Costa Rica Part 4: La Fortuna-Tobacon Resort

After a long and busy day in the water, we arrived at the Tabacon Hot Springs resort. This was probably the nicest hotel I've ever stayed in. And they upgraded our room when we got there and put a "Happy Anniversary" banner across the door. I was really looking forward to this part of our trip. We had even considered staying for longer when planning our vacation but then decided we wanted to see more of Costa Rica, plus, after you check out of your room, you can still stay at the hot springs all day! So we checked in in the evening and took photos. haha!

 

Once we got all checked in, we got our suits on and made our way to enjoy the hot springs until they closed. It was a fun experience at night and there were very few people there. Many hot springs were pretty dark so we weren't even sure exactly what we were getting into but it was fun and romantic. We also found out we had a $50 credit for the restaurants and bars and seeing how we don't drink, we got to enjoy a bunch of fresh fruit juices. So when we first got to the pool, we put our stuff in the locker and went to the swim up bar and got a virgin pina colada served in a pineapple. So delicious. We swam around, went down the slides checked out many of the pools and waterfalls but the whole place was like a maze and we didn't know how many pools there were. It was warm and refreshing all at the same time. Anyway, we stayed until 10 which is when they kicked us out. and went back to our luxurious hotel room!

 

We woke up slowly then walked to the restaurant area for our breakfast. That exceeded all our expectations too. 

 

We saw this basilisk lizard on our way to breakfast and Max tried to make it run on water...he succeeded

After slowly eating from the buffet, ( and they had waffles, that tasted like doughnuts, but were waffles...so crazy!) we finally walked back to our room to decide if we wanted to sleep more or pack up and head to the hot springs. I was really liking the lackadaisical pace of the resort.  We decided to pack up our car and play at the hot springs for the day. I had my camera out for a bit to try to capture the magic of this place. Don't think I did it justice but...I tried!

The volcano was often covered in fog. 

 

 

So within the resort, there is a section of the hot springs that's called the Shangrila gardens and it's for adults only (I believe they are the hottest parts of the springs) there are several pools within the garden, and several pod, bed, cabana, things? I should have asked what they were called! And a bar (which also sold fresh fruit juices) Once again, I was amazed that it wasn't busy! Maybe it's because it would rain on and off which didn't bother us at all and most of the time it felt really good...we were already in our swim suits! Anyway, it was a magical little spot.

We even got to take a little nap in the cabana pods!

 

 So we eventually left the garden area, I put my camera away and went to swim in many other pools! We started at the swim up bar (and when I say I put my camera away, we still had our phone for photos, and to all our boys. It was just such a magical place. I promise we did set the phone down and enjoy the moment a lot as well! Anyway, we went and got more juice.

At one point, we tried to do a video call with our boys but the wifi service was spotty and there was too much delay so we went back to sending videos and marco polos for the rest of the trip.

 A mere glimpse of the top of the volcano.

 We stayed until the sun got low (which isn't very late in Costa Rica)

 then pulled our selves out of the pool and made our way to a nearby yoga class.

 We had never done a yoga class together and having 11 days together seemed like we could finally squeeze one in!  It was just us and one other person in the class.

 The class was great! The teacher taught the class in Spanish and English and did a great job and then served us coconut water at the end. Okay, but there was a part we are still laughing about, at the end of the class, the instructor has us join in some type of chants, or holding long notes. So we all joined in on the note, and the other woman in the class joined in and was terribly flat. But she pushed out that (incorrect) note with all she could muster. Max told me later that he had to avoid eye contact with me as not to completely lose it. I should point out that it was great that she was there and putting all her energy into it. (I'm not tone-deaf shaming, because I assume that's a real thing now) Anyway, we got in our car with our coconut milk and started the 3ish hour drive to San Jose (the Capitol of Costa Rica)

And just as we were leaving town, we saw a car pulled over in front of us and a man was out in front of his car, we could see his headlights shining on him and something in the road. We were terrified that he had hit someone, when we got closer we could see that a sloth was in the road and he was helping it cross the road. We drove by it and this was the closest I had been to a sloth (And the most movement I'd seen from one as well.) I took a video but I know it's not as visible as we could see it. We could see it's little smiling face as it slowly walked down the road. It was pretty cool and we drove the next couple of miles (kilometers, haha) kicking ourselves for not stopping and watching it closer. But really, there weren't many places to stop. 

Anyway, I ended up getting terribly carsick on the winding roads, and couldn't drink coconut water the rest of the trip but we arrived in San Jose and were completely terrified of the part of town we arrived in, but more on that later....