Now Costa Rica has this tourist timing right.  Second day in a row of 8:30 am starts. Can you say reasonable? The teens can get more snoozing which their developing bodies need.  And parents can wake up naturally too. 

At breakfast, our Seattle Jacuzzi friends say “Cheryl W says hi.” Oh we must not have bored them too much because they checked out the blog and even found a shared connection online.  Turns out Leanne and the wife went to the same college, same year.  

The last week ALL clan members have been happy enjoying the  adventurous aspects of Costa Rica.  Let’s hope that lasts today during Leanne’s requested hike to the volcano and waterfall.  Arenal Volcano shoots straight up to the sky.  Hmmm?  Note to self: get those calves stretched. 

We start the day at the base of Arenal Volcano whose last major eruption was 1968.   From 1968 to 2010, according to our guide Jorge, the volcano erupted sticky rocks continuously.  The hike is along a lava trail which is flanked by relatively new forest of ficus, wild orchids and even wild cilantro!  We reach a summit and low and behold that photo of the Arenal Volcano alludes us for the fourth day now. Clouds cover the top yet again today!   We’ve been “Mount Fuji’d” yet again.  But still the hike is easy and interesting and the temperature could not be more perfect.  70s perhaps. We see a howler monkey but the Costa Rica icon — the sloth — still continues to allude us!  And it’s our last day here.  

Earlier in the week, Kyle offered to book a 6 am Sloth tour — at first Leanne thought he was joking saying that a “6 a.m. Sloth Tour” is a perfect oxymoron.  One does not exactly bring out their inner sloth by waking up a 5am to go see the barely moving creatures.   

The van is taking us to our next stop which Cascada Fortuna with a 70 meter high waterfall.  On the way, we see a group of tourists parked on the side of the road peering and pointing towards neighboring trees. 

Wouldn’t you know it, they are looking at a none other than a SLOTH.  Yup!  Our van stops too. 

“A sloth! A sloth!” Shares Leanne as excited as Kyle gets over his mirage of  “los penguinos” sightings ever since Antarctica! 

An excited Leanne can’t get out the van fast enough to snap her authentic photo and observe the majestic and graceful sloth.  Our guide tells us sloths are not lazy — in fact 80 percent of the time they are searching for leaves.  They just move slowly.  Leanne is just relieved she didn’t have to get up at 5am to see one.

After we sought the sloth, we arrive at the Fortuna Cascada, a 70 meter high waterfall that we hike down 500 steps to the waterfall floor.  Only problem with going down 500 steps is the return trip up 500 steps.  But that didn’t stop us all from the incredible experience of taking a dip under a waterfall whose crashing splashes were coming from 70 meters (~290 feet) high.  Incredible!

On the way home, our guide Jorge shares with us he stopped going to school at sixth grade to work on his family’s farm, taught himself English in his teenage years and has been working as a guide here in La Fortuna for 14 years. He has two teenagers and loves his job, his family, his life and his country. 

He smiles the entire time — relaxed as can one possibly be — and you can tell he also embodies the Pura Vida philosophy.  He is present — not on his cell phone — every minute with us.  He sees new people every day and he says he’s learned so much about the world just through his experiences with tourists like us.  He is so happy and that is refreshing. 

Whatever this Pura Vida is we want! Everywhere we have gone the entire week here, everyone we talk bursts out with an exclamation of Pura Vida! It does not just mean Pure Life; it is a lifestyle that is something akin to go with the flow and enjoy everything at every time.

We get dropped off at our hotel just in time for some downtime. At 5 pm, we get picked up for our Costa Rican cooking class taught by a highly energetic and kindhearted young woman named Barbara.  First up, she offers to show us the center’s “watering hole”. Hmm?

Another Pura Vida person!  Happy! Energetic!  Positive! 

We head towards the trees and hear the waterfalls.  A 20 foot drop into the river makes for a deep area which meant that a Tarzan rope awaits any of us brave enough to enter.  Barbara says anyone can do the swing that is willing.

And while we are 13 people in total with 6 other people (Americans and Canadians), the first one to give that Tarzan swing a go is ....Kyle.  

He has stripped down to his boxers, grabs the Tarzan swing and goes flying off the cliff, arcing up and plummeting into the water.  After getting rejected from the La Selvatura Tarzan swing, he was not going to be denied here.  Somewhat horrified, the rest of our fellow cookers turn straight around and beeline back up to the cooking class.

Justin carefully weighs the joy of his newly showered status with the joy of a 20 foot jump next to a waterfall. The waterfall wins! Now Leanne has to figure out how to cajole two “kids” from an impromptu swimming moment to a cooking class before the instructors’ Pura Vida attitude is threatened. 

If we didn’t mention already “Pura Vida” is the Costa Rican way of life.  It’s a philosophy of clean environment, clean eating and clean thinking.  Happiness is embodied in every local you meet and its infectious.  Oh wait, we did mention it already.

At the class, the instructor thanks us for wanting to lean her food and her culture.   We chop, dice, mix, measure, pan fry, stir, fresh vegetables for a casado, which translates into marriage.  It’s an important meal to know how to prepare if you are to impress your hopefully future mother-in-law.  In fact, if you get your tortillas wrong, you might end up as an “old maid” without the key approval.  

The meal is great and its super fun to interact with more of our fellow North Americans.  Justin and Corey are at one end of the table explaining our crazy travel year experiment with more folks from Seattle. Costa Rica is actually the first country (of now 38) where we have run into more than a handful of Americans since we started travelling eight months ago.

Costa Rica endured a pretty rocky start in Monteverde threatening to end up in the bottom 10 countries list after the scorpion incident.  Not to be deterred, Costa Rica mounted an epic comeback in Arenal and most assuredly will end up in quite a few of our top 10, if not 5, country ranking list at the end of the trip.