Leaving our resort this morning was bittersweet. Bitter because we’ve really been able to enjoy each other’s company the last two days here; and sweet because we had such a nice breakfast in our room with fresh pastries and local fruits from the café downstairs!
After our Caribbean cancellation due to rain and flooding, we made last minute reservations at another hotel that is located a bit closer to Poás Volcano National Park and Braulio Carrillo National Park. These two national parks are both doable day trips from the city, and came highly recommended.
The hotel is called Villa San Ignacio, and is less than an hour from the famous Poás Volcano. We arrived at our hotel a bit early, but luckily our room was ready early and we were able to hop on our computer to make online reservations to visit Poás. Though we plan on vising this volcanic national park in a few days, advance reservations are now required through SINAC (Sistema Nacional de Áreas de Conservación, or National System of Conservation Areas) since COVID. It’s sort of like https://www.recreation.gov/ for U.S. National Parks. Similar to Manuel Antonio National Park, you cannot just show up at the park without reservations.
Make sure you go to http://www.sinac.go.cr/EN-US/Pages/default.aspx to create an account and make your advanced reservation! It’s a catch-twenty-two in our opinion…it’s nice to have a ticket ready, but with a national park like this, we just have to hope for clear skies to have picturesque views of the volcanic crater…if not, we get a national park of fog!
Shortly after we arrived at our hotel, it began to downpour. We originally had plans to explore a nearby waterfall, but that was obviously not in the cards anymore. So instead, we decided to continue our relaxation and sit down for a nice lunch at the hotel…absolutely delicious!
The rain did not stop for the rest of the night, so it was looking like another Netflix and chill kind of night…which we didn’t mind at all. As the night went on, the rain continued. It was dinner time, but neither of us really wanted to go out and eat. He navigated our trusty Google Maps and landed on a nearby Chinese restaurant para llevar (to-go). We shared chicken wings and a tub full of chicken fried rice…and we mean FULL!
Tomorrow we plan to explore the dense Braulio Carrillo National Park (fingers crossed for better weather)…so stay posted!