We arrived at our Airbnb around 4:00 pm after a 30 minute detour due to an accident that blocked the road (thank you Google for making the reroute pretty easy) and a detour to find this vantage or Arenol volcano. In real life the volcano dominates the skyline.
Our Airbnb is one of five units in a new construction at the end of the street in a local neighborhood. It is about. 12 minute walk to the city square, but we’ve haven’t walked it yet because it is hot here (low 90s high – mid 70s low). Things are also very dry as it hasn’t rained in days, and hazy with a lot of smoke in the air the first two days we were here.
We went into town the first evening for dinner and walked around a bit. It was bustling on Saturday evening with lots of locals out and about. There was a service at the catholic church.
We left Mistico mid morning, got gas for the car, some more groceries and came back to our Airbnb. We napped and worked on a plan for the next day’s activities. We then headed out around 4:30pm for a hot springs experience at Ecotermales thermal spa where we soaked in pools of varying temperatures and had a very nice buffet dinner. It was crowded at the beginning, which surprised us as they advertise being capacity constrained so they don’t get too crowded. The pools really thinned out after dinner to where there were probably just about 10 people left when it closed at 9:00 pm. We were well fed and very relaxed on our return to our Airbnb.
Our final full day and morning of the last dat were spent at The Springs, a luxury resort with thermal pools set on a tropical setting, views of Arenal volcano, and property along the Arenal river. It was an amazing and very relaxing way to end the trip. It was a great way to end a wonderful 3 1/2 weeks in Costa Rica for me.
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jim water slide
Insert photos of The Springs
The drive back to San Jose took about 3 hours and was uneventful. Traffic wasn’t bad until the last 25 minutes or so. The roads were two lane asphalt in pretty good condition with speed bumps whenever there were small towns and single lane bridges throughout. The rental car return went pretty smoothly, though I need to ensure that the $1,000 deposit is refunded and follow through with our credit card insurance to refund the tire replacement charge. (I’m adding a week later that the deposit was never charged and I’m still working with our credit card insurance on reimbursement of the flat tire charge). Angie got us upgraded to first class on our Delta flight to Los Angeles and comfort+ from L.A. to Seattle. That was a nice surprise and perk of Angie having Gold status.
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