Day Five: Arenal Region

Alright, I am in love with the Arenal Region. It's just a small step below from the experiance we had in tortugero. The Arenal region holds the Arenal Volcano, which is still somewhat active. It hasn't errupted lately, but activity in the area suggests it may become active soon again. The mouth ofthe Volcano can be seen from my hotel, but it's usually hidden behind a layer of clouds. It's very pretty here and the weather is perfect, compared to the extreame heat we've been experiancing.
Today we woke up, got some amazing breakfast thanks to Hotel Lavas. Then it was swimsuit time, and we headed off for a hike... to La  Fortuna waterfall! This downhill hike on stairs (don't judge, it was way more difficult and long than you'd think)led to a 250 ft waterfall that fell into a pool. I was the first to jump in. It was about as cold as we would expect the Atlantic Ocean to be back home, so I was used to it, but a lot of other people thought i was crazy. After a while we gave up swimming against the force of the falls and moved to the streams just below. We met another EF group there, and shared the stream for a while, until we were done swimming. Stopped at the gift shop, then boarded the bus and returned to the hotel for lunch. After lunch, we went to the zipline area.
Maybe it's just me, but im not a huge fan of ziplines. And this one was incredibly slow because the group in front of us continually got stuck. It was interesting.. Part of our group even got the chance to eat termites because they were stuck on one part of the line so long that the guide got hungry and pulled back som bark! apparently it tasted like pepper... I wouldn't have minded trying some!
Afte ziplining, we went to the hot springs... yes, hot springs. You want to talk about a relaxing experiance? Originally the hot springs were formed because of the volcano, but after many renevations,i think that they were built over... except for two. In the back area of a cave thats secluded in the park, there are two outlets for nearly boiling hot water. It's hard to breathe in the cave and it's nearly impossible to see anything. It was like a sweat lodge! My freind, Tatiana, and I even took the oppertunity to go to the bar while we were there and bought two virgin pina coladas... very fresh and very very good. After a couple of hours in the hot springs, we returned to the hotel, where i was supposed to get a spa package thing. Even though the woman who was running the spa knew we were coming, she did not show up! Very dissapointing, but my room cut into a mango, and gave each other massages, which im sure were just as good.
I slept like the dead that night, I was so relaxed.