Final Post From Costa Rica....Summing Up Life Here

 After a 4 hour journey from the capital city of San Jose up north to Nuevo Arenal we decided to basically spend a week there exploring everything from Lake Arenal to the Arenal Volcano to hot springs and bat caves.  Our nephew Michael and his wife Amanda and their son Arlo have purchased a house in the village and want to remodel it for either future work or to Airbnb it.  We will spend some time helping out with those renovations.

Our two bedroom casa comes complete with a nice hammock for Laurie to relax in after our daily excursions.

The town of Nuevo Arenal is attempting to be more green these days.  The local students collected garbage and created this monster out of recyclable material.  They named it "Nessy Arenal" in reference to Nessy, the Loch Ness monster in Scotland.  I thought one should throw recyclables in its mouth but was informed that the recyclables should be placed in the recycle containers which appear every 50 yards or so along the streets.

As it had rained almost 30 inches in the month of November the grounds around town and in Parque del lago (Lake park) were a bit muddy but very lush.  Laurie is seen here beckoning me to join her for a stroll around the wet park.  We were the only humans to be walking here but there were many perros (dogs) roaming around.  Reminded us of being kids back in the day when all the family pets wandered the neighborhoods unencumbered. 

Although many of the houses around Nuevo Arenal are very modest, there are the occasional mansions with meticulously kept grounds.

Lake Arenal was enlarged with a dam about 50 years ago to help create a hydroelectric form of power for the area.  We hope to explore more of the lake during our week long stay but from what we have seen, it is beautiful.

As going out to eat here is very inexpensive, we have frequented many different establishments.  They all seem to place their silverware in front of you in these paper wrappers labelled with the Costa Rican motto "Pura Vida".  This statement reminds us of "Aloha" in Hawaii.  It is a philosophy embraced by the Tico (native Costa Ricans) that basically means "the essence of living joyfully and harmoniously".  Many folks we cross paths will say "pura vida".

Laurie is headed down a path to a blissful hot springs near the Arenal Volcano.  It was fairly early in the day so not too crowded with the locals yet.

Pictures cannot tell temperature but the water in the river was somewhere around 100 degrees F.

A nice woman took our photo so we could all remember the experience together.  We 'pruned up' quite nicely sitting in the river's pools for over an hour before continuing on our exploration of Costa Rica.

Tough to see the guy wearing the yellow vest but he, and others like him, stake out a spot and motion for folks to park in their 'section' so they could provide 'security' for your vehicle.  We paid him almost $3 to perform this unnecessary task but it made him happy and he did help stop traffic so we could do a K turn to return home after.

We found this pack of Quadimundai on the side of the road and got a few good pictures without the other onlookers to screw it up.  A quadimundai is a raccoon like animal with a long tail and a long snout. Turns out the tourist companies feed them at these spots so they can pull their busses over and wow the patrons.

They seemed very docile and almost came over to ask for food but.....not.