After our stay in the land of expats – Arenal – it was time to jump right back into a major tourist destination with La Fortuna, or just Fortuna, as it is pretty much always called, much like Nuevo Arenal is almost exclusively called Arenal. I was corrected for calling both Arenal and Fortuna by their full names, so Costa Ricans (or Ticos for short) seem to take not saying more words then is strictly necessary fairly seriously. There’s probably a good lesson for me there, I’m at a hundred words and I haven’t even told you much about the town yet. Alright, back on track.
Anyways, the most obvious feature of Fortuna is Arenal Volcano, usually half covered in clouds, which juts into the sky just a few miles outside town. Until relatively recently (2010, I believe) there were almost nightly displays of lava flowing down the sides of the volcano, which is really what built Fortuna up as a tourist destination. Since the flow suddenly stopped, tourism has taken a bit of a hit, and the town has a bit of a “not at capacity” feeling, but there is still plenty of natural beauty, thermal hot-springs, and adventure activities to keep folks coming.
I got a chance to have a little preview of Fortuna for an afternoon even before moving out of Arenal. A former coworker of mine was vacationing in Costa Rica, and I took the bus over to meet up with him while he was staying in Fortuna. With a couple of nice folks he met at his hostel, we went for a walk around Arenal National Park and then hung out at the natural hot springs. The park offered a few great views of the volcano and wild life (including my first, but not last, sighting of monkeys). Here’s a shot of me taken in front of the volcano:
The hot springs were basically thermal vents feeding into a river, which is pretty awesome, I must say. Warm (but not really hot water) flowing over you is a pretty great way to relax.
It was only a couple of days later that Elani and I headed over to Fortuna from Arenal (the town, to be clear) for our two week stay here. We got a nice little place through AirBnB that was a few blocks outside of the main downtown, which has a nice little park and church at its center. As with most places in town there was a pretty great view of the volcano to be had there – when the clouds weren’t in the way:
Taken by Geoff
The town itself wasn’t particularly large, but here there were plenty of decent places to eat, including an honest to goodness sushi joint, which was a nice change of pace. Not the best sushi I’ve ever eaten, but perfectly edible and they certainly didn’t skip on the portions:
Taken by Elani
After a few quiet days of chilling out and eating too much sushi it was time to get out and take in what Fortuna has to offer, starting with meeting a new fat little flower-eating friend.
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