Read day 6 here.

This morning I am awakened by a cacophony of different sounds – what sounds like a far away boom, the howler monkeys quickly join in, followed by the birds and insects. Ok - everybody’s awake - including me!

I find out later at breakfast that today is Independence Day in Costa Rica and the locals nearby are practicing shooting off a ceremonial cannon. They take their Independence Day festivities seriously here!

After breakfast we get on the bus and head for Arenal. All along the way we pass though many little towns festooned with red, white, and blue banners and with country flags flying. There are groups of school children wearing their uniforms getting ready for the parade that is part of every little town’s celebration. We also pass by sugar cane and casaba plantations. Another fun fact from Pedro - casaba is used in making tapioca. At a little after 10:00 we arrive into La Fortuna, the closest town to our hotel in Arenal. Pedro asks if we’d like to stay in town and watch the Independence Day Parade and of course we all say yes! There are children everywhere, school groups marching proudly in their uniforms, school bands and beautiful brightly dressed groups of young dancers. There’s even a burro! I take this opportunity to get some really great photos. Some of my “subjects” are a little shy, but there are several that pose quite proudly. After the parade ends our group meets at the local restaurant where we have a nice lunch on the restaurant’s outdoor patio.

As we head in the direction of our hotel and Arenal National Park it becomes overcast and cloudy. Another Pedro fun fact – Arenal translates to “place of sand”. We are scheduled for an afternoon walk in park. As we enter the park it begins to drizzle a bit. Pedro asks Didier to pull over into a parking area with a covered pavilion. We all get out intending to wait out the little bit of rain. Within minutes it’s raining really hard. Pedro decides we’ll try this again tomorrow. Good thing everybody brought their rain ponchos! Back on the bus we go.

When we get to our hotel we are quickly checked in and off to our rooms we go. Since it’s still raining a bit the bus drops us off at our rooms and our luggage is brought to us shortly thereafter.  My room is beautiful! It’s a large room with a large window facing Arenal Volcano. It has 2 queen sized beds with all of the amenities – AC, flat screen TV, large walk in shower, soap, shampoo, conditioner, blow dryer, phone, room safe, and a refrigerator. I’ll be honest, this is the first room with air conditioning that we’ve had since we left San José and it feels great! Dinner is scheduled for 7:00 in the large open air dining room so that gives me a little time to relax. There is Wi Fi as well as computers for guest use available in the reception area.

Everybody meets in the dining room at around 7:00 and this is the first time dinner is served a la carte. We were offered 4 different choices including a vegetarian option. It took a bit longer than expected for dinner to be served so everyone sits and chats. After dinner we were told if we didn’t want to make the 5 minute or so walk back to our rooms there were staff driven golf carts available to give us rides. I decided to walk off a bit of dinner but several in our group decided to take that option since there was still a slight drizzle coming down. I also found out that all you had to do was call the front desk if you wanted to be picked up at your room for the trip back up to the dining room/reception area.

Once back at my room I relaxed and flipped through the channels on my TV for a while to see what was going on in the world and then it’s lights out. Tomorrow it’s Arenal Hanging Bridges and a trip to Arenal National Park to make up for our rained out visit today.

Day 8 >