Adventures at The Springs

One of the great things about The Springs Resort is that they offered many activities on-site & would also arrange tons of tours around the area.  Every hour, a bus runs from the main resort down to the Arenal River, where you can check out their collection of rescue animals, including several monkeys and large cats.  They are building a new restaurant down by the river, but you can still go down to enjoy the chairs & soaking in the river.

Our first morning, we opted to go for the kayaking adventure & we had 2 tour guides all to our selves.  We had to buy some water shoes, but the provided everything else and inflated our boats for us.

These boats are very tricky- they maneuver very fast & are a riot to attempt to navigate down some mild rapids.  Apparently I don’t do so well taking photos when I should be paddling!  The actual run was probably only 10-15 minutes long, but we had a riot and laughed so hard from going all over the place and getting stuck on rocks.  Our guides re-loaded the boats & we went a little bit further up the river for a slightly longer run the 2nd time around.

After our rocky boat adventures, the guides re-loaded the boats, gave us a freshly cut pineapple and mango, & we hung out in the river and the hot waterfall taking in the beautiful scenery and finding crazy bugs.

The other adventure we really wanted to check out was the 4×4 excursion.  We had to cancel a few times due to rain, but finally squeezed it in our last morning.  We had another private tour & our guide took us on a gorgeous hour long ride in the mountains around the property.  The trails started off easy, but we quickly encountered some “fun” terrain & hubby got stuck in the mud.

Our destination was this washed out bridge & we walked around a few minutes before heading back.

We rode along several ridge lines that offered spectacular views down both sides of the mountains of the rain in the distance and the valleys below.

We really enjoyed this tour- just getting out, seeing the local towns, and feeling the fresh air on your face.  One of the really cool things we say traveling around Costa Rica were the fence-trees.  Apparently, you can take a stick or limb and plant it in the ground wherever you want a fence & it will start growing.  These makeshift fences were everywhere & great way to make beautiful, eco-friendly and cheap fences.

The other big attraction is The springs *IS* the hot mineral springs.  There are several up around the main rooms with varying temperatures, but we didn’t get a chance to hit any of those besides the main pool.  One rainy afternoon, we decided to head out to the lower Perdido Springs since we didn’t want a little rain to stop us from getting wet anyway.  I loved how all the springs were surrounded by lovely trees & they were all intimate up top (but there were tons of kids being rowdy at the bottom pool by the slides).  Given the rain, steam, waterfalls & actual fog on the inside of my lens- these are the best I could do with the photos.  We grabbed a few drinks from the bar & took them up to the top pool with the hottest water.

GOOD NEWS OF THE DAY: Ran my 15 miles this morning & still felt great- now I can drink mojitos and eat cake at the bridal shower this afternoon guilt-free.