We woke late at 7; 30 to the sound of rain. It seemed loud to me with the drops bouncing off a thousand leaves on the way down through the canopy. I went down to the dining room about a hundred yards away and got 2 cups of coffee. Then we went down for breakfast with Laura and returned to the cottage for devotions and to pack. As we brought our luggage down the walkway Bett spotted a white faced Monkey above the dining hall and then we watched five other monkeys join the show Bet was convinced was put on just for her. Before long these interesting little creatures had drawn a crowd of camera totting tourists. We got a little movie of their antics and recorded their little noises that sounded like little yappy dogs. Then I noticed a humming bird checking out the flowers and photographed it up so close that Haraldo commented he had never seen one allow anyone get so close before. This little guy is evidently and insect eater as we watched him zip off his perch and snag a little gnat three feet away.
We said our goodbyes to our gracious hosts and boarded our private boat with Ping and Laura for the 90 minute trip back to civilization. The river was calm and Ping put the petal to the metal and made the trip in an hour. We stopped only once to see a crocodile sunning himself on the bank. We picked up our private bus after saying our goodbyes to Ping (Morizimo) and headed down to Exploradora outdoor adventure meeting place where we had lunch and watched about 20 large river rafts land and pack up a steep slope from the river below. I was sorry we did not have time to take the rafting adventure but we had to stick with our itinerary and shortly left for the three our trek to La Fortuna. We wound our way up through the mountains with a bus full of strangers who had been on the rafting adventure and were heading our way to the Arenal Volcano. We arrived at 6:30 PM to what we realized was a five star luxury hotel tucked at the base of Arenal.
Our baggage was whisked off the bus and we were ushered into a magnificent lobby by two well dressed and attentive bell boys. We were handed two mango drinks in Manhattan glasses with a slice off lime on the edge and checked in. We headed up to our room on the fourth floor and could not figure out how to open the door. The bell boy soon arrived with our luggage and just passed the card in front of the door handle and the door unlocked. Our room is fabulous and we began to explore the features immediately like a couple of kids in a candy shop. The first order of business was to figure out the shower. I figured out how to work the electronic control panel and got the radio turned on and then the full body length shower heads at which point I began to flood the bathroom. Eventually I figured out how to turn on the variety of showering devices and we checked our rest of the room features.
We went down for the inclusive diner and chose a restaurant on the first floor with an outside table. The diner would be impossible to describe but it was gourmet to say the least and we laughed our way through the variety of silverware and servings of food and the very proper way our young handsome waiter dealt with our relative lack of couth in dealing with all the choices. It was a great meal and after touring the pool and the eight springs fed hot tubs below our room we then headed up to bed very happy with Costa Rica and the itinerary so far.
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