Day 1: (March 21, 2008)

We took the Continental airlines to fly to San Jose, arrived there at 2pm. Leonardo Rodriguez, a driver recommended to us by fellow TA travelers picked us up in his new van - we are the 2nd group to have ridden in it!

Leonardo Rodriguez

(506) 83780001

Next, we visited La Paz. Leo told us about this at the airport that we'll get there by 3:30, but lots of exhibits will be close to closing at that time. Considering that we don't have other time slots available, we still went. True to his words, we got there at 3:30, only had time to hike down to see the 5 beautiful waterfalls and the hummingbird garden - awesome, a definite must see. The other sections were closed when we finished the hike at 4:50. We'll go again next time. I think you need 2 and 1/2 hour at least to 3 hrs to see the place properly.

Leaving at 5pm, we arrived in Arenal, checked in Hotel Silencio del Campo at 7pm. Our dinner spot was La Choza del Laurel, another recommendation of Leo's, very quite close to Silencio, next to Church's. Seafood and casado was very good there, chicken was a little dry, but atmosphere was awesome. Turned in for the night at 10pm.

Day 2: (March 22, 2008)

Silencio offers a really good breakfast, we highly recommend the typical Costan Rican breakfast - black bean rice with scrambled eggs. The portion was huge! We brought along many ziplock bags, so we brought what we couldn't finish along with us for to go. It came in very handy when we didn't have time to go to lunch or got really hungry before mealtimes. The pancakes were also great - I think they put bananas in the dough.

At 7:20, Canoa Aventura picked us up from the hotel to take us to the Real Cano Negro tour. I booked over the Internet before we went and asked Leo to call them again the day before to confirm. We were taken to the office to pay, then drove for 2 hours to Cano Negro. It was a good drive, the drivers would stop by the pineapple plantations and Iguana trees for us to take pictures. Arrived at Cano Negro around 10am, they offered an empananda of beans as snack and pineapple juice - must try. Around 10:30 we got on the boat, and saw lots of wildlife - howler monkeys, white-face monkeys, boat-bill herons, kingfishers, many other kinds of birds, lizards, caymans, even one patoo. Avid birders on the boat went wild over the patoo. I didn't know how the boat master could have seen it at the first place... The boat went both upstream and downstream, I guess this is what they meant by the "real" Cano Negro tour. The upstream section really gave me the feeling of boating along a wild river in a rainforest, filled with life and sounds. Fantastic.Around 1:30pm, we returned to have a good lunch of arroz de pollo and salad. Leaving at 2pm, we got back around 4pm, stopping on the way to see a very clear Arenal volcano and take pictures. Overall, highly recommended tour.

Canoa Aventura: Tel: (506) 2479-8200

Office hours: 6:30am to 9:30pm All week.

http://www.canoa-aventura.com/

At 5:30, we set of to the Reserva Silencio Privada to take the Silencio trail. I spent a lot of time before going trying to figure out its precise location to no avail, but the local tourism map showed it big and clear! So no worry if you want to go there by yourself, it's really easy to find, about 0.3 miles past Tabacon, on the left side of the road, going towards AOL. However, there is no chance of you getting back without a taxi, so make sure that you ask the driver to come back for you. We asked ours to come back at 7pm. As it was getting dark, we chose to do a shorter trail - no looping through Tabacon and going to mirador (I think this means outlook?), but cutting straight up to the observation point. We hiked fast, but even so, it was almost dark when we got to the observation point. No lava, but a good view of the volcano. To get off the mountain, we walked toward the car road, and found the observation point for cars - a big open space, featuring a clear view of the volcano, but not the lava side. We walked down along the car road in total darkness with only 1 flashlight, comforted by the uncountable fireflies flying around us or resting amid the grass. It was a pretty magical feeling as we haven't seen wild fireflies in ages. We got down by 6:30pm, Maria picked us up at 6:50 - then took us to El Castillo bridge area to see the lava.

