Day 7: White knuckled ride from Jaco to La Fortuna

We started off this day on the wrong foot.  I had scheduled a pick up from Jaco Best Western to our next hostel in Arenal at 9.  We got a cab close by our hostel, cause at that point our bags were starting to weight a lot more.  We made it to Best Western, but then realized we never really knew who was picking us up, as they had two main shuttle companies in Costa Rica.  We finally cleared up the confusion with the grumpy guy at the grey line desk and waited on the street for our shuttle. 

A little side story…

We wanted to save as much money on this trip possible, hence why we always took public transit, but this was the only time we paid for a private shuttle.  The only buses that run from Jaco to Arenal must go to San Jose first.  So basically we needed to take a 5 hour bus ride to San Jose then another 4-5 hour ride to Arenal…no thanks.  We opted to pay the guy $90 bucks to take us directly to our hostel, and let me tell you it was well worth the $90!

Our driver picked us up on time and we started up to Arenal/La Fortuna area.  It was not a fun ride!  Im pretty sure I hugged/white knuckled the seat in front of me the whole way up there.  He was a crazy driver, a fast driver, but a crazy driver!  He didn’t speak really any English, but he tried.  Luckily I was able to tell him where we were from, where we were going, whether we were married…you know the important stuff!  Spanish 3 really did pay off in high school!

We were worried when we were on our way to La Fortuna, cause we hadn’t done any souvenir shopping really this whole trip.  I guess I was worried La Fortuna wouldn’t have a whole lot of shops…boy was I wrong.  We checked in to our hostel, Arenal Backpackers and quickly gave him our laundry that never dried from our night of hand washing clothes in the sink…at that point they smelled SO bad!  I was embarrassed to hand over my stuff, they smelled that bad.  It was the best $8 spent on laundry (which in hind site, there was a Laundromat right down the street (oh well).

We got to our room and it was like staying at the Hilton compared to some of the other places we stayed at.  This was definitely more pricey then the others (around $55 a night), but worth it considering we got our own shower with hot water, TV(!!!), and Air Conditioning.  The bed was a nightmare, and was the most uncomfortable thing Ive ever slept on. 

We walked around town for a bit and checked out some of the tours around town (there are plenty of them that’s for sure).  The hostel swore up and down they were the cheapest but they definitely weren’t when we did some price shopping.  Although, I must say that I guess La Fortuna is great for tour scams where you pay for a trip before hand and then no one comes and picks you up, so we were a little cautious. 

Our hostel didn’t have our own kitchen, one of the things that was a definite negative when we were searching for hostels in La Fortuna, but we made do.  We went to the Super Market, which oddly enough is called the Super Christian (weird) and picked up on some stuff for breakfast and lunch.  Jeremy picked up on this weird concoction he saw Walter make when we were staying at Hotel Kangaroo…it was plain corn flakes and liquid flavored yogurt.  Surprisingly, it wasn’t bad but was an acquired taste considering the consistency.  Since we didn’t have fridge we decided to get a bunch of ice and fill our sink with ice and food.  It worked for a little while, but it eventually graduated to our trash can, it was effective enough and saved a bunch on buying 3 meals a day.

There were a couple geocaches in the La Fortuna area that I wanted to check out so we walked around town trying to find it.  Unfortunately the person who started this one was a complete idiot!  They hid it next to someones retaining wall on their house.  It was a little awkward cause Im sure people were wondering what we were doing hovering around the area.  Needless to say it was gone, long gone, cause when we tried to log our visit, no one else found it either.  I was bummed.

We ended up getting dinner at the Lava Café and we had steak and chicken casado (again yum).  I also had my first taste of a pretty yummy bastido (milk and fruit shake thing).  We finished up watching tv and relaxing in bed