Big Cats, Hot Springs, and Liberia

Please see the first post on Costa Rica for important details about this post.

After spending the night in Cañas, we got onto the Pan-Americna Highway (one of the few fairly well maintained roads) for the trip to Liberia. We did make two stops along the way. The first was at the Las Pumas Rescue Shelter - a large facility that houses rescued (mostly injured) wild cats and has jaguars, ocelots, and other big felines. Unfortunately they were all in wire cages so pictures were not easy to take.

Leaving the shelter, we continued north on the highway to the hot springs called Thermomania near Volcano Miravalles. This is a small water amusement park that uses the water from hot springs and is a lot of fun. Its also much cheaper than the super fancy hot springs around Mount Arenal (the fanciest of which is also right along the lava flow path should Mount Arenal ever have a large eruption).

We finally arrived in Liberia and decided to spend the night in a nice air-conditioned motel very similar to ones in the US. The air-conditioned aspect of it proved to be very helpful the next day. Liberia itself seemed like a nice enough city - definitely smaller than San Jose but also much cleaner and friendlier.