Let's See Some Lava!

The very rainy boatride
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So our good fortune with great weather kind of changed the morning of our departure from Monteverde, but we took the jeep-boat-jeep, or more accurately our mini-van, boat, mini-van to La Fortuna and arrived after a scenic journey.

The good thing about La Fortuna is that there are a million of cheap places to sleep, but the bad thing about La Fortuna is that there are a million of cheap places to sleep, and we felt like we had to check everyone of them to see which one is best with a view of the volcanoe.  Of course, none of them were Cabinas Eddy's, all the volcano view rooms were taken up, and La Fortuna was muggy as hell with no beach to jump into, but we decided on staying at the famous Gringo Pete's.  We weren't huge fans of it, but it did the trick and had great rates on tours.

Watch for falling [lava] rocks

The very innocent looking active volcanoe
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The day we arrived it was very cloudy and we couldn't see any of the volcano (only 20 percent of tourists actually get to see it), so we decided to spend the night at the hot springs of Baldi.  The place is pretty crazy and over the top with a maze of different hot/cold pools, waterfalls, and jacuzzis with a view of the volcano, which actually cleared up by night time and we got to see lava spewing out of it which was awesome.

The next day we headed on a tour called Cano Negro, which was a boat tour (thankfully for Gilad since he wanted to give his feet a rest from Sarit's crazy hiking schedule ;) and was really awesome.  We saw some huge iguanas in/falling out of trees, howler monkeys (even an albino one, the only one in Costa Rica), mini-alligators, white-faced monkeys, crazy birds, and the Nicaraguan border which was being guarded by a baby monkey.

Now imagine lava rolling down the side !!
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We got back just in time to change shoes and go on the volcanoe hike through the jungle.  As sun set, we sat as close as it is safe, or at least legal, to watch the volcanoe erupt, which it did and was pretty amazing.

After that we headed back, made some shakshuka in the shared kitchen, got some awesome tips on Costa Rican backpacking from a friend we met, Lulu, and we to sleep hoping we wake up for the 5:15 AM bus out of La Fortuna to San Jose to Manuel Antonio for some more beach/wildlife action....