We spent our first full day day in Costa Rica in the Arenal area where we explored through a couple of local sites.

We're staying in a lovely place named El Silencio del Campo, which I highly recommend. We've met the owner, Luis Diego, who, along with his friendly staff, runs a first-class operation. The rooms are spacious and clean and the grounds are beautifully landscaped.



After breakfast, we went on a two-mile hike  to the Arenal Hanging Bridges. The scenery there was beautiful. Had the humidity, though, been one percentage point higher, we would have been swimming through the place. Boy, was it humid!





Carrying two children and backpacks around helped us work up an appetite so we stopped and had lunch at a roadside al-fresco steakhouse. From there we headed to the La Fortunal waterfall, where we managed to descend 500 oddly-shaped steps into the area where the, ah, water falls. The problem with descending 500 steep asymetrical steps in a humid, densly packed forest carrying children is that you have to later ASCEND. I would upload the video I took of everyone goion into the cool waters around the waterfall, but I've threatened with severe bodily harm if I show the gals in their bathing suits.





By the time we arrived back and had dinner, we were all pretty tired so we very quickly said our good nights and went to bed.