Wednesday February 2, 2005

This morning we got up and headed through the trail and over the suspension bridge to the restaurant for breakfast.  A big cooked breakfast is included for each day of the stay.  It was traditional Costa Rican with lots of American choices also. 

Click here for photos from Volcano Arenal

At 8:30 am we loaded into a bus and headed about one mile down to the base of the lodge.  Our guide from Arenal Observatory Lodge took us into Arenal Park from there.  We had to forge a small stream to get over into the park but it was an adventure.  We hiked for a while through the woods and there were tons of mosquitoes!  Luckily we all had bug spray on.   Finally we got to what they now call the New Lava flow.  This is an area covered in lava rocks from the 1992 eruption.  It was so cool!  We stood on the rocks and the view of the volcano was perfect!  We were told it was the best view in 6 months!  There was also a gorgeous view of Lake Arenal behind us.  It was hot outside but there was a nice breeze.  Our guide spoke English very well but because of his accent and the speed which he used, we could only understand about every third word he said. 

Exploring the city of La Fortuna (click to enlarge)

We saw leaf cutter ants that were swarming around collecting leaves.  The kids gathered lava rocks for themselves and their friends.  We asked the tour guide what we would do if the volcano exploded while we were standing there and he said to follow him quickly.  He said from the point we were standing in the new lava flow field we had 8 minutes to evacuate if there was a big eruption.  It is typically the gases that kill people rather than the lava.  Very cool to think about – I am glad it didn’t happen!  The tour was over at about 11:30 and we just took it easy for a while that afternoon enjoying our surroundings.  At about 2 pm we headed over to the village of La Fortuna on the north side of the volcano.  We were staying on the west side.  The lava comes down on the north side and can be seen sometimes from La Fortuna.   We exchanged some money at the local bank while we were there.  All of the banks in Costa Rica are guarded by armed guards – it is pretty interesting.   There have been a rash of bank robberies in Costa Rica and so it is pretty secure.  A guard with machine gun is posted both on the inside and the outside of the bank.

We grabbed some dinner at a Mexican restaurant which was rather questionable – the food here is really good sometimes and other times it is not so great.  We looked in some gift shops while we were there and then headed back the forty minutes to the lodge.  It was cloudy so we couldn’t see the top of the volcano so no luck seeing the lava flow!

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