Rincon de la Vieja

We took a day trip another volcano, Rincon de la Vieja, about 30 minutes from Liberia. All and all, it was just over an hour drive for us, which would have been less, if the road leading to the park would have been paved. It was about a 30 minute drive down a gravel/dirt road. We had just planned on staying the night in a hotel near the volcano, because we expected it to be a longer drive.
First, we drove to Buena Vista Lodge and Adventure Center. This is where we had originally planned on staying the night, and they had a long waterslide that Candler wanted to try out.
Well, we drive up and the place is huge...and empty. Creepily empty. At this point we are still planning on staying the night though. I ask if we can go on and get a room since we didn't want to leave our bags in the car, but they told us no. No? I knew they were empty, but they would not let us check in early. We were a bit hungry, and decided to get breakfast before we did anything, so we headed to the restaurant. No breakfast, due to it being low season. I get a can of diet coke, Alberto and Don both get a cheap beer, and Candler gets a Fanta. A guy starts to tell us about their combo deal, where we can do a canopy tour, horseback riding, the waterslide, and some other stuff. He says to ask at the front desk for the prices. We finish our drinks and go to pay. When we pay, we realize Don and Alberto's cans of beer were both $5. What the hell? This place is so out. We are going to leave and ask for directions to another hotel I had looke at online. While getting directions, the guy that was telling us about the combo ticket comes up. He asks if I got prices yet on the combo ticket with them, and I said no. He pointed to a woman that was sitting next to the lady giving me directions, and said she will give you prices if you want. Do you want the prices? I said sure. Silence. More uncomfortable silence. Ok....how much is the combo ticket I ask? She gives me a price, and I say thanks and just walk away. That place was so creepy.
We decide to leave, and drive to another hotel, Hacienda Guachipelin, which is no where near the first. It's on the other side of the volcano and down yet another gravel road. While leaving the first hotel, turn a corner and there are 2 men on horses herding cattle down the street. Once we arrive at Hacienda Guachipelin, we see that they are actually busy and get a little better feeling...but that will be short lived. We are still thinking about staying for the night - so we can do their combo ticket deal and then wake up in the morning and hike. I ask how much for a room, and it's $100...more than we really wanted to spend, but still we are considering it. I then ask about the adventure tours, and they send me down to another building. Once there, the guys don't really know why I've been sent down to their building, because I am to buy the tickets from a woman that was in the reception area. I go back to the reception area and ask for the lady they've told me to buy the tickets from. The people at the reception desk look at me blankly. I send Alberto over since he speaks spanish. They tell him the lady is on the phone and will be out shortly. 15 minutes later, the woman is off the phone, and talking with some other woman with a large breif case. 20 minutes after that, we finally get to buy the tickets. We had already done a canopy tour, so we decided to do a horseback ride to the falls, lunch, tubing down some rapids, and then to the thermal springs spa. We have to leave immediately for horseback riding, if we want to be back in time for tubing. The horseback ride was good, everyone stayed on the horse, but when we came to a stop at the waterfall, Candler's horse decides to rub up against a tree, and Candler starts crying. We quickly get him off the horse and walk to the falls. There were some people already there, and a few of them were jumping off into the pool below. Don of course runs over to do it, and I think I might actually give it a go. I walk to the top and immediately think it is higher than it looked from where I had previously been standing. I make Don go first, so I know where to jump, and because I was getting ready to chicken out. I stood there for about 30 seconds looking down, and knew if I stood there any longer there was no way I was going to do this, and just went for it.
We didn't have long at the falls since we had to get back to leave for tubing. Once we arrived back from the falls, we were told to head to lunch (we still had not eatten anything at this point and my arm was starting to look tasty). Only problem, no one told us where to go. After wandering aimlessly and hungry, we stumble upon the feeding trough - and realize we have 15 minutes to stuff our gulletts. We shoveled our food and I go to find out where we are to go for tubing. When I asked the woman that sold us the tickets, where we were to go, she looked at me as though I told her was fat and smelly - a "how dare you ask me questions" look. She said we had 30 more minutes and were to meet back with her - glad she originally told us we had to be ready to go at 1:30, but changed it to 2. Hooker. I go back and tell the boys we have 30 more minutes, and we enjoy some coconut flan before our tubing adventures.
After some dilectable flan, we board a big yellow school bus that amazingly drives through the jungle to the drop off point for tubing. The drive through the jungle in a school bus felt like the beginning of a horror film. Tubing was awesome! We went down class III rapids in a tube - with helments and life jackets of course. Berto fell in three times, the first time when he was trying to get into the tube, and I fell out once. It was about an hour ride, with the last rapid being a 3-4 foot drop.
After the tubing...heaven. Mudbath and hot springs. Actually, first we went back to the hotel reception to ask my favorite lady where to go next and if we needed a change of clothes for the spa. She said no change of clothes. Yet again, hooker lied. We get to the spa, change into our bathing suits, and sit in a sauna for about 20 minutes...to open the pores for the mud bath. Well, the mud bath, really was like mud painting. Not quite what I had envisioned, but still, I got to play in the volcanic mud. We went to the "mud painting" area, and there were two large rock columns that had a hollowed out bowl shape in the top, filled with volcanic mud. In the mud were large paint brushes, so we basically got to have a mud fight. Once we were all grey head to toe, we let the mud dry and then made our way to the hot springs. The hot springs fed into the bottom of a large jacuzzi, and you just hopped in with the mud still on. The jacuzzi looked like a pool of chocolate milk, warm chocolate milk. We chillaxed in the hot tub/hot springs for about 30 minutes, and realized the fury we felt earlier with the customer service, or lack there of, had faded. When our time was up, we went back to dry off, realized we DID need a change of clothes - but oh well, we were so relaxed we didn't care - and we hopped in the truck back to the hotel wet. We decided very early on that the last thing we wanted to do was stay at the disorganized trainwreck of a hotel, so when we got back, we quickly got into dry clothes and high tailed it out of there. The drive back was so peaceful and relaxing after the spa. I think there were sedatives in the water that seeped into my pores. So all and all, if you ever make it to Rincon de la Vieja, the tubing and spa at Hacienda Gauchipelin is a must - but be prepared for the chaos and disorganization of the staff.