Arenal Volcano Costa Rica

We woke up to a downpour of rain.....if you look closely to this photo you will see the huge drops of rain drops from the roof.....this is the amazing view from our cottage patio. Soon after this photo the view of the mountain completely disappeared behind the clouds. I think this photo works for Wide Angle Wednesday theme: Weather...it was pouring down buckets of rain and in the distance the sky was blue, but cloudy. Actually, the white cloud is from the volcano.....the volcano continues to vent daily.

We got up early to go to Sky Adventure for a 3 mile rain forest hike with 4 suspension bridges and then a tram ride up to where we started our zip line experience. The hike was amazing; we had a tour guide who gave us so much knowledge about the rain forest and its animals/insects. We say the beauty of the plant growth, views of the lake & mountain, ants, frogs and TWO EYELASH VIPER SNAKES!!! (see the extra photo to see one of the snakes. I loved the hike even though it rained most of the way and the trail was pretty difficult since it had steep ups and down.....and it was very wet.....we were all so glad that my husband decided to not go with us today. I don't think he could have made it and we all would have been so worried about him. We really had no idea the trail would be so long and hard, but we all did great. Except the last steep climb at the end was brutal....the kids and our guide moved up it too fast for me to keep up.....I did get out of breath and have to stop a couple of time.....but I made it just fine. BUT we were soaking wet, even our raincoats were soaked through, when we reached the top. The kids were saying they wanted to skip the zip lines because they were too wet and cold, but their Moms said they had to go. We had about 40 minutes to warm up inside the lobby before we caught our tram for the zip lines.

I was a little nervous since I had never even done an easy Zip line....but the equipment seemed adequate to keep me safe.....they showed us how to do it....then there was a short practice line at the start. The landing was a little scary, but I decided I could do the course of 7 Extreme zip lines over and through the rain forest. 2 of the lines were short, 4 of the lines were long where we traveled at a speed of 30-40 MPH, 1 line was called The Big Daddy.......the line was very long traveling through the trees at the end and the speed was 50 to 60 MPH.....we were all afraid when we got to that one.....but it was actually the most fun. I wasn't afraid at all during the rides except when the wind and strong rain caught me unaware and pushed me a little sideway. I think I screamed!!! 

Needless to say we were a bit cold as we returned on the bus ....soaking wet.....with the air conditioning on.....we finally got the driver to turn it off. Back at our resort we walked up the hill following the winding paths to our cottages.....took showers and then got in the hot tub pool at the biggest cottage. Dinner and bed were on the agenda after dinner since we leave here at 8AM tomorrow morning.