You don’t get much sleep on these trips!!

Off to the bakery at 7am again – this time I tried a chocolate ‘croissant’. Not really a croissant, more just bread in a croissant shape. But it was good.

We left in a private van at 8am. Sad to leave the cloud forests of Monteverde behind. I really like it here.

It took 2 hours to drive to Arenal lake. The drive was beautiful. It was a lovely sunny day – bright blue sky. Bright green forest. Amazing hills all around. I couldn’t stop taking photos out of the widow.

This is the first day all trip I’ve felt the need to do that – it was just so amazing.

Arenal lake is a man made lake. It was flooded to generate hydroelectric power from a dam. 2 villages were flooded, and the people moved to safer ground.

The lake sits just at the base of the towering Arenal volcano. It was so pretty.

We caught a boat, which took just less than an hour to cross over the lake. Then a 20 minute drive and we were in the small town of La Fortuna!

After dropping our bags, we headed back off into town. The town is cute. Much less touristy than Monteverde. With a church, a large park outside the church and several shops and restaurants around the edges.

We stopped for some lunch – typical Costa Rican food – rice, beans and a bit of salad! Was good. I had a pineapple and coconut smoothie and the lady gave us some arroz con leche (rice pudding) too! Cost 3,700 colones (£4).

After lunch, I wandered through the town and back to the hotel. The hotel is about a 15 minute walk out of town, into the countryside. And the hotel was amazing!

Small little cabins, and a pool!!

So that was my afternoon sorted – at the pool! Most of us had the same idea. And we spent all afternoon there. It started to cloud over around 4.30pm. And get cold. So I had a shower and sorted all my stuff out.

Then the plan changed and we were all heading off to some more hot springs! We piled into another van – and had a supermarket stop for some drinks (rum and coke comes in cans here!) – and headed off 20 minutes outside of town to a nearby river. We were told to leave all our belongings in the van. Clothes and shoes included!!

So just in a bikini, had to walk along the side of the road for a while, then down a dark path to a river.

Once we got there, it was awesome! A river, surrounded by jungle. In the dark, just with torches and the guide brought some candles! It was so nice and warm! The current was strong, so hard to stay in the same place.

I loved it!!

We stayed for about 90 minutes. And was rather hot after that! Wet bikinis aren’t the best attire for dinner. So we had 10 minutes to get changed back at the hotel before heading back out for dinner at 9pm.

We went to the Lava Lounge – a cool looking place in town. I had a salad wrap – it was so tasty. But expensive at $10! (I complain quite a lot about the price of food – I’m always making comparison to SE Asia, which I shouldn’t!)

Afterwards, we tried to go to a club. But they were all a bit rubbish, so ended up back at the pool for a while!