Finca la Esperanza Chocolate Tour

This morning we drove up into the hills to the Finca la Esperenza farm for a chocolate growing and making tour. It is a family-run operation, and they hire a neighbour as a translator for the English tours.

Oscar got to help the farmer harvest some yuca while we were waiting for our tour to start.

The first part of the tour was a walk through the forest, where we had some of the best wildlife sightings of the trip so far. We saw a sloth relatively low to the ground, two toucans and a hummingbird nest with babies in it.

The farm was a mix of cocoa plants and coffee, and also some pineapples, guava, and a smattering of small livestock and exotic birds.

Our guide explained how they cultivate the cocoa beans and let us try some of the raw seeds right out of the pod.

After checking out the peacocks, roosters, ducks, turkeys and other birds, we went back to the main area to learn about the process to make chocolate from cocoa beans.

The kids got to try different methods of grinding the beans, and we sampled the beans at different stages of the process.

We got to taste some very fresh hot chocolate and at the end got to try the finished chocolate product.

After the tour, they served us some Costa Rican snacks, including some very yummy yuca fritters.

Penny made some new doggy friends at the farm, who followed her around for scratches.

Back at the house, we did an easter hunt with chocolate soccer balls and mini chocolate bars, and had a swim in the pool to cool off.  Tomorrow, we have a long drive to the beach!

Kalambu Hot Springs

 Today we spent the entire day at Kalambu Hot Springs, an attraction that is part water park and part hot springs soaking pools.

There was a little kids splash area with a giant bucket and a few small waterslides,

a section with 5 big waterslides, where Jasper and Oscar spent most of their day,

and a bunch of hot pools, at different temperatures and in different shapes. 

The hottest pool was 42 C, which was pretty toasty under the Costa Rican sun. Luckily, the day was partly cloudy, and we managed to avoid sunburns.

Penny wasn't big enough for the slides, so she spent about 6 hours straight swimming. She is a bit too confident in her swim abilities, but she is definitely improving. She can now take a breath and continue to swim without drowning. She also loves to float face down and do her best impression of someone who has drowned. 

It was a long tiring day for all of us, and I think everyone will sleep well tonight!

Arenal National Park and El Salto

This morning we drove back through La Fortuna to the Arenal National Park to go on a hike to see the old lava flow. The spot we visited was from 1992. 

The kids did great hiking the 4km Las Coladas trail, though Penny did need some shoulder rides. The big kids wanted to check if Pat can still carry them on his shoulders. Not for too long, but he can still do it.

At the Arenal lookout, the volcano was mostly hiding behind the clouds. We did catch a better glimpse of it on the drive home.

Penny wanted us to take a picture of her "P" she made out of a stick.

We came back to our house for a swim and a wander around the property. The place we are staying is an old farm that was turned into tourist lodging. There are about 8 little houses, 2 pools, a pond and trails through the forest.

We found a giant rope swing and even saw two sloths. The sloths were sleeping, so we set a timer for 1 hour to go back and check on them.

Penny is getting pretty confident in the water.

Later in the afternoon, we went to check out El Salto, a public swimming hole with a rope swing.

Pat was the only one brave enough to go off the big rope.

Oscar especially loved playing in the water, jumping in off of some of the smaller rocks and swinging on a vine.

Even Penny got in on some of the jumping action.

Travel day to La Fortuna

 We said goodbye to our treehouse this morning and hit the road for the La Fortuna, a few hours drive to the east in the shadow of the Arenal volcano.  The only road was a windy one through many mountains and around a big lake.  The kids in the middle row all quickly dozed off, while Oscar stoically played candy crush on his dad's phone in the trunk seat.

Penny woke up and was briefly energetic, before getting car sick and throwing up all over herself. 

After a quick pit stop to change clothes and another stop at a peculiar German bakery the rest of drive proceeded without incident.  We witnessed high concentrations of the racoon like Coatis around the tourist stops as we drove by, reinforcing our belief that they are the trash pandas of Central America.

The tourist areas around La Fortuna were extremely busy, so we bypassed the whole city and got to our new accommodation a few hours before check in time.  We stashed the car and walked to a nearby "Soda" (local term for a road side fast food shack) and got some tasty pizza and nachos.  It was punishingly hot out, so we also got some ice cream bars for the kids.  

