Cerro Chato

After our road trip with Kai and our little adventure through Puerto Jimenez, Katie and I managed to fit in one last hike in La Fortuna. We were headed back there anyway to pick up a big bag of stuff that we had left behind. Lideth, our landlady at the House of Dreams was nice enough to let us store our stuff at the house while we traveled around to Nicaragua and on our road trip. It was so nice not having to deal with all our stuff the whole time! We planned our trip back to La Fortuna quite nicely, giving ourselves time to do the hike to Cerro Chato and also pick up our stuff from the house to take back to San Jose. We had wanted to do the hike the whole time we were living at the House of Dreams but the house was so dreamy it was hard to peel ourselves away. 

The Volcano - still lookin' good from the balcony at Gringo Pete's 2

Being in La Fortuna was different this time around. It feels like home because we spent so much time there but this time without the our House of Dreams we felt a little displaced. Our favorite internet spot in town, Luigis, didn’t have any rooms available so we spent some time wandering around wondering where to stay. We ended up at Gringo Pete’s 2. It was a nice place, painted purple all over so I liked that and we got our own room!

The next morning we got up early and headed out for Cerro Chato. Cerro Chato is a dormant volcano crater with a laguna inside next to the Arenal Volcano. Cerro Chato is Arenal’s older brother and it was first active then went dormant. Now Arenal is more active and Cerro Chato has been living in the shadow of his younger, taller brother for some time now. 

Our hike was fun and a guy named David who we met at our hostel tagged along too. It was a gloomy, rainy day but nice for hiking because it wasn’t too hot. The hike was pretty strenuous, climbing up hill all the way into the misty clouds. At the top we hiked down to the Laguna in the crater but unfortunately for us because the weather was so bad it wasn’t much of a sight to see. Katie and I had a great time taking lots of photos the whole time squeezing the beauty out of every scene. 

Our hike did not take up as much of our day as we thought it would and it was a good thing we had the afternoon free to take all our stinky clothes from the road trip over to the laundromat in town. After some internet time we went back to Gringo Pete’s and enjoyed a bottle of our favorite wine and reminisced about all our good times in La Fortuna. 

The next day we were all repacked and ready to go with all our stuff! We went though everything the night before and came up with a nice little pile of things to give away to our friends Frankie and David. 

Kirby wanted this bag from the moment she saw it. Now she has it and her duck has a new home. I got one too! Woo hoo!

After some souvenir shopping we were once again on the bus back to San Jose to await Amy’s arrival. Katie and I always have so much fun together no matter what we are doing and this bus ride was no different. We have been working hard to organize all our photos from this trip, throwing out the bad ones and separating them out into folders for everyones viewing pleasure. 

We worked on our photo project on the bus and shared some laughs while taking in the sights and we were treated to a gorgeous sunset too! 

Here are the photos from our hike we hope you enjoy!! It was a fun picture taking day with lots of beauty to see!