Mt Arenal, hanging bridges and hot pools

This is Mt Arenal at sunrise.  

We were up again at 5 to go to the Hanging Bridges to find forest birds today. This is what greeted us as the clouds lifted and the sun began to come over the forest.  Never did see the top and now as I write this the entire mountain is wrapped in cloud.  The shape reminds me of Mt Baker minus the snow and other mountains around it.  Basically a volcanic mountain, and it is still active because steam escapes on a regular basis. 

Belw is a shot of one of the bridges. The view from this stop was the forest canopy which is amazing to see because most of the time we are walking and looking up...hard on the neck....FYI. Our cute guide was super knowledgeable and the two other women were French, curious and interesting to spend the morning with as we walked along in the forest. 

After spending three days looking primarily at water birds to was a treat today because forest birds, while harder to spot, are so brightly coloured.  See the Green Backed hummingbird below.  By the way, I've basically given up on my camera and am just using my iPhone to do photos because it is so much easier (I'm such a shill for Apple). 

Not surprisingly, we were exhausted after about 5 hours of walking and birding this morning and were delighted to find out that our lodge has not one or two hot pools but about 10.  The best part is that they were empty (it was lunch time) so we tried most of them out and even had an iguana come for a visit at one pool,  a fast moving lizard at another. 

 And to please the tourists they have a wet bar in the pool at the bottom of the hot springs.  Water is warm, there are stools to sit on in the water, the ski jumping at the Olympics was on TV.   Just for verisimilitude I ordered a mohito....

Oh and we saw a Toucan in the wild like this one!!!!