near Volc·n Arenal
We arrived in La Fortuna after a very lengthy bus ride from San José (approx. 5 hours). I accidentally forgot about the time change, so we woke up 2 hours later than originally planned, missed breakfast at at the hotel (Hotel Aranjuéz) and our 8:15am bus out of town.
We took the 11:30am bus instead which got us to La Fortuna by ~4:30pm.
It was a looong ride! Along the way, though, we, of course, got to see more Costa Rica life -- the garbage in plastic sacks along the roads, the concrete-block construction of houses, etc.
As we got closer to La Fortuna, the scenery became increasingly green and lush. Once in town and off the bus, several locals surrounded us asking if we had a place to stay.
Since we didn't realize our lodge, El Cerro Chato, offered free transportation from the bus station downtown, we didn't make arrangements for a pick-up! So, we ended up following a young boy to find a cab. He ended up riding with us to the lodge and offering tour services.
El Cerro Chato is itself a reasonable place to stay. It's about 3-5km from downtown and down a very bumpy road, but the road is en route to Rio Fortuna and the Cerro Chato crater, the places where we were planning on hiking!
The room we had was clean and had a private bathroom with a large shower. Though they advertised hot water, I never got the water to a temp I really wanted.
For meals, the lodge offered us a breakfast of gallo pinto, plantános, bread, and fruit (cantaloupe, pineapple, and banana), served with fruit juice (tropical fruit mix and guava juice) and coffee.
We had dinner our first night here at La Catarata Lodge, just 200m from the lodge.
Though they didn't have anything specifically vegan on the menu, the owners were very, very accommodating and prepared us a plate of casados vegetales for a very low price of about ~600 colones each! Two plates of casados vegetales, a beer, a bottled water, and a cup of coffee all cost about ~$6 total! And, it was very, very tasty!
Since we'd arrived into town so late, we didn't really get a chance to do much exploring. So, we called it a night and woke up early the next day.
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