Jim and I only have a few weeks in Costa Rica and since we work most weekdays we have to make full use of all our weekends.

I really wanted to share the town La Fortuna with Jim and see Arenal. Arenal is one of the most active volcanoes in the world. It is constantly spewing lava and heats up some beautiful thermal hot springs.

I didn’t do a very good job of making any arrangements for our weekend. I just figured that it would all work out, which it kind of did.

We rented a car in Samara and made the 4 hour drive to La Fortuna; only needing to stop for directions a handful of times. Driving in Costa Rica is an adventure in itself. None of the highways are properly marked and the roads are curvy and intersect each other at weird angles, it’s easy to get turned around.

Unfortunately, the last few weeks have at Arenal have been nothing but rain and clouds. Nobody has been able to see the volcano and they just get wet trying.

We decided to spend our evening at the Baldi Hotsprings resort. The water is thermally heated by the volcano and they pipe it into their landscaped water park that is complete with water slides and wet bars. It is summer vacation for most kids in the northern hemisphere so the place was packed.

At first we were suffering from sensory overload, but the farther we walked up the hot springs the quieter it got and we finally found the “no kids allowed” pools which were beautiful and relaxing.

Spending hours in hot springs made the rain feel cool and refreshing. The weather alternated between moist cool air to torrential downpour (that was my favorite).

The next morning we woke up to rain, rain and more rain. There isn’t much to do in La Fortuna that doesn’t involve hiking, horse back riding or being outside in general so we cut our losses and headed back toward the coast.

We drove a few hours back toward Tamarindo, which is a bustling surfer/ tourist town. On the way we stopped at Playa Conchal, which made Jim a little nervous. We had to drive through the town Brasalito and along an off road vehicle trail that spits out onto a beach which you have to drive along until you get to another jeep trail which in turn spits you out on a rutted out parking lot for Playa Conchal. Did I mention that we were driving a glorified European roller skate for a rental car with no ground clearance! People were giving us incredulous looks as we barreled our way down roads that only off road vehicles usually drive on.

The harrowing journey was worth is. Playa Conchal is named so because it is made up entirely of little white shells. The water is a beautiful clear blue/ green because there is no sand to make it brown.

Jim and I spent hours sitting in the surf letting the waves push us around and feeling the little shells underneath us. It is definitely one of my favorite beaches ever.

Once the sun started going down we decided to head into Tamarindo and see about finding a hostel for the night. We arrived in Tamarindo just in time for the sunset, which was spectacular. The sky had large puffy clouds that magnified all the different colors that were being reflected off the ocean water.

It’s amazing how quickly it gets dark once the sun starts setting. Within a half hour of being on the beach it was pitch black. We drove into town and looked into a few of the hostels, but they were either full or expensive. We didn’t want to pay $30 for a crappy room when we could just drive an couple hours and be home. The thing about Costa Rica is, though, that one should probably avoid driving in the dark, if possible. The roads are narrow and windy and there aren’t very many street lights.

We made it home safely and are already making plans for the next time that we get to spend a day at Playa Conchal. Since it’s only an hour and a half away – we are thinking about making a day trip of it and going up with a picnic with our friends.