Tabacon Hot Springs bliss....
Hola chicos and Chicas,
Well, carrying on from where I left off.... the morning after I last emailed (i.e. Tues a.m.) I woke up to the sound of pouring rain... So much for my good plans of heading for the Hot Springs and then doing the sky line... The drizzle and low clouds persisted till 10am, and by 9am I´d run out of post cards to write (the good old post card writing method still works as a time killer and a pen never experiences power failure... though mine did run out of ink a bit !). I must say that when it looked as if the rain would never clear I did hit an all time low in my moral. I thought to myself: this is is just crazy. I never do NOTHING. I never read books and don´t even watch TV in the UK so I was not going to start this in Costa Rica... though it may have helped with my Spanish further. If I cannot take photos, I get depressed because one seriously runs out of options fast.
I got chatting to the staff... all very nice. Everybody thinks my Spanish is great but I cannot work out if they are just being kind or what? Because it certainly doesn´t feel great to me and they obviously haven´t quite worked out that I cannot express myself in the past tense, which is limiting somewhat! But I still understand an awful lot which always cheers me up no end.
ANYWAY... at 10am the first ray of sunshine broke through, the mist lifted, the view of the volcano appeared again (before that you could not even tell where it was) and the birds started singing and flying around again... and so my soul soared with them. There are SO many birds in the area... it was amazing.
So I went for a quick walk down the road, before lunch... and I did see my friend Fluo (he´s actually called a Tavenger I think but Fluo suits him best because his colour is such a dazzling orange). I saw an awful lot of birds in one hour... without even looking for them. They were all around me... many social flycatchers too (mainly yellow). That is the great thing about the Neo Tropics, because the birds are so brightly coloured, they easily stand out on branches... and I wish I could have recorded their beautiful songs too. I even walked around the lake area but it was a bit muddy and my shoes would often sink quite deep so I didn´t hang around too much. But it was quite scenic walk, with the majestic presence of the volcano in the background and some horses running free in the foreground...
THERE I started to appreciate the location... because as much as the hotel was in the middle of nowhere I have to admit that the view from it was seriously fabulous -- on a sunny day. I took some great shots of the Arenal volcano with some beautiful flowers in the foreground (the hotel´s grounds)... In fact, I have never taken SO many flower shots in my entire life as I have in Costa Rica. You would not believe the variety of colours and shapes... it just bewilders me. I am trying to be selective but they are so unusual... and the ones I had seen before seem extra vivid. It really is a land of colours... and I have decided I will get all my pix put on CD so that I can share more pix on line (via a link again, not to worry, so I will not blow up your Inbox), because I really want to do this small country justice.
I then had my lunch at the hotel (exactly the same menu every day, every lunch and every evening... and rice and black beans are THE speciality here... so everything goes with black beans - soup, puree, you name it... Honeymooners beware !!!) and at 1pm I called for a taxi to get me to the Hot Springs as I had seen photos of their gorgeous gardens (botanical style almost) and I really wanted to go there on a sunny day to make the most of it.
It cost me $30 for the cab fare (return, then I damned the location again) and $35 to get in... but when you stepped in, mama mia... it was like stepping into the Garden of Eden. I had NEVER been in a hot spring in my life believe it or not.... because, well, Iceland would NOT be my kind of place since they only have one tree, and there aren´t that many other pretty places that have them. But this particular hotel was built around the Tabacon river so that all the water that flowed through the various pools (made more striking with various strategically placed waterfalls) were totally natural volcanic hot water. And hot it was... they said that the pools all had different temperature but I never found a natural one that I could actually swim in. No one was swimming more than 1 mn, after that, you felt exhausted. It was a hot day for a start, so going into hot water did seem a bit mad in some ways.... but it was just an amazing experience because every time I had been in water that warm it was in my bath tub and I could not even stretch my arms in it, let alone swim. To watch the water steam and think this was all natural seemed just surreal for me.
Everybody seemed to really enjoy it. It felt like a real deluxe treatment... they had great changing rooms, hair dryers, etc. And at night, because of its fab location, we even managed to see the Arenal throw a bit of lava in the air which really looked bright orange -- a natural fireworks. It sometimes would roar and puff up a lot of smoke during the day too... This particular volcano has been active for a few decades, and every single day, without fail, it spits out some lava. When I went back to my hotel at night you can see buses load of tourists standing by the side of the road waiting for some ´action´.
