On our first official day we planed to climb up Volcano Poas, but due to the clouds there we decided to skip it and go straight to La Fortuna, a village north of San Jose. The streets in Costa Rica, even the main roads are in very bad conditions and when we where on the road to La Fortuna people started to wave at us. When we stopped and asked what was going on we where told that the street was washed away and that we had to use another way.
On the way back we found a little dirty street sign that said „Canopy Tour and horseback-riding“. We drove down the unpaved road and stopped at a little restaurant for lunch. It turned out that the restaurant owners where also running the canopy tour. So our first adventure was already underway! The Canopy tour was very funny, it did not look very save at all, but after all, its „No risk no fun!
For those who don’t know „Canopy“, platforms up in the trees are connected by steel ropes, you then slide from one platform to the other, its very fast, so you don’t really get to see the wildlife, its more a adrenalin-kick then exploring.
After the Canopy we went horseback-riding for about an hour or so. In the beginning my horse didn’t like me at all, and stopped on several occasions, but we made a pretty good team in the end.
After we finished the tour we went all the way to La Fortuna. We kept looking for the Volcano, but the picture in the Lonely Planet was older and the Vulcano had changed its shape and height over the past years so we didn’t figure out where it was until we reached La Fortuna. We stayed at a Bed and Breakfast, which offered an excellent view of the Volcano. The owner also offered us tours that we could book there, and we opted for the visit of „Vernado“ caves in the morning and a hike around the volcano in the afternoon, combined with a visit of the hot springs.