{"id":624,"date":"2016-04-20T17:13:16","date_gmt":"2016-04-20T21:13:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=624"},"modified":"2016-04-20T17:13:16","modified_gmt":"2016-04-20T21:13:16","slug":"day-5-monday-march-21-2016","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/?p=624","title":{"rendered":"Day 5: Monday March 21, 2016"},"content":{"rendered":"

We left Arenal Springs and went west, stopping at \u00a0Mistico Hanging Bridges, a series of fifteen suspension bridges interspersed \u00a0through a private park in the rainforest.\u00a0Our tour members had a choice between four activities. \"IMG_4666\"<\/a>We could remain at the entry and enjoy the view of Arenal Volcano, or walk \u00a0half a mile to the first bridge and then turn around, or walk halfway through the bridges and then turn around, or\u00a0walk the\u00a0two mile loop with a guide through the rainforest. We chose the two mile loop. This meant walking very quickly on an\u00a0uphill path through the dense jungle in order to keep up with our guide, as well as with octogenarians Gloria and Phillip. I was again grateful to \u00a0my friend Lisa for recommending Keen sandals, because they gripped the rocky, hilly paths and the bridges like chewing gum, so comfortably.<\/p>\n

\"Strangler<\/a><\/p>\n

Up we ascended\u00a0 along the winding cliffs until we reached the first bridge. We imagined\u00a0bridges \u00a0made of rope, as \u00a0in an Indiana Jones movie, but \u00a0instead they were very sturdy, safe metal bridges.\u00a0Each \u00a0one\u00a0had\u00a0its own \u00a0guard\u00a0who limited the number of of people making the crossing\u00a0\u00a0at all times. We were impressed\u00a0by the density of the rainforest \u00a0canopy and the purity of the air. This was truly pura vida!<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

\"Viper.\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Although we couldn’t see the howler monkeys, we could hear them communicating with each other. Nick adored taking photos of the \u00a0flora \u00a0including giant philodendron, a strangler fig, and \u00a0a bloodroot tree,\u00a0\u00a0and the\u00a0fauna, including army ants, leaf cutter ants, and a viper.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

This was heaven for him, an enthusiast of\u00a0television nature shows. He could have stayed much\u00a0longer. Dawn loved it so much that she wanted\u00a0to apply for a job in the park. As for me, this was definitely my favorite activity of the trip so far.<\/p>\n

\"We<\/a><\/p>\n

We continued along to Leatherback Turtles National Park, where we learned about efforts to protect this endangered species.<\/p>\n

The problem is that the turtle eggs are rumored to work better than Viagra, so \u00a0many of them are stolen and very few \u00a0actually hatch.<\/p>\n

All of Guanacaste province is a UNESCO World Heritage Site. Our hotel, the J.W. Marriott Guanacaste Resort and Spa, was extremely luxurious. The hotel was constructed in a large semicircle around the \u00a0freeform pool, and beyond the pool was the Pacific.<\/p>\n

Dinner that night was quite different: a\u00a0\u00a0delicious Korean barbecue. We thought about taking a walk after dinner, but after going back and forth \u00a0from \u00a0heat to air conditioning, I started to feel a cold coming on. We want back to our room instead.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

We left Arenal Springs and went west, stopping at \u00a0Mistico Hanging Bridges, a series of fifteen suspension bridges interspersed \u00a0through a private park in the rainforest.\u00a0Our tour members had a choice between four activities. We could remain at the entry and enjoy the view of Arenal Volcano, or walk \u00a0half a mile to the first … Continue reading Day 5: Monday March 21, 2016<\/span> →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-624","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-costarica-2016"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=624"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":637,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/624\/revisions\/637"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=624"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=624"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/pisarro.org\/aboutnick\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=624"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}