Our First Weekend

Friday afternoon we traveled to Arenal and checked into the Rossi 1/2 star hotel. All enjoyed the hot springs and dinner at Baldi. The hot springs are heated by the Arenal Volcano which is continuously active. Some students braved the extremely hot water in one of the spas' pools.










Saturday started by visiting one of the hydro-electric facilities that feeds the power grid for Costa Rica. Most of the electricity is generated using water power. We first inspected the man-made dam and then the machine house approximately 2 Km away. Water is dropped over several hundred feet over the distance to created more energy to turn the turbines. Students were able to see the turbines actually running during our visit.


Most of the students rode horseback down to the La Fortuna waterfall. 165 steps down into the gorge presented a great opportunity to experience nature close up. The problem was walking back up the steps.












As stated, Arenal Volcano is active. One of the recent eruptions left one side of the Volcano riddled with lava rock. The Arenal National Park was set up to preserve the site.

Sunday, we crossed Arenal Lake by boat and made our way to the Monteverde National Park which is a cloud forest. The roads are terrible to put it mildly. We checked into La Casona de Monteverde at the entrance to the park in anticipation of doing zip lines through the forest after lunch and of our night walk in the Monteverde National Park that night as well as the next morning. Weather (rain) made it uncomfortable for all.

After Monday morning's (6:00 am) walk we left Monteverde to return to San Jose.