Arenal Stories.

La Fortuna.  i finally saw the volcano without all those clouds during the day!  i had a great view of it also because my hotel was right in front of it all.  i sat outside my room reading Welcome to the Monkey House and glancing up here and there as the mass of clouds were slowly being lifted by the heat of the day.  i finally just dropped the book and watched the last bit evaporated--and there it was the shy volcano, Volcan Arenal.  it's a perfect looking volcano--it's a cone--it's like if you handed a piece of paper to a kindergardener and said "draw a volcano," it would look like that.  perfect.  though you couldn't see any of the lava--you had to go to the other side to see that.  so i booked a tour with mr. lava lava man, who has been doing tours to the volcano for ten years.  this cost me $15 dollars, very cheap considering some of the tours doing the exact same thing were going for $25-35.  he took us to a thermal pool that was free and more natural and full of ticos (not tourists :) ), a lot of the thermal pools in la fortuna have Las Vegan sprinkled all over them complete with water slides, mayan temples and roman pillars and cost a lot...... i'll go for the free and natural pools thank you very much.  after two hours of soaking, he took us to Arenal Lake at sunset.  beautiful!  then to the back side of the volcano to see lava.  it was dark, there were lots of people, the top of the volcano was covered with clouds... where's the lava?  we waited and waited then finally a small rumble and red-hot boulders came tumbling down the side along with a a little lava.  it was soo far away and soo dark i couldn't get any good pictures, sorry!  and almost every 5 minutes, another eruption would go and more lava rocks would come down.  it was pretty cool, i have never seen lava before.  i was expecting a river of lava and lots of fire..

  the next day i went to this place called ecocentre denues or something very close to that, and it offered a path that had many plants and animals to see.  i saw lot's of exotic plants as my ankles were fresh food for the mosquitos (i forgot the deet).  i came to a mesh dome that had a butterfly exhibit. wow.  there were so many of those things flying around. they had many of the famous blue morphos and tons more to see.  after that i walked around a lagoon that had caimans (similar to an alligator?) but i didn't see any.  i was told that there were sleeping sloths in the trees and i was always looking up to spot one, and here i did.  there was this grey sloth hanging onto a tree, sleeping about 3 meters away from me.  very funny animal, it moved a little when i threw a rock at him (just kidding).  they remind me of muppets.  i carried on and went to this frog house, where there were these tiny little red and blue poison dart frogs.  i got some good close up pics of them.  there were other frogs in there but they were hiding (nocturnal).  at the end of the trail there was this guinea pig type thing but with longer legs. i ended up following him around for a while.  all in all i enjoyed myself even though i had many itchy bug bites around my ankles.  the following day (my last day) i got up early to go see the La Fortuna waterfall.  the water is supposed to be a vibrant blueish-green color from some natural chemical ( i don't know).  it took me about an hour and a half to get there in the hot and humid weather, i was soaking in my own sweat when i reached the park.  i took a dip in the cold water watched the waterfall and soon enough i had to head back to Fortuna to catch my bus to Alajuela.  great experiences in La Fortuna.  Now... i just got an email back from Ed (the bamboo guy) and i will head down to san isidro to take a month long spanish course with his wife.  that start the first monday of april.  before that--because i have two-ish weeks to do anything--i am going to go over to the Caribbean Coast and see that side of Costa Rica.  it's supposed to rain a lot even in the dry season and have lots of mosquitos (i have started my anti-malarial drugs).  should be interesting if i get any of the drugs side affects which i hope i don't get.  that's that, see you all in the summer time where the living's easy.