Berrios Blessings: La Catarata de La Fortuna

Saturday, November 17

Although there is plenty to do in La Fortuna, it is better when the weather is nice. Saturday was a pretty dreary day weather wise, but we didn’t let that stop us from having fun. When we woke up, we didn’t have much of a plan for what to do. We asked about various tours and settled on a hike to La Catarata de La Fortuna (or waterfall). The hike to the waterfall is described as a “20 minute walk down to the waterfall.” Unfortunately, the hike was pretty difficult for my parents. It probably took us 40 minutes and my mom stopped half-way down because she was concerned about the climb back up. The steps were irregular and steep, so I was proud of her for making it as far as she did.

Dad had trouble too because of his eye surgery and problems with depth perception right now. Being the independent man that he is, he successfully made it to the waterfall and back without incident. Praise the Lord for continued safety.

Once we arrived at the bottom, we all wished for our bathing suits or at least a change of clothes. Rysen and Jennea didn’t let that stop them from swimming in their cloths. And since I had to change Jaden’s diaper anyway, we let him take a dip too.

This family improvises in the wild!

The pictures do not capture the beauty of the falls, but that is the best we can do. After many photo ops and thoroughly exploring the base of the falls, we hiked back up to where Mom was sitting and resting and climbed back up to wait for the taxi. Amanda and Rysen felt like working out their arms while we waited, and Jaden joined them for a mini exercise class.

Some other key attractions of the town of La Fortuna are Lake Arenal, Tabacón Resort, Tabacón River, horseback riding, 4-wheeling, canyoning, zip-linning, floating down the river, and several other tours. Since we had a rental car (that we don’t all fit in) My parents and Eddie and I took a drive to visit Lake Arenal, Tabacón Resort, and the Tabacón River. We started with a stop at Tabacón Resort where they didn’t let us enter with out paying, but we spent some time in the gift shop. The woman there told us about a spot on the Tabacón River where the locals go to swim. Eddie and I made our way down under the bridge and wished we had our swimsuits once again. The river was warm like the hot springs, and there were a ton of people just hanging out. The problem was, it was around 5:00 and it was starting to get dark, so we didn’t have time to go back to the hotel to get the others and their suits. We will just have to come back to visit with the next visitors we have here in Costa Rica.

Tabacón River: local hot springs.

Lake Arenal

We headed back and walke to a restaurant for dinner. Just before they brought our food out, the lights went dim… we quickly realized why. They brought out our food but the plates were on fire… Obviously for presentation. It was pretty awesome looking.

After dinner we walked around La Fortuna again and of course stopped at Pops for dessert. We also spent some time browsing the stores and did some souvenir shopping. We had an enjoyable weekend at La Fortuna and we highly recommend the trip to everyone who is interested!!!

Sunday, November 18

Our day consisted of a day of travel for everyone:

Destination: Home

For Mom and Dad, Home = Indiana (via rental car and 2 airplanes) = 17 hours of travel time (turned in to over 24 hours because their late flight out of San Jose resulted in missing their flight in Miami to Chicago, so they had to sleep one night in Miami).

For Eddie, Deanna, and Jaden: Home = Tuis (via rental car, taxi, two buses, and Freddy) = 8 ½ hours of travel time

For Rysen, Jennea, and Amanda: Home = La Selva and Tuis (via 3 buses and 2 taxies) = 9 hours of travel time

Again, we praise God for his protection because all of our travel plans went by safely and we all arrived home in one piece… tired but happy!

Here are some pictures of the view while we were driving home: