Thursday Afternoon at Arenal

After the hiking a beer sounded good! So headed somewhere... we were sort of on the "cruising plans" plan, where we weren't sure where we were going until we got there (another Jimmy Buffett line). We headed back around the East end of the lake and up towards the tiny town of El Castillo. On the way we spotted a building we could most likely afford!




Still thirsty, so stopped at Linda Vista del Norte - a hotel and restaurant on a point with a great view of Arenal!

We sat outside along a bar overlooking the volcano, lake and surrounding hillsides. It was really beautiful and peaceful.



We had a good view of the more active side of the volcano, including a slide of ash along the black slope.
A little cerveza for Jim, vino for Heather and coffee for Alan (not pictured, because it just didn't look right!) and a some great salads on our mountain top bar!
The pool overlooking the lake looked great - then in looking at their brochure and seeing the way they light the pool and jacuzzi at night :) - might be a nice place to come back to!





We enjoyed the view which included a huge flock of parrots (or toucans - I couldn't tell!) flying from above into one of the trees below.
Then we drove further up the hill to the town of El Castillo. The snake exhibit sounded good to Alan... no thanks. So Jim & ended up at the Butterfly Conservatory. And Alan wrote his letter to Susan. This was actually a neat exhibit! The girl who gave us the tour knew a lot about all of the plant life, butterflys, frogs and history of the area! She explained all of the medicinal uses of each plant, what animals use the plant and more. I can't remember the actual name of this plant, but it's a miniture pineapple.














The butterflys were beautiful!

















We drove back down the hill towards the main road with this view. The clouds were coming in and getting darker, but we didn't get any rain on this day. There were the small narrow bridges crossing the streams again.
We stopped at Arenal National Park, but it was a half hour from closing time... so we stopped at a couple of gift stores to start our shopping (way cool stuff in Costa Rica compared to the crap in Mexico - sorry Mexico, but you could learn a lot from this Country) and into La Fortuna for some supplies - vino, water, snacks, then back to the hotel.