Lava that night was fantastic - great viewing. The drivers all know the spot that everyone goes to, so no problem even if you don't speak Spanish. We also stopped on the way back to the hotel at a spot near the turn from the good road to the bad road - we saw lots of lava and rocks tumbling down along the mountain side, very spectacular. For picking us up at Silencio, taking us to El Castillio's bridge area, waiting for us at 2 spots, then taking us down to MegaSuper in La Fortuna downtown, the driver Maria charged us $40, which seems to be the TA forum standard price.

Leo later told us that there is a good hike close to AOL, a trail where you'd hike towards the 1992 eruption side for 30 minutes and you can see very good lava. He offers night tour guides there, so that's another option.

We bought grocery at MegaSuper - grocery is not as cheap as we thought, but the local-grown fruits...bananas for 99 colones at a kilo?? That's 20 cents for 2.2 pounds, or 0.10 per pound. For dinner, we went to the TA Forum recommended Soda La Parada - great dinner. A "premium" casado (like beef tongue, fish) is 2400 colones, around 6 dollars. Very good food.

Taxi stand in downtown Quepos is along the side of the central square where they would wait in a line. It cost us 2000 - 3000 colones to ride back to Silencio.

Day 3 (3/23/2008)

On this day, we plan to hit 4 spots, so we hired a driver for all day to pick us up at appointed times and drop us off. Total is $50, which I think is very reasonable.

Gonzalo Vargas Nunez

cell;390 5828

central-4799605,4798522

First, we went to La Mariposa Butterfly Conservetory. For 6500 colones per person, you get a very detailed guided tour for the snakes, frogs, butterflies, and insects they exhibit there. Some snakes are touchable - children will love it. Takes about 1 hr - 1 1/2 hour. Hike a little bit up hill from the entrance (about 100 yards), you get a splendid view of both lake Arenal and Arenal Volcano. Driver picked us up at 11:20pm.

Then, we went to do the Sky Tram/Sky Trek. The way up and down on the Sky Tram was quite beautiful, around 20 minutes per way. The observation deck up there is also very good - we could see the lava flows and rock tumbling in the day time, so I think it'll be a great lava viewing site at night, esp. if you do the night tour. The Sky Trek is very different from their cousins near Manuel Antonio. Our friend who did it said it was much much faster, much longer, and the body position must be a perfect layback + feet crossed and curled to make it to the other side. She said that she relaxed once, and got stuck around 4/5 of the way and had to pull herself up to the finishing point. By the end of the tour, her core muscles were aching. As a result, she didn't see much scenery along the way.Driver picked us up at 1:30pm.

Third, we went to the Hanging Bridges. Got here at 2pm. We thought it was really lovely, though not many animals on the paved path. You have to take the birding trail to see more and be very alert. We took our time walking amongst the trees and on the bridges, and had a wonderful time. The entrance area also offered a picture opportunity for the volcano. Our driver picked us up at 5pm.

Finally, we got to Tabacon. This is where our driver left us, as we weren't sure how long we'd stay here. As we got here around 5:30, we thought we might as well do the night price - $45 for entrances after 6pm. By the time we got in, it was pretty dark. Tabacon hot springs were really beautiful, but the footing inside the pools were very, very treacherous, especially in the first two pools. Many large, jugged stones were hidden in the dark waters. I scraped my knees and stubbed my toes several times. Some pools higher up along the paths have smoother sandy floors, but they aren't as beautiful as the dangerous ones. It was still a great experience, just don't slip. The pool bar was an amazing part of the grounds, best virgin daiquiri I had on this trip. The water slide there was also quite fast and fun.

We left at 8:30, a Tabacon driver drove us back to Silencio for 2000 colones. A great deal, considering the distance. I would imagine a taxi ride would be more expensive. Had dinner at Silencio's restaurant, good salad, great arroz de octopus, pretty bad spaghetti, but that was to be expected. We also met Loli, the resident green parrot, a darling bird that you could see around the hotel grounds.

The next day we left for Manuel Antonio, I'll post the rest of the trip report on the MA forum.