By the time we checked in to the new house, everyone was on the verge of heat stroke, so we jumped right in to the very nice pool and cooled off for an hour.  

The kitchen has a large bar complete with bar stools, so Oscar decided to play "Pub" for the rest of the afternoon.  He sold his dad any drinks and snacks he could find, the final tab was over 100,000 Colones.  He even let Penny join in, probably the most cooperative time they have spent together so far this trip.

Penny seems to be feeling better, even managed to stay awake until her normal 7pm bed time for the first night since we've been here.  There are a bunch of games around the house that the big kids enjoyed playing before bed, no big evening activities tonight.

Waterfall and night hike

This morning, after the kids ate an entire loaf of bread's worth of french toast, we walked over to a bakery that was recommended by the host of our tree house.

The kids were dying to play an April fools joke on someone, and Pat played along by letting them fill his croissant with hot sauce.

We kept walking along the main highway towards the town of Monteverde. From the viewpoint along the road, you can see all the way to the ocean and across to the Nicoya peninsula.

After a few hiccups (arriving before the park opened, then not having cash to pay the entry fee), we took a short hike to the Cararata Los Murcielagos waterfall.

There were two suspension bridges on the trail and lots of ants to see. 

The trail ended at a beautiful waterfall and small swimming hole.

We were back at the tree house for lunch and tried to have a relaxing afternoon to get ready for the night hike. The monkeys made a re-appearance around the house, and we also saw our first capybara wandering around the forest floor. A coati took a bite out of our loaf of bread before we had a chance to unload it from the stroller. They seem to be the raccoons of Costa Rica. 

After an early dinner, we geared up in our rain gear and headed to the Bajo del Tigre reserve for a guided night hike. Oscar's highlight of the day was when we had to stop to watch a coach bus attempt a 75 point turn, blocking the entire (narrow) highway.

It was hard to get good pictures, but we saw a scorpion, two tarantulas, a headlight click beetle, a walking stick, a tree frog, a sleeping toucan and thousands of ants.

Penny made it about 3/4 of the way through the hike before passing out. She is getting heavy to carry! Too bad we are not as strong as ants. 

Monteverde Cloud Forest

Today we were up before dawn again, and headed further up the mountain into the cloud forest. 

The three big kids and I signed up to do the canopy tour at Selvatura Adventure park, which included 13 zip lines and a giant Tarzan swing. 

I couldn't believe how brave the kids were on the zip lines. Some of the lines were up to 180m off the ground. They loved it all! The last line was 1km long and ended up back at the reception area. Oscar, Ellis and I went in tandem on that one.

I declined to pay the extra money for the official photos, so I only got this one short video of Jasper in action.

Jasper did get stuck on one of the shorter lines because he wasn't quite heavy enough to make it to the end. He had to pull himself hand over hand to get to the other end, and the park worker met him part way and helped pull him back. After that, the workers gave Oscar and Ellis a big push to make sure they made it all the way.

Penny is technically old enough to have done the zip lines (the minimum age is 4), but I am sure glad that we didn't have her along on this one. She might have made it across the first line, but it was set up so you had to go from tower to tower (with no way to go back), so I think it could have been a disaster.

Pat stayed back with Penny and distracted her with chocolate cake for breakfast, and playing "potions" in the hummingbird garden.

Once the zip line crew got back, we went on another tour at Selvatura, this time of the hanging bridges. A series of 8 hanging bridges were spread out over a 3km loop hike through the cloud forest. Every once in a while we could see a zip liner fly by overhead.

By the time we made it back to the main reception area is wasn't even noon yet, but everyone was pretty wiped. 

We spent the afternoon playing and exploring around our tree house accommodations.

There are about 6 houses on stilts built into this little forest. Ours also has a yurt attached on the back. The main house has a kitchen, bathroom and loft bed, and the yurt has a big bed and bunk bed. No monkey visitors today, but one coatis.

Later in the afternoon we walked into town to go to a playground. The playground was somewhat disappointing, with broken and over grown equipment, but we did see a double rainbow!