Thursday 19 November 1998
We bounced along in minivan to Arenal, driven by Jesus.
At 3+pm, we arrived at our room at Tabacon Lodge, with a phat view of Volcano Arenal.
This was a long ass drive and I'm glad we went in a personal taxi instead of the bus, which would have taken longer. Jesus was great and very patient with our poor espanol (actually Kathryn did quite well), and stopped at a couple of cool places along the way. First was at a little bar near a place that sold leather furniture.
Without us stopping, I took a pic of coffee growing on a hill.
The ride was frightening at times, since often the roads had no lines painted on them, and even if there were lines, they were often ignored, as were the stop signs. Then there were times when there was not room for two cars at once. We had to wait for traffic before we could cross this bridge.
We also stopped along the way in a small town with a beautifully manicured park. Jesus took our picture there.
In the nicely manicured park was a model or something that I thought was pretty cool.
In a store in this town, this is kinda gross, but there was no plumbing from the urinal to the hole in the corner of the wall. I was wizzin' and thought, "what's that spattering sound?" It was just draining right on the floor.
In the street of this town was evidence of deforestation.
As we got closer to the volcano, we stopped and took some pics
We almost ended our trip in La Fortuna, which was near the volcano, but not near the apparently amazing spas of Tabacon. While we stopped in La Fortuna to inquire about our location, I was intrigued by some skate mags, and a magazine that looked very interesting.
Jesus was patient and drove us from La Fortuna closer to Tabacon. We were wishy washy about where to stay and he drove us back and forth the mile or two between a couple hotels. We finally decided that if we were here to see Tabacon, we might as well stay in its hotel (and not have to bum a ride.)
Tabacon is SO INCREDIBLE!!! The amazing spa is included in the price of $110 per night.
We're now going to walk to go see the spas. They're about 100 meters down the street.
