Around Laguna de Arenal

The morning dawned gray and gloomy, but we weren’t. While waiting for Ken, I went out on our cabin’s porch and snapped a picture of Mt. Arenal. Or where Mt Arenal would be if the fog wasn’t so thick. I promise you, a volcano is there in the background.

14 minutes later, we were ready to head down for breakfast. I stopped to snap this picture from the same position as the previous one (see, I told you there was a volcano there) and we were on our way hoping the day would clear more and we would get a great view. Alas, it was not to be and this is the best view we had of Mt. Arenal. We hadn’t really expected much more, though, so weren’t too disappointed.

This was planned to be a leisurely driving day around Lake Arenal to Santa Elena where we would spend a couple of days. The route was 60+ miles of which the last 18+ would be dirt road. We hoped to see some good scenery.

We headed out a bit before 10am and made our first photo stop at the dam which created Lake Arenal. As you can see, it’s still cloudy and gloomy. Boat rides were being offered here, but we weren’t interested.

As we continued counter-clockwise around the lake (with surprisingly few good views of it), I was reading the description of this drive in Lonely Planet’s Guide to Costa Rica. The guide mentioned a bakery in Nuevo Arenal and gave it good reviews. At the rate we were going, we would be there a bit before 11am. We weren’t really hungry, but thought it would make a pleasant stop. And it did. But the pastries were tasteless. Pretty, but little flavor. The coffee was good, tho. Notice it’s much brighter here.

We continued around the lake with some good views but no place to pull over and take photos. Finally, at Quebrada we hit the expected dirt road and settled down for a bumpy ride. Sure glad we exchanged our previous vehicle for a newer one yesterday. Much better sprung.

About 4 miles on we saw a place to pull over so we did. There was a rough gate to a pasture there and we were able to walk over to the edge and finally photograph one of the lovely views we had been seeing all along.

Much of what you’re seeing is pasture land. Dairy and beef are big industries here. Another is coffee. We saw coffee planted on amazingly steep hillsides. I know coffee cannot be mechanically harvested, but I don’t see how the people could even handle those slopes! Naturally, there were no places to pull over to take any pictures of the plantings. When we finally found a place to pull over, the hillside with the coffee plants was pretty tame. But I took a photo anyway.

Finally we reached the Rustic Lodge in Santa Elena – our home for the next three nights.

It had been a good day with only a few “coulda, shoulda” moments which we conscientiously put aside since we couldn’t do anything about our previous day’s problems. As a final fillip, we were directed to the El Olivo Restaurant where we had an excellent supper.