La Fortuna

That's a tough one.

I really love La Fortuna, but I don't know if it's underrated.

It could be.

I mean, yeah.

I mean, there's a lot of stuff around La Fortuna.

So, but yeah.

Yeah.

Which means they're still unfinished business.

At this point, we went to La Fortuna, which is around the Arenal Volcano.

By now, we'd started building up quite a little Costa Rican bird list.

Well, to be honest, Claire, you and Daniel had.

And we had rufous-tailed hummingbirds again at La Fortuna.

We had the variable seed eater, the yellow-crowned euphonia, common toady flycatcher and the banana quit.

I love the names of some of these birds.

Collared forest falcon

What is the most breathtaking natural wonder you encountered in Costa Rica?

I'm going to say Volcán Arenal, the volcano that's the center of La Fortuna.

It is impossible to miss.

It feels like everything in that area circles around the volcano.

I remember Costa Rica was a great one.

We did in La Fortuna-

Yeah

... we did, um, a tour of the, um, the-

It's certainly a destination.

Like for instance, you could do, if you and your wife want to do like a 10 day trip, you could do maybe five days at a beach and do different activities like snorkeling or even do a local tour to go see the alligators, you know, because there's different day trips you've can do that are very accessible and then you can head off to the Manuel Antonio and see the sunset at Playa Espadilla or go to the National Park or you know there's all kinds of things you can do and you can travel to Arenia which is the volcano and La Fortuna so if you're planning a trip and I know you're somewhat adventurous from what you told I'll hear you on the radio of your travels that you could it's certainly something you would enjoy very much.

And I don't know if you mentioned this off the top, but when it comes to these flights, these are direct flights, right, out of Montreal?

Yes.

Okay.

From there, you went to La Fortuna.

That's where the big volcano is.

What stood out most to you about that trip?

I think what's really unique about La Fortuna is that a lot of people in the hotels that are around the volcano have volcano views.

So it's really great to be able to wake up and just see it right there from your balcony.

And I think a lot of places offer that.

So I really enjoyed that.

Are there any destinations where you'd like, you know...

It's the usual, right? Mano Antonio, La Fortuna, Tamarindo, Flamingo-ish, basically, you know, Weston area.

Those are can't miss.

Monteverde, I think, is...

If a 12 year old boy designed it.

Yep.

And so I can't imagine any 12 year old boy who would go to their club Rio at the Springs Resort in La Fortuna and

not go,

And I remember the day of, I was like, I did public transit like the whole way as well.

I just like navigated their crazy bus system and found my way up to La Fortuna, which is very popular for sightseeing there.

um it's a great natural phenomenon anyways on my way up my moment where i was like i was sitting in a cafe i was having lunch part of me was debating if i should even have lunch i was like what if i throw this up um and i was like is this a good idea should i be doing this and this was at the beginning of my like solo traveling journey so i didn't have as much confidence as i do now um and i was genuinely terrified like my stomach was flipping around and i was like

This could go really badly.

A lot of people go there for the ecotourism.

I think it's called La Fortuna, which is like a big waterfall and it's absolutely gorgeous.

And they have slots there, which is really cool.

Their wildlife is... very very interesting and very unique um they have great food in both el salvador and costa rica costa rica yeah oh el salvador we found the best tacos we ever had which is kind of interesting after trying i love you baby and so oh you're climbing up there elsa should i hang these again yes yeah do you want to help me Whoa, oh, oh.

yeah

sure what pencil game you show me and we'll play it but uh oh yeah bring it on out yep So Costa Rica, we I feel like we saw a bit of wildlife and that's the one thing we definitely wanted to see.

We really did enjoy going to like the La Fortuna area.

And

Yeah.

So [laughs] before we get into what's now the grander Aranau Ridge, take me back to the original plan of when you bought this land in La Fortuna.

How did you find it? Why did you buy it? And, and what was-

Sure

They have the privacy of their own villas with access to all the amenities of a resort like a hotel, basically.

I mean, Tulamar, Los Suenos, Reserva Conchal, you know, all these big beach resorts, but keeping it boutique, basically.

What, what differences is there when you're master planning for something like this versus six villas in La Fortuna or six villas in Manuel Antonio?

I mean, I would say more the amenities, 'cause now I'm developing amenities, if it makes sense, you know, and hotel operations.