La Fortuna, Costa Rica; Day 3

This was one of our Costa Rican days where the adventures were wonderful, diverse and may not fully translate to the blog (but we will give it our best shot). We took all these great photos today.

Costa Rica has fully embraced environmentally conscious attitudes about many things. For example, the country has relied on 100% on renewable sources for energy in the past few years. Many farms are growing organic products exclusively.

Additionally, many farms which had clear-cut primary woods to create arable land have reverted and returned land back to secondary forests. Our first destination today at the Bogarin Wildlife Trail was an example of a former farm/land owner taking the conscious step to return the land to a more native state to attract wildlife and the growing number of eco-tourists that seek it out.

This land was reverted to natural forest in the 70’s and has the advantage of being adjacent to National Park lands where animal protections have long been in place. The reverted land can provide an opportunity for the wildlife to expand their habitats.

Our guide Kenneth asked us directly what we were most hoping to see. Our answers were uniformly; sloths and frogs.

Within 15 minutes we saw two varieties of these beautiful frogs. They are called dart frogs because indigenous people used to rub arrows and darts on the back of the frog to collect poison. CreeperKitty knew the names and characteristics of the Frogs – having read his beloved Frog book over 100 times.

We also saw a number of fantastic birds and learned about the trees and forest that these animals make their home.

Of course, we can’t forget about the sloths. Tiffany was disappointed that she did not get to see a moose during our travels in North America this summer so we were certainly not going to disappoint her by missing out on seeing a tree sloth in Costa Rica.

Kenneth was able to find about a half dozen examples of tree sloths (both two- and three-toed types).

The morning guided hike was finished in the same way that it began; by spying in on an amphibian. Can you guess what this sleeping animal is?

This guy was clinging to the underside of a leaf and was about 5 cm (2 inches) long. If you guessed 🐸 then you win!

This was CreeperPuppy’s favorite animal of the day and we all agreed that he was very eye-catching.

After 2+ hours hiking through the dense and humid forest, we all agreed that lunch came at the right time. The town of La Fortuna was named after the eruption of the nearby volcano Arenal which destroyed three towns to the West of the volcano. The unharmed citizens of “El Burio” decided thereafter to call their town La Fortuna to reflect their good fortune in that event and, hopefully, for the future. In honor of that history, we chose a restaurant called Lava Rocks for lunch. We were not so fortunate with the food – it was only ok.

Then on to the afternoon adventure. The Catarata Fortuna is a 70 meter (230 feet) waterfall which deposits into a basin popular with swimmers. It’s rainy season so this pool was a little rough for us but we did snag a photo.

Our Adventurers found more placid waters slightly downstream. We enjoyed the cool waters to prepare for the climb back up the 500 stairs to where the rental car was parked. Mom and Dad had more complaints about those stairs than the kids, so they get credit for that.

Tomorrow, we leave La Fortuna and head to Tortuguero National Park on the Caribbean Sea. It is mostly a driving day and we aren’t certain about our ability to post there this weekend but we’ll update those days as soon as possible.

For those of you that wanted to see photos of yesterday’s white water rafting trip, you can click this link and see the updated post.