The drive from La Fortuna to Puerto Viejo takes approx 5 hours, so we were picked up by the Interbus bright & early to set out on the road. Since all of the roads are two-lanes and not very good for passing, when a semi drove across our lane and landed in the ditch, it added an extra two hours onto our drive. The joys of the road!
More swimming, cartwheels, pina coladas, sunsets. Great place!
After another fantastic breakfast at Hotel Arenal Manoa, we took a cab over to check out the La Fortuna waterfall (approx $15 each way). Apparently I was too excited to read anything about this hike and just jumped straight to the photos, because I didn’t know about the major stairmaster workout ahead of us.
We arranged for a tour over to the Hanging Bridges in the afternoon & two other couples from our hotel went along with us… we had all been at the pool together all morning so we were fast friends!
We woke up with the sun at 5:30am and promptly jumped out of bed to take thousands of photos of Arenal in all of its morning glory. Waking up with a view of a volcano is pretty surreal, especially with such a crazy hellacious day of travel trying to get there. Where am I?!
The only thing I could have wished for on this flight that it was going to South Africa – flying with a bed is the way to travel! I was headed to London to watch a Chelsea vs. Arsenal game and spend a little free time in the city, so I got in touch with a couple people who knew some people and next thing I knew I was checking into the first class cabin on my way to LHR. The food was nice, the drinks were better, but the bed was best!
Next time you’re in Mammoth Lakes, head about 10 miles south of town to Benton Crossing Road, where you can find more hot springs than you’ll know what to do with! Our best bet for finding relatively empty pools was…
One of the most exhilarating experiences I’ve had to date: shark diving!
I woke up in Hermanus before dawn and drove the long, dark stretch of road over to Kleinbaai to meet up with the White Shark Projects team for a morning dive. Even the drive there seemed a little eerie, with bicyclists and people on foot popping up out of the darkness on the side of the road, making the drive pretty harrowing. I was lost in thought imagining all sorts of scary shark scenarios and they were forcing me to pay attention to the road! Thanks for keeping me present, roadside people.
