The best part of Arenal was unquestionably the canyoning trip. We were supposed to go early in the morning, but the logistics got screwed up, so we went on the 1pm trip. We instead spent the morning at the Fortuna Waterfall, which was really good because it was sunny in the morning and a good time to swim and check out that area. It was a huge waterfall that you walk down all these steps to and then climb over some rocks to the basin where you can try to swim up to the falls. It's hard to get very far, the power of the water is really strong and you can't get within about 20 feet of them. We explored down the river and found a log you could jump off, and swam around there for a few hours. I had another great experience with my flip flops when I stood on a rock that was a bit slippery. I ate it and cut my arm up a bit, not a big deal but I decided the sandals were going to be used very sparingly the rest of the trip. This decision was cemented when we came back to the hostel and I tripped a bit and the strap blew out of the sole, so those shoes are done. RIP Toohey's flip flops. We had a good run, but all good things come to an end sadly. We hung around the hostel in the hammocks for an hour or so and then got picked up to go canyoning.
As soon as we left the hostel, it started thunderstorming, and the golf ball sized rain drops were coming down really hard. We thought they might cancel the trip, but this is pretty normal weather (it's usually really nice in the morning, and then storms insanely for a few hours in the afternoon before clearing up again), so we were set for the trip. We got our helmets and harnesses and set off into the rain forest, which was quite rainy at this point, and getting rainier. The first repel we did was down a small waterfall, it took me a bit to get used to how repelling works, but once I figured it out it was no problem. After you go down the sites where they clip you in, they unclip you and you hike down the stream to the next point. It was such an awesome trip, it was storming the whole time but that was no problem once you kept moving. You have to figure out where to step when climbing down rocks, and there was even a place where the guides showed us how you could jump from a rock into the stream below and completely disappear because there was a hole there. It was funny watching people jump into the hole and go underwater, it was like the earth had swallowed them up. There were two repels we did from really high up where you just jump off the platform and let yourself down as fast as you want to the bottom. We repelled down a couple other waterfalls too, everything was just so cool. I had never done a trip like that before, and the combination of the trail and the weather made it pretty epic. When we got back to the base, it was about 3 or 4 hours later and everyone was really hungry. They gave us an awesome meal, more comidas tipicas, but this one had some sort of vegetable-pork stew as well that was really good. There was a cool dog that lived at the base that everyone was playing with. It would bite your hands in a joking way, and everyone would laugh at it until it started going after your ankles and pants legs, and then people were less patient with it. It was funny to watch. They drove us back to the hostel and we chilled out and had some beers. The canyoning trip definitely gets two thumbs up.
No comments:
Post a Comment