Tabacon Hot Springs, a night of relaxation

Last night was pretty damn amazing. I started off on the Volcano Arsenal tour which took us to the base of volcano arsenal. This wasn't something that totally made me go wow considering in guatemala i had hiked volcano pacaya and even got a chance to play with the lava up close and personal. Here fellow hikers were in awe as they got a glimpse from a couple kilometers away of small orange yellow dots dripping from the side of the volcano top. I told my tour group leader that i had seen a volcano erupt when i was in guatemala and had even climbed to the base of a volcano where i stuck a stick in the hot liquid magma. He was totally in awe as this hike was nothing in cmparison to that. I guess costa rica is just too american like. Too many restrictions on everything. u can't even hike to anywhere remotely close to the volcanoe.

The highlight of my night was the tabacon hot springs, a luxurous 5 star resort located in the volcano aresenal area. here fresh mountain water is heated by the sulphur of mother earth and are bountiful in earth minerals. What can i say.. just amazing. waterfalls with piping hot water, bunch of pools streaming down into very fast rapids, water slides, swimming pools, a floating bar.... lots of hot water... just too relaxing.. much better than a swedish massage granted i've never had one. I lounged in the waterfall leading the water running through my body for a good 2 hours. Then i headed to the bar to unwind with an imperial cerveza. Given that this was a 5 star resort the prices were insane and the only thing i really felt like splurging on was draft beer. haha. After this it was a nice gourmet buffet which was delcious. Combine this with a strawberry daquiri and the night wass deemed a success. Today I hopped on a bus and a boat to the town of monteverde. The scenery was just amazing on the trip up here. I arrived in the town of Santa Elena around 12 this afternoon. I decided to head down to a butterfly farm something i've never been to. I got plenty of cool pictures. i'll try to post them later. the plan for tomm is to head down to the monteverde cloud forest tomm morning to do some hiking and wildlife observing. From here I might take a direct bus to the coast of costa rica to playa tamarindo where i will try to do some surfing and catch some sun rays.