La Fortuna:
31st October - 4th November 2025
31st October – Friday
I arrived in La Fortuna this afternoon. The journey was smooth, but I am glad I was packed and ready by 9am even though my bus was not due until 9:30. I was in the kitchen having breakfast when one of the managers told me the bus had arrived, half an early! Usually they are late, there is a first time for everything. On route, as I normally do, I was following G Maps and started to wonder where the hell we were going as we went straight past the turning for La Fortuna and ended up having a stop at a place called Jabilla Abajo. Only turns out that there are two la Fortuna’s, I mean how bloody confusing it that. Luckily, we were going to the right one, even though I thought it was the wrong one. About 10 other buses stopped at the stopping place, all from the same company, after half an hour they put us all on different buses depending on where we were going and off we went.
There was only one other person on the La Fortuna bus, Marina from Argentina, but she lives in Dubai, and x air-plane hostess. She was really friendly, and we had a good chat. She said I would love working in Dubai and teachers are well paid there. However, the thought of Dubai does nothing for me, I think I’d be happier somewhere here. The driver was also very chatty and friendly, and he even stopped so we could take some pictures of Lake Arenal. The journey from the stop location was just over two hours of an extremely zig-zagging road. I started to feel a little head sick from the motion and had to stop looking out of the window, which was a shame. The countryside was beautiful with open rolling hills and cloud covered volcanos in the distance – to some degree it reminded me of Wales. At one point the driver slowed down and pointed out a perfectly coned volcano that was just about visible in the distance, it was Volcano Conception, on Ometepe, in Nicaragua!
So far I am not really that impressed with La Fortuna. I had a little walk around as I needed an ATM and dinner. Every other shop is either a souvenir store or really expensive restaurant. It’s definitely set up for tourists to say the least. After finding an ATM I ventured down a back street and found a Soda to eat in and even that was more expensive than the ones I have previously frequented, however it was still a sight cheaper than the restaurants on the high street. Opposite the Soda was a supermarket and I noticed only locals using it, there is also one next to my hostel. I went in and had a little look around and bought a couple of Smirnoff Blacks. Opposite that I found a fruit store so I now have breakfast in the fridge of the shared kitchen here at the hostel. As I am here for 5 nights I think I will go back to the supermarket tomorrow and buy some things to make lunches with and try my best to eat out once a day, if that.
The last couple of nights I have woken up at about 1:30 am thinking about my website and how to fix it. As it is on my mind, and disturbing my sleep, I think I will make it my mission for tomorrow. I will also spend some time planning and booking a couple of tours, there is so much to do from here. I had a quick look this evening and most of the tours are really expensive, but I haven’t been adventurous for a while or spent any money on doing anything adventurous so I think I will splash out. I fancy the zip lining and canopy bridges, which are supposed to have amazing views of Arenal Volcano, a night jungle tour and the waterfalls. But there are also a couple of hikes that look amazing as well, it’s going to be a tough decision that will ultimately be decided on costs, I think I will give myself a £200 budget, and I only have 3 days as tomorrow is already planned, so that’s three activities 😊 I also need to decide where to go from here, I think I want to head to the Caribbean side of the country and try to do a scuba dive or at least some snorkelling.
1st November – Saturday
He he – last night I opened the bedside cabinet draw and found a pair of black goggles and a black breathing tube for snorkeling. Whoever they belonged to…thank you!
I woke up to rain, and it basically didn’t stop all day, although it has now. I spent the morning listening to Titus’ Halloween radio show, which was awesome, and working on my website; it’s in a far better condition than I had expected. My Nord VPN is stating that it has a bad protocol, but when I checked it has htpps, so I am not sure what that is all about. There were also 8 other issues. I updated my plugins, except for one which advised backing up the site first. I tried to do this, but my Jetpack seems to have disappeared. So now I have 7 issues and no backup facility. But the website is there, I can access it to edit it and also view it on Google, so I am happy. I just need to resolve the issues, whatever they are. I have a feeling one of them is related to the database, according to the Bluehost support guy both websites share the same database, but there again they told me I would have to pay to recover my second site, and I didn’t. I’ll check properly in a couple of days.
I booked myself on a night jungle tour for this evening, but the company canceled due to a lack of participants 
So this afternoon, after putting in my laundry and purchasing an umbrella and water bottle I went to the bar across the road and had a couple of mojitos and a veggie pizza. I came back with a headache. The drinks were ‘happy hour’ i.e. two for one and I am wondering if the guy used cheap spirits. I won’t be going there again. I’m feeling ok now 
I booked myself on the Hanging Bridges and Zipline Tour for tomorrow, I have to be at the meeting point, which is a 10 minute walk away, at 7:30 am, so I’m not going out this evening. I’ll have an early night and pray I sleep a bit better than last night, I was up 4 times for the loo!
2nd November – Sunday
Had a fantastic day today. I got to the meeting point early and had my fruit breakfast. The tour guide, Damon, was on time and we collected two more passengers, Carol and Dominic, from France. They were a really lovely couple but only on the hanging bridge part of the tour. Dominic was quite funny with his little comments, for example we didn’t see any monkeys or sloths because it’s Sunday, their day of rest!
The hanging bridges walk was quite spectacular, Damon has eyes like a hawk and every now and then would stop, get his binoculars out and then set up his viewing glass for us to view several types of snakes and birds. The most impressive bird was the Fiery-billed Aracari, which is a species of toucan. And we also saw and beautiful little yellow snake called and eyelash viper, which is actually venomous and gets it’s name due to it’s little eyelashes. The hanging bridges were cool, we did eight of them in total. They felt a lot safer than the one I did in Mexico due to the railings being much higher and the fact they were metal and had excellent suspension supports. There was no need to be harnessed when crossing these.
