room, but everyone was so accommodating to us. We met new people at the bar and had delicious dinner in our room, tilapia and fettucine. We had rain and lots of clouds, so I wasn't really sure there was a volcano outside of the room!!
Monday morning we had typical breakfast, yummy, and did the Hanging Bridges. Wow, our group only had 4 people and the guide was soooo knowledgeable. We saw eyelash vipers, red blue jean frogs, white-faced carpucin monkeys, spider monkeys, macaws, leaf-cutter ants, and heard the howler monkeys. Volcano girl, we got a great picture of the red blue jean frog. Did you know that leaf-cutter ants are after the fungus on the leaves? The walking trees and flora, fauna, waterfalls, rivers and hanging bridges were spectacular. It was so great breathing in perfectly clean air and smelling the earthy smell. We went back and explored the grounds of the Lost Iguana. We decided that since it was good weather, we would go to La Fortuna and hopped on the employee van and went into town. We ate typical food at NeNe's, very affordable. It was the first day of school for the kids, and there was a class of kids and their teachers there. Even though we did not understand them, good fun and children are a universal language. We saw a pair of coatis in the middle of the road Monday night. More later.......

Wow, holly, welcome back! I can't believe you had such great wildlife sightings at the Hanging Bridges - sounds like you had a great guide! I'm glad you guys liked the Lost Iguana. How was the food at Nene's? We've never made it there.

Nene's was off the beaten path and it was good and plentiful, not necessarily great when I look back at other food we had elsewhere, but definitely an open air local restaurant. We never made it back into town to try Don Rufino's, maybe next trip. Do you know how to post pictures?

You have to use one of those outside sources to post pictures here - smugmug, picassa, kodak gallery are some I've seen people use.

Looing forward to the rest. Hope you got to see Arenal.

If you are not familiar with picasa, it is a very easy, free way to store, edit and share your photos. Google picasa and download the free program, then within that you can create a web album that can be designated as public or private.(you can change the settings at any time)Once you have your web album you can copy and paste the URL and place it your post. Hope this helps!

thanks artie, the pics are up on the following website. More blog to come.
http://picasaweb.google.com/hollyb57...K_l-5PIlqzpeA#

artie, I didn't know picasa was free - that's awesome.

Wow, holly; your pictures are beautiful. I can't believe you got such a clear view of Arenal!

Great pics, love the howler monkey close-up. Funny but I've been seen that blond howler monkey is various pics over the past several months, must be the same one. Looking forward to the rest of the trip.

vg yes picasa is not only free but extremely easy and quick to use. I switched over this year to it from kodakgallery and am very happy with it.

Yes, that was the easiest upload ever. Back to CR. The weather was predicted to be sunny on Mon and Tues, rainy Wed and Thurs, so we packed in as much as we could on those days. Tuesday was Sky Tram/Trek morning. I was having a mild panic attack as everything I had read said that you have to stop yourself on these ziplines and canopy tours. I am not very strong and really was scared that I would end up in the middle of a line stuck. Well I am here to say that at SkyTrek, they have a pulley system for stopping, and there is no problem at all. I wish I had asked that before I went. Well, being the weenie that I am, I had a tandem ride with the guide at first. Everyone in the group was very supportive of my fear, and I am so proud of myself for doing it. My hubby asked if I had fun, but at the time, it was mostly facing up to my fear. Looking back on it, I would say yes, it was fun, especially the 1/2 mile zip (45 seconds, I was counting). I would do it again on this zip line!!! and that says alot!!! We stopped and watched a family of howler monkeys along the pot-hole road on the way out. They are fabulous!!

The volcano was starting to clear Tuesday morning, so we decided it would be better to hike the National Park in the clear and dry day than on Thurs. in the rain, so we arranged a guide for the afternoon. Of course it clouded up and threatened rain when we got back from the zipline. It cleared up a bit and never really rained. Back down the pot-hole road, and to the volcano. We had a great guide, and we were the only ones in the group (private tour, very nice). We got to see our first Oro pendulus birds, I love their song and their gold tail feathers! We took the longer trail, and it was great. We heard the volcano, it was being quite active. I read that you hear the volcano often, but honestly, we never really heard it much at Lost Iguana. We saw lots of birds, grasshopper-like gigantic bugs, and I spotted a group of bats. Some other people we met at the hotel went the next day with the same guide, and he pointed out the bats where I found them....maybe I need to get paid royalties, lol. Anyway, when we got to the viewing site, the volcano was not as active, but still awesome in the truest sense of the word. We sat and watched it for a long time and then took the short trail out and back to LI. Enjoyed a quiet evening. Cano Negro tomorrow.

http://picasaweb.google.com/hollyb5757/CR2#

next set of pictures, including the brave, white-faced mommy zipline monkey

Wow, that albino howler was just a baby when we saw him. Glad you liked Sky Trek!