Costa Rica Day 4: A New Year's Tour Through the Jungle

Perhaps since it was also a Sunday (travel day), but New Year's Day was as crowded as we ever saw it at the Arenal Kioro, both at breakfast and at lunch.  As I had mentioned before, Costa Rica Vacations took great care of us, and all of our breakfasts at each of the hotels were included in our package.

Partially because we weren't sure to expect on our first trip to Costa Rica, we left a day or two open at each location to just soak in the beautiful country and let the mood of the trip take us where we wanted to go.  On New Year's Day, that mood took us to the Arenal Hanging Bridges.

Our English speaking guide, Diego, picked us and two others up at the hotel and we were shuttled past Lake Arenal and onto the Hanging Bridges property north of the lake. I thought that we might pick up a few others on our way that would join our tour, but as it turned out, it was just the four of us.  Diego was extremely knowledgeable about the various plants and animals that we came across under the rain forest canopy, and some of the views that we got from the top of the canyon that we were on were amazing.  We even got to see howler monkeys, and a Blue Macaw on our way out was making its presence known on a telephone pole in the parking lot.  Of course there were waterfalls, snakes, spiders, wild pigs, leaf-cutter ants, lizards, and all kinds of trees and plants, as well.


      

     

        

And after all of that, due to the two hour time difference, we got back in time to watch the Rose Bowl.  Bonus. In addition to having ESPN, there were some US stations broadcast at our hotels, with Spanish subtitles and commercials.  It was amazing how helpful it was in kick-starting my own Spanish to have those subtitles!