Adventures & Adrenaline In La Fortuna

We’ve had some pretty amazing adrenaline adventures before – whitewater rafting, tombstone dives, even a bobsleigh run – and now La Fortuna goes into our history as a place where we have matched or even surpassed those thrills. Ever thought of coming down a mountain via zip wire? Nor had we, until the temptation was just too strong….

It’s on the Monday that whoever is in charge of La Fortuna weather throws a few switches and changes a few dials. Heavy cloud cover replaces bright sunshine, regular bouts of torrential rain flood the soakaways and send everyone running for shelter, and the imposing Arenal volcano disappears from view completely. The dripping humidity of preceding days is switched to zero and there is an unexpected freshness to the previously sultry air.

By Tuesday whoever’s in control really starts to get mischievous; cloying humidity is back with a vengeance but ridiculous rain and hot sun keep swapping places more quickly than we can get our waterproofs on and off. It’s fun. No it’s not, we’re soaked. Dry already. Oh whatever, we give up worrying!

Here’s two extreme examples of the view of Arenal in different weathers… slide the bar to view

Coffee has been a staple export from Costa Rica for a long time, creating massive wealth for some and underpaid exploited labour for others. Our tour of North Fields coffee farm just outside La Fortuna is fascinating and educational: we go there expecting to learn lots about the growing, harvesting and processing, which we do – but the examination of the techniques of how we serve our own coffee in our own home is equally surprising and informative.

We certainly didn’t know for instance that the caffeine content is increased in line with exposure to water – therefore espresso actually has a lower caffeine content than other coffees. Interestingly, the family at the “finca” (farm), in the business for four generations, were highly dismissive of the terms “organic” and “fair trade” on coffees sold in the West, stating that virtually all coffees from anywhere in the world are neither of those things, no matter what it says on the packet. It was just as fascinating to taste the coffee bean at its various stages of production, some of which were all but unpalatable.

North Fields finca also harvests cocoa and sugar cane, each of which are ingredients in the chocolate manufactured on site – the study of chocolate production was just as interesting as the coffee. When cocoa was originally discovered, the Aztecs lapped it up as a drink rather than the food we know today, soon discovering that sugar needed to be added to make it drinkable. They christened it “xocolatl”, from “xococ” meaning “bitter” and “atl” which means “water”. 

There is a major bonus whilst we are at the finca – we’d had several toucan sightings in Costa Rica but none which had given a photo opportunity. Here though, one pair poses gloriously for Michaela to seize the shot she’s been hoping for…

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La Catarata La Fortuna is a spectacular 70m waterfall a few kilometres out of town, where Rio Fortuna simply falls off a forested ridge into the gorge below. The natural turbulent pool created by the cascade is an exhilarating place for a swim in cold, swirling waters. Going downstream a few yards, it’s just as much fun to let the fast flowing currents carry our bodies through the picturesque gorge, grabbing rocks on the cliff face to regain control.

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There’s an entry fee at Catarata, and a 560-step drop to the gorge, which means a 560-step climb back up after our exhausting time in the powerful waters. The whole experience – seeing the waterfall from the viewing platforms and swimming in those cold, surging waters – is absolutely well worth the entrance fee AND the climb.

And so to the adrenaline part…

We saw it in Monteverde but ran out of time, so the zip line in Arenal, a 20-minute ride out of town, with views of both the volcano and the lake from the mountain, was an absolute must. We were not disappointed: this was an adrenaline thrill up there with the best.

Ascending the mountain by cable car, the breathtaking views emerge, the lush jungle dropping further and further beneath us as we reach the highest point, the first platform, way, way above the world. A short 32 metre long wire serves as our nursery run, and then we’re on the first platform, looking along the zip wire nicknamed “Oh My God”, stretching impossibly high above the jungle valley to our next platform, 465 metres away.

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“Oh My God” is the first of seven ziplines, totalling 2,742 metres in riding length and dropping over 170 metres from top to bottom. At times we are 210 metres – that’s 688 feet – above the ground. It truly feels like flying! It is unbelievably, unbelievably exciting: our hearts race, our senses rage, we let out whoops of delight. And when it’s over, when we’ve hurtled down all seven lines, we are wide eyed, pumped up, and wondering when we can do it again. It’s a fantastic, fantastic experience.

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Michaela wore a Go Pro head camera. Watch the videos here and see some of what we saw….

After a day like today it’s hard to talk about much else; reliving the thrill is our main topic of conversation over beers and dinner tonight. You don’t have days like today too often.

For our final frolic in La Fortuna we venture out to another favourite spot for the locals, nicknamed “El Chollin”, a stretch of cascading river which is an attraction due to one distinguishing feature – the water is hot! Chollin was a cold water mountain river until the 1968 eruption, which left it literally boiling as it raced down the hillside. Now, 53 years later, it’s still very warm indeed, bursting from one of the many hot springs in this area.

It’s all slightly surreal, wallowing in the strong currents of fast flowing water which feels artificially heated, so high is its temperature. It’s surreal, exciting, amusing and relaxing all in one go. A natural jacuzzi, if you like. As Michaela says as we lay in the water, “if a river is this hot then something very weird is going on underground here”.

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And so our time has come to move on from La Fortuna, where we’ve had way more than a week’s worth of fun in our seven days. We head off now to somewhere very different- the Caribbean coastline, where we will encounter a different culture, different cuisine and different people. Cahuita here we come.