Everywhere around the Tobacon Hot Springs they had the ´Emergency Exit´ sign posted in case there was an eruption. It did seem a bit daunting at times... the last big one killed 80 people but we were told that particular hot spring was not in the direct path of the lava.... but still, one could not help but think of Pompeii !
I must say it was probably the most relaxing day of the holiday so far and, for once, it did feel like a holiday. I just pampered myself, and would sit on top of the waterfalls so that my feet would be cooking gently (relaxing after my blisters) but my body wouldn´t overheat. Perfecto. And volcanic water feels so soft... It was just lovely having no smell or chlorine... and the setting, all this amazing vegetation... big flowers everywhere... real palm trees... when the ones you could hope for in London would be all made of plastic by a pool. It really was a WOW location, the best in the area, by a LONG shot. Maybe even the best in Costa Rica.
Oh, and the way back, I had another special treat, we spotted an armadillo on the road... I was SO excited because just an hour earlier I´d bought a few field guides at the souvenir shops and was just thinking ´I guess I will never see one of those because they are nocturnal and I won´t be venturing into the jungle on my own at night !´... and so, wow, to see one, so unexpectedly was fabulous. No time for photos, but I will treasure the memory. They look SO weird and almost plastic like, with a shell like tortoise but in a dinosaur kind of way. If you can look up photos on the internet they really do not look real, to see them move was like ´wow, these things actually breathe´... they were SO toy like. Now I´d like to see an ant eaters, they have two kinds here and they both look so adorable... but they are noctural too, so, fat chance.
So, I went home happy and had a good night´s sleep.... I´d taken lots of great photos and had two special treats... but it still would have been nicer with some friends around. Everybody seemed to be with ´somebody´ or chatting at the pool bar, etc. Oh well, in another life... or hopefully back in this life once my photos are developed.... !!! (this should tempt some of you -- in my dreams anyway).
Till then, here is a little snapshot of what I found on the internet:
http://www.tabacon.com/piscinas_i.html
Hola chicos and Chicas,
Well, carrying on from where I left off.... the morning after I last emailed (i.e. Tues a.m.) I woke up to the sound of pouring rain... So much for my good plans of heading for the Hot Springs and then doing the sky line... The drizzle and low clouds persisted till 10am, and by 9am I´d run out of post cards to write (the good old post card writing method still works as a time killer and a pen never experiences power failure... though mine did run out of ink a bit !). I must say that when it looked as if the rain would never clear I did hit an all time low in my moral. I thought to myself: this is is just crazy. I never do NOTHING. I never read books and don´t even watch TV in the UK so I was not going to start this in Costa Rica... though it may have helped with my Spanish further. If I cannot take photos, I get depressed because one seriously runs out of options fast.
I got chatting to the staff... all very nice. Everybody thinks my Spanish is great but I cannot work out if they are just being kind or what? Because it certainly doesn´t feel great to me and they obviously haven´t quite worked out that I cannot express myself in the past tense, which is limiting somewhat! But I still understand an awful lot which always cheers me up no end.
ANYWAY... at 10am the first ray of sunshine broke through, the mist lifted, the view of the volcano appeared again (before that you could not even tell where it was) and the birds started singing and flying around again... and so my soul soared with them. There are SO many birds in the area... it was amazing.
So I went for a quick walk down the road, before lunch... and I did see my friend Fluo (he´s actually called a Tavenger I think but Fluo suits him best because his colour is such a dazzling orange). I saw an awful lot of birds in one hour... without even looking for them. They were all around me... many social flycatchers too (mainly yellow). That is the great thing about the Neo Tropics, because the birds are so brightly coloured, they easily stand out on branches... and I wish I could have recorded their beautiful songs too. I even walked around the lake area but it was a bit muddy and my shoes would often sink quite deep so I didn´t hang around too much. But it was quite scenic walk, with the majestic presence of the volcano in the background and some horses running free in the foreground...
