Caballos y Lluvia

        The hotel this weekend at the volcano Arenal was awesome.  It had a bunch of “hot springs” that you could just sit and relax in.  I don’t think the hot springs were natural but they were some pretty freakin sweet hot tubs.  When we got there Friday it was raining and cloudy so we couldn’t see the mountain.  Both dinner and breakfast were included at the hotel so we ate and then went and enjoyed the hot springs in the rain.  Since Caroline hurt her foot last weekend in Tamarindo, she wasn’t allowed to get it wet.  Needless to say, we had to get creative so she could enjoy the springs too.

Part of the hotel.  These are the rooms that we stayed in.  They were detached from the lobby pretty far up the mountain.

Clouds!  This was the most mountain I saw all weekend :)

            Dinner was great, of course, with lots of salad and veggies.  We finished out the night playing cards and bananagrams.  The next morning a group of us had registered for horseback riding up the volcano base.  We ate breakfast, which included tons of fresh fruit and very very pink yogurt, and then went to the horse stables which were located within the hotel property.  Funny story about the horse I rode…

Before we mounted our worthy and steadfast steeds, we were just standing around the stable looking at the horses in the corral.  I noticed one horse that was all white with pink/white eyes.  I made a point to tell everyone how ugly it was.  In fact, I called it ugly quite a few times.  The ironic thing about my actions is that guess what horse I was given… Yeah.  The ugly one.  His name was Thunder (however, our guide pronounced it “Tunder”).  Thunder and I managed to work out our differences and enjoy the trip, which by the way, was in the rain.  The guides gave everyone ponchos except for me and another man.  I guess they ran out.  Of course all my clothes were soaked after riding and they stunk of horse, but riding was definitely worth the $45. 

Horseback riding lasted about 3 hours or so.  Most of it was up and down really steep hills with lots of mud (2 feet deep) and rocks.  Even with all the hills, some of us were able to gallop/canter with our horses.  It was really groovy.  At one point during the trip, Thunder and I were descending this steep hill when we came to a small step down.  Thunder stopped, looked at the short drop, and then looked at me.  Basically, with his eyes, he said, “Are you serious, Ben?  Are you really going to make me do this?”  Well, he did end up going down the step but he didn’t seem too pleased. 

Thunder aka Tunder

He was a mean horse to all the other horses.  He snapped at a few of the others when we got water and bit Quincy’s horse.  The guide joked around and said that our horses were novias (boyfriend/girlfriend) and that the bite was really just a beso (kiss).  Then the guide realized that our horses were both males.  He went on to say, “son gays.”  Haha.  He called our horses homosexuals.  Even though my horse had an attitude, I liked him and was glad that he acted up.  It made the ride more enjoyable.

After riding we took a taxi into La Fortuna, the nearest town, and ate and shopped a bit.  After that we came back to the hotel and looked at the crocodiles, ants, and butterflies that the hotel had on its grounds.  We then just hung out until dinner, ate, and then went back to the hot springs for a bit.  By the way, it was still rainy and cloudy.  This morning, we went to see the a waterfall.  I didn’t bring my camera to snap photos since it was raining but many other people did.  I’ll snag one of theirs soon.  The waterfall was awesome and since it had been raining so much it was super duper angry and violent.  After the trek down to the waterfall, we had to walk up about 10 minutes worth of stairs to get back to the bus.  It reminded me a lot of Diamond Head in Hawaii.

Our lovely bus

The bus ride back was long and boring and I had a headache.  I managed to wedge myself between my chair and the window and got some sleep.  It’s difficult to explain how awesome the hotel was.  The landscaping, the multiple pools, hot springs, water slides, swim-up bar, the jungle/rainforest horseback ride and the people were just so cool.  I took some pictures but they don’t really do the place justice.  I’ll post some photos on my facebook if you want to see more.  I’m not really a camera guy so I didn’t take much.  Of course, when we got on the bus to leave for San Jose, the sky started to clear up and it stopped raining.  We never did get to see the volcano but we were able to see some of its base.  I guess rain at Arenal is better than rain at Tamarindo.  Even though it rained the entire time we were there, it was an awesome weekend and a great experience.  I’m ready to crash even though it’s only like 7:30pm.