Day 5 Saturday 29th September: seeking the road to our Fortuna

Mike writes: up early to watch the Russian Grand Prix qualifying and listen to the Ryder Cup before heading north east to Costa Rica’s most heavily defended beach [three armed guards] at Playa Dona Ana where we saw macaws, monkeys and mosquitos. Mostly mosquitoes though.

After the mandatory breakfast of beans and rice – with a view of pelicans swooping on the sea – it was off to La Fortuna to see the Arenal volcano.

After much trial and error we got the GoPro and the music working with great effect – so much so that we went 20kms past the turnoff and then the wrong way down two one way streets looking for the road to La Fortuna!

The cross country route back into the rain forest took us past Laguna de Arenal and to our hotel which boasts views of the volcano.

Sadly the volcano is now both inactive and, for today at least, invisible thanks to low cloud so we toured La Fortuna, a ramshackle off season tourist town.

As we head off for dinner through the rain, we hope for clearer weather tomorrow so we can see the areas main attraction – Mount Arenal Volcano.