This morning we said good-bye to Marzarella, Norberto and Douglas, our Costa Rican family. We had another delicious breakfast - basically ham, lettuce & tomato sandwiches on toasted bread. We also had watermelon and bananas, hot chocolate, and soda crackers with guayábana jam and slices of their homemade cheese on top. Delicious!
We got in the bus and started heading towards the Malekus Indian reservation. The roads were extremely curvy, and I was just waiting for someone to get motion sickness. Of course, it happened. One student got quite sick and threw up, so we stopped, gave her Dramamine and water and had her get out of the bus and get some fresh air for a while. When she felt a little better we had her sit in the front of the bus next to the driver, and she did much better up there. Two other girls started getting queezy and clammy hands, but we were almost to our destination, thankfully! They took Dramamine, as well. We have learned our lesson - Take Dramamine before we leave every morning!
The Malekus Indian reservation was interesting. I thought the most interesting part of the demonstration was how a young man would have proposed to a young woman, and then been married right there on the spot by their families. Interesting. I think I'm glad that we have our customs instead of theirs. We also got to try out their traditional bow & arrow. We have some good archers in our group!
From there we went to the town of La Fortuna, ate lunch and did a little shopping. My dad, Dudley and I ate together, and I had a Hawaiian pizza. It was nice to eat some food that’s a little more familiar to me. :) Then we stopped in a shop and I found some souvenirs to buy. Then it was time to head to the waterfall, which was spectacular! After a steep hike down into a ravine, we were able to get up close to the extremely tall “La Fortuna” waterfall, we waded in the water by the actual water fall, then went down to the lower pools and climbed along the rocks, took some pictures, and Scott swam. We were in the middle of that when a huge rainforest down pour hit! I tell you, it rained hard in a short period of time. We took shelter down by the water under a little cave-like structure. Apparently a few weeks ago it rained like that for 3 days straight--I think we’re lucky to be having the weather we’re having. So, when the rain calmed down, we started hiking back up to the top. It was a good hike - nice to get some exercise again!
From there, we headed to our hotel, the Arenal Observatory Lodge. It’s a nice place that is completely off the beaten path - the road literally ends at our hotel, and there is no way I would have navigated that road in my own car, but our amazing driver, José, did it in a mini-bus. Awesome! It’s a nice place with great views of the volcano, except it’s been cloudy so far so we can’t see much of it. There’s a beautiful lake in the distance, as well. I hope it clears up so we can get some more great pictures.
I can’t wait to take a long, hot shower! We’re going to eat supper at 7:00, and I’m guessing after that we’ll have a quiet night.
Time to start heading to supper at the hotel restaurant. ¡Hasta mañana!
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