THERE I started to appreciate the location... because as much as the hotel was in the middle of nowhere I have to admit that the view from it was seriously fabulous -- on a sunny day. I took some great shots of the Arenal volcano with some beautiful flowers in the foreground (the hotel´s grounds)... In fact, I have never taken SO many flower shots in my entire life as I have in Costa Rica. You would not believe the variety of colours and shapes... it just bewilders me. I am trying to be selective but they are so unusual... and the ones I had seen before seem extra vivid. It really is a land of colours... and I have decided I will get all my pix put on CD so that I can share more pix on line (via a link again, not to worry, so I will not blow up your Inbox), because I really want to do this small country justice.
I then had my lunch at the hotel (exactly the same menu every day, every lunch and every evening... and rice and black beans are THE speciality here... so everything goes with black beans - soup, puree, you name it... Honeymooners beware !!!) and at 1pm I called for a taxi to get me to the Hot Springs as I had seen photos of their gorgeous gardens (botanical style almost) and I really wanted to go there on a sunny day to make the most of it.
It cost me $30 for the cab fare (return, then I damned the location again) and $35 to get in... but when you stepped in, mama mia... it was like stepping into the Garden of Eden. I had NEVER been in a hot spring in my life believe it or not.... because, well, Iceland would NOT be my kind of place since they only have one tree, and there aren´t that many other pretty places that have them. But this particular hotel was built around the Tabacon river so that all the water that flowed through the various pools (made more striking with various strategically placed waterfalls) were totally natural volcanic hot water. And hot it was... they said that the pools all had different temperature but I never found a natural one that I could actually swim in. No one was swimming more than 1 mn, after that, you felt exhausted. It was a hot day for a start, so going into hot water did seem a bit mad in some ways.... but it was just an amazing experience because every time I had been in water that warm it was in my bath tub and I could not even stretch my arms in it, let alone swim. To watch the water steam and think this was all natural seemed just surreal for me.
Everybody seemed to really enjoy it. It felt like a real deluxe treatment... they had great changing rooms, hair dryers, etc. And at night, because of its fab location, we even managed to see the Arenal throw a bit of lava in the air which really looked bright orange -- a natural fireworks. It sometimes would roar and puff up a lot of smoke during the day too... This particular volcano has been active for a few decades, and every single day, without fail, it spits out some lava. When I went back to my hotel at night you can see buses load of tourists standing by the side of the road waiting for some ´action´.
Everywhere around the Tobacon Hot Springs they had the ´Emergency Exit´ sign posted in case there was an eruption. It did seem a bit daunting at times... the last big one killed 80 people but we were told that particular hot spring was not in the direct path of the lava.... but still, one could not help but think of Pompeii !
I must say it was probably the most relaxing day of the holiday so far and, for once, it did feel like a holiday. I just pampered myself, and would sit on top of the waterfalls so that my feet would be cooking gently (relaxing after my blisters) but my body wouldn´t overheat. Perfecto. And volcanic water feels so soft... It was just lovely having no smell or chlorine... and the setting, all this amazing vegetation... big flowers everywhere... real palm trees... when the ones you could hope for in London would be all made of plastic by a pool. It really was a WOW location, the best in the area, by a LONG shot. Maybe even the best in Costa Rica.
Oh, and the way back, I had another special treat, we spotted an armadillo on the road... I was SO excited because just an hour earlier I´d bought a few field guides at the souvenir shops and was just thinking ´I guess I will never see one of those because they are nocturnal and I won´t be venturing into the jungle on my own at night !´... and so, wow, to see one, so unexpectedly was fabulous. No time for photos, but I will treasure the memory. They look SO weird and almost plastic like, with a shell like tortoise but in a dinosaur kind of way. If you can look up photos on the internet they really do not look real, to see them move was like ´wow, these things actually breathe´... they were SO toy like. Now I´d like to see an ant eaters, they have two kinds here and they both look so adorable... but they are noctural too, so, fat chance.
So, I went home happy and had a good night´s sleep.... I´d taken lots of great photos and had two special treats... but it still would have been nicer with some friends around. Everybody seemed to be with ´somebody´ or chatting at the pool bar, etc. Oh well, in another life... or hopefully back in this life once my photos are developed.... !!! (this should tempt some of you -- in my dreams anyway).
Till then, here is a little snapshot of what I found on the internet:
http://www.tabacon.com/piscinas_i.html
posted by Sylvie at 11:12 PM
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