White Water on the Sarapiqui and Viewing the Arenal Volcano—August 21-24, 2022

                            Rafting on the Sarapiqui River

After disembarking from the boat, our minibus came across a family of little animals that look like raccoons.

It was a pleasant ride toward La Fortuna as the Arenal Volcano continued to be shrouded in clouds near the top.

After getting our rooms at the Sierra Hotel, many of us walked down to hear the tour options.  

I picked the level III— IV rafting tour that would take us to our final Intrepid hotel for our farewell dinner with the group of 16 and our guide, Dennis. As the sunset, we got some amazing views of Arenal Volcano.

Many of us had dinner at Dennis’s ’ favorite spot—Nanku— where I enjoyed an eggplant dinner and Kate had a flaming skirt steak.

While four went on the canyon trip with abseiling down waterfalls, rappelling, and jumping down 40 feet to pools, I enjoyed a leisurely breakfast with Joe and then later got a $30 relaxing massage.  

On August 23rd, six of us left for our white water rapids experience for just under $ 100 USD which included transportation in a private minibus, the rafting with a guide, equipment, and lunch. 

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Joe loaned me these Crocs for my rafting adventure so he symbolically joined us rafting the Sarapiqui River.  After the rafting, Lily pointed out to me that the liability waiver we signed had an upper age limit of 65–that must mean I looked to be 65 and not 78.

After lunch, the Desafio Adventure Company drove the six of us over the mountains to San Jose in this private minibus to our final hotel, the Bergerac, during a big rain and thunderstorm.

We then rejoined our group for a farewell dinner in San Jose, Costa Rica to celebrate our journey and those we had met along the way.

I marveled at the 15 fellow travelers who had such different backgrounds, experiences, and hobbies such as teachers, EMT/ Ski Patrol, a woman tank operator who served in Afghanistan, an Ordnance disposal expert who served in Haiti and Europe, a civil engineer, nurses, a pole dancer, a woman boxing instructor, a retail sales manager, an industrial fabrics engineer, a city planner, a carpenter who owned a company that built retail spaces for high-end companies like Tiffany’s, recent university economics and accounting graduate, and me, a retired Human Resources manager.

Finally, our guide, Dennis, was amazing as he navigated us through the many borders that were very challenging as well as took care of some personal health issues some had.  His recommended options at various stops proved to be very enjoyable and exciting—almost too exciting with the Tarzan swing experience.

These travelers came from the UK, USA, Canada, Australia, Sweden, and Italy, and represented a wide age range from 21 to 78.  There were eight women. Several travelers had traveled from 40 to 60 countries, and one woman, just 23 years old, had traveled to 91 countries including Yemen.

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Zip Lines and Tarzan Super Swing in Monteverde—August 19-21, 2022

Our four well-worn taxis drove us from the Rivas ferry landing to the Nicaragua/Costa Rica border.  Although we had collected the $3 per person Nicaragua border exit fee, we had to pony up another $1 USD—a recent change.  My advice to future travelers would be to carry at least $20 USD in one-dollar bills plus another $100 in $10s.  These borders only collect USD and not the local currency.  This crossing took us just over an hour.

We walked about a half hour through the border area to our waiting minibus.

The roads were mostly now paved, but it was still a very windy bumpy road as we drove through some downpours when we arrived in Monteverde after dark at our Historicas Lodge.

Our room was very spacious with wood paneling throughout.

We had a good dinner at a nearby restaurant and then signed up for some exciting events in and around Monteverde.  I signed up for the Zipline and super swing adventure trip the following morning, and the day after that I signed up for the suspension Bridge walk.

When we arrived at Adventuras Park, we paid our US$50 fee, and then we were kitted up with lots of harnesses, pulleys, straps, thick leather gloves, and helmets.

They offered a video of each of the events that I chose not to see and most likely if I had I wouldn’t have done the Tarzan swing.

One of the guides demonstrated the proper way to control speed on the zip lines before we went on our first of 9 Zipline adventures.

For the last two of the zip lines, we were in the Superman position laying face down so they had to change around our harnesses before we did those two zip lines which were very long.

After that, it was on to the Tarzan swing. I had thought that this swing would be a bench I sat on and I would just swing out way far and come back.

I learned the true meaning of the Tarzan swing when I came to the gate there was no bench to sit on and instead I was instructed to grab both hands above the carabiner. The guy then open the gate and told me to walk out into the air. Yikes— this was more like a bungee jump than a swing.  I think I free-fell about 50 feet before I began to swing.  I did about five big swings before one of the guides started pulling me down to the ground. My heart was really pounding after that experience and convinced me never to do a bungee jump.

Those of us who did this whole zip line and super swing was really pumped by the experience.

After we returned to the hotel I got lunch at a nearby bakery and restaurant and prepared for my suspension bridge hike which would take me over eight suspension bridges looking down and walking through the canopy of the cloud forest.

This cloud forest was amazing with thick trees and plants with many of plants growing on the entire bark of the trees.  It was about a 4 km walk through the cloud forest foliage.

Just before we left there was a big downpour and thunderstorm.

We must’ve taken a shortcut that took us down some very steep windy dirt roads to get to the small ferry boat that we boarded that would take us to La Fortuna.

I have recently uploaded all of my travel videos to YouTube now that they allow longer uploads and you may want to see my travel adventures there as well as my other travel videos.  That link is https://www.youtube.com/c/huntforgold

If you do go there, please subscribe to my video channel since it will help me eventually get some income there and help with my future travels. Fewer people are using DVDs so I am transitioning to streaming my travels on my YouTube channel.