Travelling Through Costa Rica

Seared by the Tuna

Yesterday Karen woke up with a dodgy stomach. We think it was the seared tuna from the night before. So we stayed at the hotel and had a lazy day sitting by the pool so I've been able to have a swim. It's a really nice location so no hardship

Local Food, for everyone

Karen was feeling a bit better later so we went out for tea. The night before we'd been to Sol De Caribe which was really busy, with people sitting in and having takeaways, my food was okay, Karen's less so and the service a bit rubbish. So tonight we went to one next door much quieter but still well rated on TripAdvisor. It was called El Chante De Moncho and seemed more aimed at locals and tourists. The food was excellent and really attentive service, not sure why it wasn't as popular as the other place.

On the road to Arenal

Today was a travelling day, we caught the bus at 9.30am, quite sad to be leaving the hotel. The scenery is great gradually going into the volcanic and rain forest area near Arenal. But by 4pm when we arrived at our new hotel we were tired.

Hot springs, Hot steak

This hotel is another with bungalows but on a much bigger scale than the last one. We've got a lovely view of Arenal volcano (well, we would have if it didn't have a big cloud covering it). Hopefully we will see the view during the 3 nights we are here.

A nice but really cold swimming pool but they also have hot spring pools which were amazing set in the trees it felt really luxurious. Amusingly our bungalow is a standard with various other levels but the signs to ours all show standard and I'm pretty sure our wrist bands are colour coded as well to ensure we don't get above ourselves. In the better bungalows you get a full length bathrobe and a group of people all came to the pool area wearing theirs. It was like a scene from the Handmaid's Tale.

Tea tonight was really nice I had steak, where they finished the cooking at the table on a piece of lava and burning brandy, very impressive.

It seems the loud night time birds from our last hotel are here as well. Despite the pouring rain the last 2 nights we could still hear them, will be interesting to see how loud they are without the rain hitting the roof. I'm not complaining the sounds add to the location.