Miguel dropped us at the bus stop in Katira, a town on main road towards La Fortuna in the Rio Celeste region. We didn’t have to wait long until a direct bus turned up, and(!) we got seats this time! 🥳
The bus was big and comfortable, meaning we could really relax and enjoy the views, which were stunning, and as we approached La Fortuna, we could see Arenal Volcano looming over the town.
La Fortuna is probably the most touristy town of Costa Rica, and it’s basically on everyone’s itinerary. It’s easy to access, has lots of accommodation options, and is known as the “adventure capital” of Costa Rica, with tonnes of ziplining, ATVing, volcano hiking, canopy walks, sloth viewing centres and thanks to the volcano, lots of hot springs.
We thought it might be too touristy for us, so we planned to stay just 2 nights and use it as a way to travel to Monteverde – the cloud forest region. Since the bus from Bijagua/Katira to Monteverde, well, it doesn’t exist. We would have needed 3-4 buses. But it was just one direct bus to La Fortuna, then we could get a $25 shuttle/boat combo to Monteverde over Lake Arenal, which looked really cool.
So we ended up here for a few nights. To ease the pain of a mega touristy spot, I booked a really nice hotel, it was out on the outskirts of town, and had epic views of the volcano, plus lush gardens full of birds, lizards and frogs! We loved it here! There was even a pool table and a swimming pool! It was still only £40 a night! £20 a night each, with breakfast included!
We arrived super early, at like 11am, but they let us check in straight away, so after a few big days of lots of walking, we finally had a chill day, and just relaxed in the hotel, watching the birds, playing pool, and having a dip in the swimming pool. In the evening, the gardens came alive with frogs and we saw SO MANY blue jeans poison dart frogs, plus a couple of red-eyed tree frogs too. We didn’t need to pay to go on a night walk, they were all here already! So cool!
On our full day in La Fortuna, we again tried to escape the crowds, and went to the Ecological Park Arenal, which is a private reserve and hiking area up the slopes of arenal Volcano, but apparently much quieter than the national park, which can get incredibly busy.
We got an Uber from the hotel, and then walked up a trail to a viewpoint of the volcano. We saw so many different hummingbirds here, included 2 new ones for me – the white-necked Jacobin and the violet-headed hummingbird, but there must have been 6 different species here, they were everywhere! Dave also saw a big gang of toucans (whilst I was in the loo at the visitors centre! 😭), and we saw crested guans in the trees too.
The walk was nice and yes, it was so quiet, it was lovely, we only saw one other couple on the trails the whole day… Apart from at the view point at the top, where lots of people came up to on ATV tours via a different path. But it wasn’t too bad… We had all the walking trails to ourselves at least!
We went back down via different paths, and on the way back down, we saw the toucans again! This time I was lucky enough to see them too! They followed us in the trees, and we managed one blurry snap! Haha. As Dave says, behind every epic photo we have of wildlife, there’s 10 blurry ones! Haha And usually it’s me who can get the fast shots with my phone, but I forgot it today and accidentally left it at the hotel 😭
Before heading back to the hotel, we continued along the road away from town about another 1km to a free hot spring site. It’s actually a hot river flowing, and was really cool actually. I got in for a bit, but Dave realised he’d forgotten to pack his swim shorts 😞 but he didn’t miss out too much, as about 20 minutes after we arrived, a huge downpour started. We got back to the road and called an Uber.
We chilled in the room again, and then in the evening we did another DIY/hotel night tour, again seeing loads of little red frogs!
We really liked it here, and although it was mega touristy, we were able to escape the crowds and have an amazing time! We saw so many birds, especially hummingbirds and the hot springs were so cool. Perhaps it would have been nicer to stay longer…
Travel Alchemist 
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