A(aaah)renal
This weekend was by far the best I had in Costa Rica. I was traveling alone since Anna and LaToya were doing their own thing, and I really had a great time. I left Saturday morning for La Fortuna, a really cute town that has become the tourist base for visiting the volcano Arenal, one of the most active volcanoes in Costa Rica. It was dormant until 1968 when it exploded and destroyed some villages, and since then it´s been spewing ash and lava almost continuously. Lately the activity level has been lower, but if the conditions are right there´s a good chance of seeing some ash and/or lava. And I was lucky :-)
I booked an afternoon tour which included a short hike to see the volcano and a beautiful lagoon, during which time we were lucky and the clouds cleared up so we could see the cone. We also heard what sounded like thunder, but was actually the volcano rumbling. Back in the bus we started driving to the hot springs, and it was getting dark. I looked up and saw orange lava spilling down the side of the volcano!! It kept erupting for a while, we watched it for probably close to an hour. Definitely the coolest thing I´ve ever seen in my life. Cooler than the Taj Mahal, cooler than the Pope, even cooler than penguins! Seriously though, it gave me chills. Unfortunately it was dark so the pictures didn´t come out.
Then we went to the hot springs. It´s a whole resort with pools of varying temperatures, a swim-up bar, and a restaurant. There were also cold pools to cool off. Very refreshing. I spent most of the time hanging out with a super cool French Canadian couple who laughed at how I pronouced my last name in English. I also met a German girl, an Ecuadorian man and his Costa Rican wife, and some Spanish girls. You really do meet more people when you travel alone. And the coolest part was that I could talk to everyone on the tour because everyone could speak at least either Spanish or English. The tour guide was kind of crazy though. There were about 15 of us, about half spoke Spanish and half English, and only a few were bilingual. We were all on the little tour bus and the guide starts saying in Spanish, "okay, for those of you who speak Spanish, I´m going to explain a little bit about what we´re going to see. But in general they tell us here in La Fortuna that we should speak only in English because of the tourists. So we´re going to the volcano, blah blah blah...." And he just kept speaking in Spanish the entire time!! I felt really bad for the people who couldn´t understand. And he was clueless as to who spoke which language. During the hike, he says in Spanish, "don´t touch this plant, it will make you itchy and give you a rash." Then he looks at the Spanish girls and says in English, "danger!" They were like, "huh?" Really funny, but again, glad I spoke Spanish or I wouldn´t have understood anything!
The next day I got up early for my waterfall rapelling tour. This was the one thing I really wanted to do in Costa Rica, and I think it may have been the coolest thing I´ve ever done. There were 8 of us on the tour: 4 Brits, 2 girls from Texas, me, and a Costa Rican who was training to be a guide. Turns out the Texans are getting certified to teach English and will be moving to Oaxaca, Mexico in October to teach for a year. We exchanged email addresses so we can hopefully travel together in Mexico. So the guides for this tour did speak English, which was good since it was imperative to know what was going on. We started out on a short walk to the waterfall. To get down to the waterfall the first rapell was from a hanging bridge. From the middle of the bridge you just drop down (slowly of course) on your rope and land in the pool at the bottom of the fall. It was about a 25-30 meter drop, but the waterfall itself was fairly small. The walls of the waterfall were high and narrow with lots of vegetation. Then we had to scramble down over some rocks, jump into another pool (not like cliff jumping, just a hop really), rapell a couple meters down another part, and then the hardest part was at the end. It was about 8-10 meters to the bottom, and we had to put one foot on either side of the waterfall, legs straight, and rapell down. I was wearing my hiking boots, which kept my toes safe and stayed on my feet really well, but they were very, very wet. On the way down I lost my footing and swung into the side of the cliff. I scratched my shoulder a bit, and I have a really nice blueish-greenish bruise on my knee. But I got my foot back and went down the rest of the way without a problem. I was completely drenched at the end. Then just for fun we got to go on a "Tarzan swing". We just swang back and forth, we couldn´t jump off the end because we were fastened in. And lastly we rode horses back up to the top where we started. I had a really great time. The Texan girls bought a cd with the pictures, so hopefully they´ll email me some so I can post them.
