La Fortuna

 Very close to our Airbnb was a grocery store, so we stopped in for breakfast drinks and a small packaged pastry. They looked good, but they turned out to be extremely dry—almost like eating flour. I think we’ll stick to local bakeries from now on.

From there we went to the Bogarin Trail. It’s a nicely cleared path winding through trees and dense tropical plants. We chose not to hire a guide, but whenever we saw a guide looking up into the trees, we quietly followed their gaze and often discovered wildlife ourselves.

We saw two sloths—one was a juvenile and surprisingly fun to watch. I hadn’t realized just how incredibly slow they move. We also spotted an agouti on the ground, which looks a bit like an oversized rat, along with a toucan, iguanas, and many other birds. One of the more interesting things we saw were a few trails of leaf cutter ants. Apparently they can travel up to 600 meters and Carrie 10 times their weight. The number of ants in a line was just overwhelming. At the end of the trail there was a feeding area where fruit had been set out, so we sat for a while watching birds fly in and out. The humidity here is intense, so we stopped often for drinks.

For lunch we stopped at a small stand and ordered empanadas, sharing a large bottle of Fanta.

Later we walked around the town of La Fortuna. It’s definitely a tourist town—almost like a Costa Rican Gatlinburg. We found a small art gallery and bought a toucan made from balsa wood with plans to turn it into a Christmas ornament.

Next we walked uphill to our chocolate tour. It was a good thing we left early because the climb was steeper than expected. The chocolate tour was fantastic. We saw cacao trees and learned the entire process of turning cacao beans into chocolate. At the end we got to experiment by mixing our own flavors into a spoonful of chocolate. My favorite combination was peanuts, brown sugar, and vanilla. During the tour we also saw a baby sloth and another agouti. Our guide was bubbly and very personable, and I would definitely recommend the tour.

The walk back down the hill was much easier. On the way home we stopped at a bakery to pick up something for breakfast the next morning. We also spotted a happy hour bar and decided to stop in for mojitos. I logged 23,500 steps on this day. When we got back, I felt tired and sweaty but content.