We left the Royal Corin Hotel about 9am for our 60-mile journey to Villa Blanca Cloud Forest for a guided walk on the El Silencio Trail. Unlike yesterday, there were no hanging bridges to worry about, so I was ready to do the whole thing!

As we were driving to Villa Blanca, I kept seeing signs for Lands in Love Resort along the roadside. The signs were mostly in English, but quite a few were in Hebrew, which surprised me. Eventually, we got to the resort itself – it looked like it would be an interesting place to go if we ever return to Costa Rica.

The whole trip to Villa Blanca took us through lots of lush green countryside.

We arrived at Villa Blanca, disembarked, and met our guide for the walk, Candy.

The Hummingbird Garden was the first place we stopped on the trail – they don’t want to disappoint visitors, so they lure the hummingbirds with feeders. It works!

I was impressed with how colorful the vegetation was.

And there was wildlife, too, like this whiptail lizard:

Eventually, the trail ended and we found ourselves at the Chapel (a popular wedding destination).

We wandered around a little bit and found another oxcart on display.

After that, we walked back to the main hotel building for lunch, returned to the bus, and drove to Puerto Caldera to embark on the Dumont D’Urville, where we met the people who hadn’t gone on the pre-tour. There were briefings, the lifeboat drill, and dinner, but somehow I took no photos!

Breakfast was (surprise!) a buffet in the hotel restaurant – I liked it much more than the dinner buffet the night before.

My doctor had told me to try to drink a glass of apple juice every day on the trip – that was easy at the Marriott in San José, but I couldn’t find any apple juice here, so I asked the waiter. A few minutes later, he brought me a glass of very fresh apple juice!

After breakfast, we got on the bus to go to Arenal Hanging Bridges Park for a nature walk. We broke into groups based on walking speed and took off with our guides. We visited the Pollinator’s Hotel first.

Our group was going to take the full walk, crossing 16 bridges in all, 6 of which were the famous hanging bridges.

We arrived at the first bridge; I was a little nervous because I don’t like heights.

I got on the bridge and took a few steps. It started shaking. I went a little further, and I started shaking. There were five more hanging bridges ahead – I realized I couldn’t do it, turned around, and got back to solid ground. The rest of the group, including Diane, continued on the walk; I retraced my steps and enjoyed the parts of the park I could reach without hanging bridges. I still got to see flowers!

I bumped into one of the other groups and got to see birds through the guide’s scope, too.

Eventually, Diane’s group returned and we all got back on the bus for the trip into town. La Fortuna is a small town, but it had lots to look at and a wide choice of restaurants. We joined Mike and Debbie from our group at Pizzeria La Parada for a nice veggie pizza, followed by gelato (it was a hot day!).

We wandered around town until it was time for the bus to bring us back to the hotel, doing a little shopping and looking at the volcano.

We relaxed at the hotel, then got back on the bus to go to Eco Termales Hot Springs for an enjoyable dip. We had dinner poolside back at our hotel and called it a day.