I´m back in San Jose, packing and getting ready for Mexico!! I´m so excited to go and look for apartments and get settled. And super excited for Erin´s arrival at the end of September!! Yay! It´s been an interesting month here in Costa Rica, and I´m glad it ended with such an exciting weekend. Pura vida!
I booked an afternoon tour which included a short hike to see the volcano and a beautiful lagoon, during which time we were lucky and the clouds cleared up so we could see the cone. We also heard what sounded like thunder, but was actually the volcano rumbling. Back in the bus we started driving to the hot springs, and it was getting dark. I looked up and saw orange lava spilling down the side of the volcano!! It kept erupting for a while, we watched it for probably close to an hour. Definitely the coolest thing I´ve ever seen in my life. Cooler than the Taj Mahal, cooler than the Pope, even cooler than penguins! Seriously though, it gave me chills. Unfortunately it was dark so the pictures didn´t come out.
Then we went to the hot springs. It´s a whole resort with pools of varying temperatures, a swim-up bar, and a restaurant. There were also cold pools to cool off. Very refreshing. I spent most of the time hanging out with a super cool French Canadian couple who laughed at how I pronouced my last name in English. I also met a German girl, an Ecuadorian man and his Costa Rican wife, and some Spanish girls. You really do meet more people when you travel alone. And the coolest part was that I could talk to everyone on the tour because everyone could speak at least either Spanish or English. The tour guide was kind of crazy though. There were about 15 of us, about half spoke Spanish and half English, and only a few were bilingual. We were all on the little tour bus and the guide starts saying in Spanish, "okay, for those of you who speak Spanish, I´m going to explain a little bit about what we´re going to see. But in general they tell us here in La Fortuna that we should speak only in English because of the tourists. So we´re going to the volcano, blah blah blah...." And he just kept speaking in Spanish the entire time!! I felt really bad for the people who couldn´t understand. And he was clueless as to who spoke which language. During the hike, he says in Spanish, "don´t touch this plant, it will make you itchy and give you a rash." Then he looks at the Spanish girls and says in English, "danger!" They were like, "huh?" Really funny, but again, glad I spoke Spanish or I wouldn´t have understood anything!
The next day I got up early for my waterfall rapelling tour. This was the one thing I really wanted to do in Costa Rica, and I think it may have been the coolest thing I´ve ever done. There were 8 of us on the tour: 4 Brits, 2 girls from Texas, me, and a Costa Rican who was training to be a guide. Turns out the Texans are getting certified to teach English and will be moving to Oaxaca, Mexico in October to teach for a year. We exchanged email addresses so we can hopefully travel together in Mexico. So the guides for this tour did speak English, which was good since it was imperative to know what was going on. We started out on a short walk to the waterfall. To get down to the waterfall the first rapell was from a hanging bridge. From the middle of the bridge you just drop down (slowly of course) on your rope and land in the pool at the bottom of the fall. It was about a 25-30 meter drop, but the waterfall itself was fairly small. The walls of the waterfall were high and narrow with lots of vegetation. Then we had to scramble down over some rocks, jump into another pool (not like cliff jumping, just a hop really), rapell a couple meters down another part, and then the hardest part was at the end. It was about 8-10 meters to the bottom, and we had to put one foot on either side of the waterfall, legs straight, and rapell down. I was wearing my hiking boots, which kept my toes safe and stayed on my feet really well, but they were very, very wet. On the way down I lost my footing and swung into the side of the cliff. I scratched my shoulder a bit, and I have a really nice blueish-greenish bruise on my knee. But I got my foot back and went down the rest of the way without a problem. I was completely drenched at the end. Then just for fun we got to go on a "Tarzan swing". We just swang back and forth, we couldn´t jump off the end because we were fastened in. And lastly we rode horses back up to the top where we started. I had a really great time. The Texan girls bought a cd with the pictures, so hopefully they´ll email me some so I can post them.
I´m back in San Jose, packing and getting ready for Mexico!! I´m so excited to go and look for apartments and get settled. And super excited for Erin´s arrival at the end of September!! Yay! It´s been an interesting month here in Costa Rica, and I´m glad it ended with such an exciting weekend. Pura vida!
posted by Jen at 12:24 PM
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