Our next base camp was the town of La Fortuna which is close to the Arenal Volcano. We got to explore a few things in the area, but the best part was that we got to do it with my sister and her family who joined us over US Thanksgiving for a few days.
Chocolate Tour
On our way from the tree house to La Fortuna, we stopped for an English chocolate tour at a cocoa farm.
Our guide was very good and we learned about the different varieties of cocoa but also learned that in that area at least, most farmers have had an increased problem with squirrels and they are losing about 60% of the cocoa fruit each year to pests, squirrels being the worst. The squirrels wait until the fruit is ready and then chew a hole in the shell to pull out the seeds and our guide said it is a race each harvest to get the ripe fruit before the squirrels do.
Marika used a traditional stone axe/hammer to crack open one of the cocoa pods to show the white fruit inside of one of the many different varieties of cocoa. Each white piece of fruit contains a cocoa seed from which you get the cocoa powder and each pod contains 30 to 40 seeds.
The fruit with the seeds is then put into a bin and covered in banana leaves to ferment. This causes the fruit to rot off and some of the juices to soak into the seeds. The seeds are then dried in a green house or in a gas fired dryer. The end result is almost like a large coffee bean.
The cocoa beans are then roasted and ground, which we got to do the old fashion way, first a rough hand ground on a stone and then a finer grind using a grinder driven by a bike. From this he used our rough ground cocoa like coffee grounds and added hot water and brown sugar to make the “Drink of the gods”. In indigenous culture this chocolate drink was allowed to ferment and didn’t include the sugar and he said it wasn’t that good. Ours was not normal hot chocolate as it was made with the rough beans so there was a bit of the beans in there to chew on, but it was closer to hot chocolate then it was to anything else.
We also got to make our own chocolate candies using more refined chocolate. We got to add the flavouring we wanted: sea salt, black pepper, cinnamon, red pepper flakes, turmeric, coconut, peanuts or coffee beans. We each got to make 4 pieces so we could experiment a bit. The chocolate was very good!
La Fortuna
We spent the rest of the day and part of the next in La Fortuna getting caught up on school. Our hotel gave us a great view of the Arenal Volcano and was a great backdrop while doing school work.
They arrive! Just in time for dinner.
Cousin time and game time!
Arenal Volcano National Park
It was muddy in various spots, but still a nice hike up to see the volcano. We were pleased that the rain held off and the clouds cleared enough for us to get a pretty good view. This is technically still an active volcano and on a clear day, there is still a small venting of steam that can be seen.
Our Thanksgiving Day lunch of cinnamon bread from a local bakery, instead of turkey with all the trimmings!
This pair of birds was on our trail and were the first of many different animals we saw during our excursions in Costa Rica. We found out later that these are called Great Curassow.
We also were warned by a German tourist of a dangerous snake in the bush along the trail. We couldn’t see it until he pointed it out and it was really small. We found out later that it was a type of viper and with regards to the danger level, you need to get the anti-venom within 6 hours or else it might not go so well for you.
La Fortuna Waterfall
In the afternoon we headed off to the La Fortuna waterfalls. Unfortunately, due to the high water level due to rain, the falls were running too hard to allow swimming in the pool created by the waterfall. In a country where everything has an entrance fee, and the foreigner version is pretty expensive, we were a little bummed we couldn’t do the swimming part but still decided to pay to get in.
It was 500 steps down to the waterfall, which of course meant it was 500 to get back up.
They weren’t kidding, it really was coming down pretty hard.
A little further downstream we could get into the water to cool off a bit.
They had a lovely flower garden at the park entrance to the falls.
Mistico Hanging Bridges
It was a wonderful gift to us that my sister researched and booked most of our excursions. On a trip where we have to do so much planning, it was a blessing to just go along for the planning ride! This excursion was as good as the last two, and our guide was excellent! We saw so much more wildlife with him along. The rain cloud forests are so rich in life it is almost mind boggling.
Our guide had a telescope that he would setup for us to better view things and sometimes it was easier to just take a picture through the scope. The bird on the left is a motmot and the mass on the right is a wasp nest. Without the scope all the white bits looked like larva but actually they are the bodies of the wasps which you couldn’t really see until you saw them through the scope and they moved.
There was some pretty amazing flora as well.
A rare sighting: a clear view of the volcano!
Tabacon Hot Springs
Our last excursion in the La Fortuna area was the Tabacon Hot Springs. This facility was fancier than our tree house location and included an amazing lunch. However, the source was from a river that was warm, but not hot, so it didn’t have the hotter pools or the variety in temperatures. However, they were still quite warm and we had a nice relaxing time there, even with it raining for part of it.