After the hanging bridges I got dropped off at Go Adventure for my free lunch and the 7 zip line part of my day. Lunch was OK, but a bit on the lean side of life with one piece of plantain and a small amount of fish, but the papaya drink was absolutely delicious. Lots of people joined for this part of the day and most were friendly and fun. They were mainly from America, and included a group of 5 college kids on a study tour and an older guy, Peter, from Sweden. We got a tractor cart to the first zip line were we got kitted out. Having done one zip line before, I wasn’t feeling too nervous and the operator team were very professional and re-assuring. The experience was very quick. After the short safety talk off we went down the first zip line to the first platform where I thought we would have a stop and time to take in the senary, but no, we were immediately hooked up to the second and then the third and fourth zip lines. It was only then that we had a break while the operators caught up with us and then zipped off to the remaining platforms awaiting our arrivals. The views were amazing and looking down was not scary at all, but we zipped along so fast it was quite hard to take it all in, but it was great fun.
At the end of the zip lining we had two more experiences which I wasn’t expecting. The first we rappelled (abseiled) down a cliff. As always it is quite nerve wrecking walking backwards off a cliff (this was actually a platform) but it is fun once you get going. Unfortunately we did not have control, the guy at the top let us down slowly which made it feel quite awkward and one point I lost my balance and banged my left knee into the cliff. I now have a little graze on my knee and three small holes in my black leggings – luckily I have needle and cotton with me. From the bottom we then had to climb a metal stair case back to the top and were ushered off to have a talk from a tribal woman. Please don’t ask, she spoke so quietly I was unable to catch anything she said. But she pass around a lot of beautiful masks and a rain stick. The point of this activity was ultimately to sell us stuff but Peter and I left as soon as she stopped talking while the others made purchases.
I was absolutely exhausted by the time I got back to my room, to the point that I didn’t want to
venture out again. However I did go and buy a ham and cheese pastry from the bakery which is about 100 meters away. It wasn’t very nice but it filled a small hole. I then curled up on the bed and watched UK TV, a program where they pair up an old and young person and they have to complete tasks to collect coins. The couple with the least amount of coins gets eliminated. This all takes place in Japan. It wasn’t that interesting but it killed a couple of hours.
3rd November – Monday
This computer keyboard is annoying me, I keep forgetting where the symbols are and have to keep going through them all to find what I am looking for – I may change it to back to Spanish.
This morning I downloaded Libra Office, It’s fee! I’m not going through all of the hassle with trojan horses again. And it reads Microsoft office docs and PDFs, so all is good. I then spent hours looking at activities. For tonight I have booked the 2 hour Jungle Night Tour and this time it hasn’t been cancelled. It is raining right now so I keep my fingers crossed it stops later. However, I have read that the tour will happen even if it is raining – so glad I still have my purple rain-mac. I cannot decide what to do tomorrow – I want to go on a hike and see the waterfall and hot springs, the tour is £70, that will bring my total to just over £200. I keep looking for something a little cheaper but think I should give up and just book that. I also need to decide on my next location. I really want to go to the Caribbean coast but something is holding me back. I’m not sure land transport is going to be as easy as I am hoping – I need to do more research.
4th November – Tuesday
Last night did not go as planned – the trip was eventually cancelled due to not enough participants. That really pissed me off for quite a while. I tried to have a nap but couldn’t get to sleep and ended up researching. It is actually cheaper for me to go to the pacific coast first and then to San Jose, and from there go to the Caribbean coast. Armed with this knowledge I booked myself a few days in Monteverde, which is still in the mountains and not far from here. The hostel I booked emailed and all of the trips I want to do are much cheaper there, I don’t think it is so much of a tourist trap. I also booked myself a taxi-ferry-taxi trip to Monteverde, which I am looking forward to.
After that I went for a walk in the rain – I love my new umbrella. I ended up in a restaurant / bar and had a chicken sandwich and a couple of beers. To begin with I was the only person there. I do find it quite funny how it only takes one person to encourage others and it wasn’t before long that there were a few customers, it’s nice having company even if you only say hello to each other.
I went to sleep without anything booked for today, which turned out to be a blessing in disguise. I woke in the night feeling very dizzy but thought nothing of it and drank lots of water. When I finally woke in the morning I could just about stand up. The room would not stay still and every time I moved my head I felt like I was going to faint. It took a good two hours before the feeling left me. I had breakfast and then rested until I could shake my head without feeling dizzy. My right eyelid is slightly swollen and the right side of my face feels a little puffy. I am wondering if I have an ear infection.
Once able I showered and dressed and went to a pharmacy. She gave me some antihistamines and the first dose certainly seems to have settled me. I also found a nice cheap Soda and had chicken, omelette, pasta and salad for dinner. I have also been a little naughty and sat in a bar and had a couple of beers, but by then I was feeling 100% normal again. I just hope that I do not wake feeling the same tomorrow as I have travelling to do. I am looking forward to Santa Elena (Monteverde) as, although this town is really beautiful, it is purely designed for tourists. However, it was nice to see them putting up the Christmas decorations in the town square. This will be my 4th Christmas in a row on my own, I’ll be in Columbia by then, I must make sure I am somewhere nice for it.