Tourist attractions that trick you into paying for exercise are a category I usually pass on. When we went to the US Open, I encountered that big weird shiny honeycomb-looking thing in NYC which charges you ten bucks to walk to the top. No thank you, I am not paying you to walk up seven billion steps. I am not a fool. Also, it’s called the Vessel, and I don’t think I am edgelordy enough to qualify for entry or to become a vessel myself.
However, the exception to that is if the attraction is a waterfall. La Fortuna waterfall, to be exact. It’s over 500 steps of jungley, slippery fun. It’s also $20 to enter. That’s at least double the fun of the Edgelord Vessel. Who isn’t enthused by this proposition? Besides my calves.
It’s just a little ways out of town, in a slightly bougier neighborhood than I cared to pay for when searching for lodgings. You travel up up up a winding road, with a nice view of fancy houses and glimpses of a rushing river beneath. Surely this river, so far below us, is the river that the falls empties into. (It is)
They have you back the car in to park it and man I am glad I am not driving because I cannot park back it in as the sign demands.
To enter, you sign a waiver that probably says something like you’re responsible for your own fate if you’re an idiot (Who reads those things? Not this idiot). You also pay $20 per person which seems outrageous, so I take solace in the fact that this place is nicely cared for and the bathrooms are unexpectedly fancy.
Once you sign your life away, also promising not to swim at the base of the falls, you sign in (ominous???) and get a wristband. Cross a little metal bridge, pass the gift stores and little restaurant, and you can gaze at your prize: a view of the waterfall across the canyon. Ooh, ahh. My legs are already trembling.
And so, your voyage down 500 stairs begins.
There were legion. They were wet. They were at least not slippery. There are peeks of basalt columns between the green jungle plants, reminding you that there be lava somewhere nearby, even if the volcano is too cowardly to show us its face through all the rainclouds.
At the bottom, my weak little legs were quaking, but we made it! There was a nice viewing platform and you could splash around in the cold-ass river. They also had a security guard and I do not envy that dude his trek up and down those stairs many times a day.
We beheld the falls. They were mighty. They were splashy. They were ice cold. There was definitely a lady there who was instagramming her booty with her boyfriend. You go, booty lady.
And there was basalt! Lots of basalt!
The water was really cold, which felt great on my feet after going down seven billion stairs or whatever I said earlier. There were lots of people enjoying a swim in the river, and I’d definitely freeze to death in the surprisingly cold water.
I dawdled at the base for long enough to put off the trek back up. The stairs are actually quite small and I think down was a lot worse. Rhett kept telling me we were only 1/3 of the way there. He is so helpful.
That strategically-placed restaurant at the top was well-poised to take our money after we emerged from our exercise that we totally paid for. It offered us very comfy chairs and fresh fruit smoothies. My $20 entry fee is hard at work, I see.
When we get home, the volcano is the Most Out It Can Be (which is slightly more than anything else we’ve seen it). I am starting to think the volcano isn’t real and is actually a paid actor.
