Tortuguero to Arenal

Today was mostly another travelling day. As has been the standard at Pachira Lodge, the day started with an early morning rainstorm and more of the ‘werewolf’ howls from the Howler Monkeys. Our boat was leaving at 9, so we had to drop our luggage into the luggage boat at 8:30. There is pretty much a convoy of boats that head back to the docking area, where they’ll pick up their next lot of people to take back to the lodge. There were so many boats all arriving at once, it does appear a bit chaotic, but somehow it all seems to work.

Once off the boat, we got on a bus back to the central place where all the buses feed their passengers and distribute everyone on their onward journeys. This was a relief, because we did get to separate ourselves from some of the more irritating people from the last couple of days. At the lodge, we had shared our eating table with a couple of women who didn’t talk a lot, but had gradually warmed to us over the time. It turned out they were from Israel and they were two of the few people in the group who spoke english reasonably well. Once we got talking we realised that they were on the same itinerary as us, so they were on our bus to Arenal. As you drive toward Arenal you get some great views of the volcano which are constantly changing as the clouds swirl around it.

We are staying at the Arenal Springs Resort, which was dubiously made famous by the American series of The Bachelor. It is an impressive property and we can see the volcano from our front door. The volcano itself has been dormant since 2010, but did have a series of small eruptions / events in the 1980s and 1990s. The last major eruption was in 1968.

Once settled in we had a wander around, seeking out the various wildlife. There are reputedly a permanent population of Toucans here, but we didn’t see them. We did see some Hummingbirds (impossible to photograph) though. We opted for drinks as the weather closed in and later had a nice dinner at one of the many restaurants on-site.