Volcan Arenal - La Fortuna

After another long day of travel and some very lucky connections we finally arrived in La Fortuna in the evening. The drive around the Largo de Arenal was amazing. At one end of the lake stood Volcan Arenal, Central America´s most active volcano, with smoke pouring out of the top of it!

We checked into a nice little motel style place and looked forward to the hot springs and volcano watching the next day. The odd thing about this town and something I still can´t get over is that the only place in the town where you could buy water or well basically anything to eat as a snack was at the supermarket! Not one other small shop selling jiuces, water etc.

$4 for a beer at the poolside bar! Madness!

Anyway...the next day we tried to find out about the visa for Phil to get into Panama. Well it turns out that Panama has some sort of issue with South Africans. It would take us a month and a half of waiting to get the visa, yet Zimbabweans do not need a visa...interesting.

So screw them. They don´t get our money!

Well with Phil´s lip hitting the floor we all set off for our afternoon excursion. A hike around some secondary forest before hitting the viewing site for Volcan Arenal to see the lava pouring out the top and ending off with a couple of hours at the hot springs of Baldi.

Well it was a great afternoon and evening out! On the way to the forest we came across a band of Coatls - a strange mongoose type creature. Obviously they had seen people before because they came in real close. The guides on the bus let everyone get out the bus and get really close to them but I still don´t think that is the type of thing they should be promoting. Animals and people should be left seperate!

Well, the walk was nice and we saw Toucan Sam! Our second Toucan - the first we spotted in Tikal. At the end of the walk we had a great view of the volcano from quite close. We couldn´t see the lava though as that was on the other side of the volcano.

After that we went and sat in the dark hoping to see the lava flow but alas the clouds had come in and covered the volcano completely. We didn´t get to see the lava then, but on the way home from the hot springs we got a pretty good view of the lava exploding out the top of the volcano! Sweet!

So then we hit the hot springs which were around 17 pools in varying temperature and a waterslide! We also discovered that Costa Rica does have expensive beers - $4 for a beer at the poolside bar! Madness!

But we whiled away a few hours hopping from one pool to the next and going down the waterslide a few times!

A great time and all the hot water eased away any aches and pains we had!

The next day we decided it was time to move on and we caught the "Jeep-boat-Jeep" to Monteverde. Now days its no longer a Jeep as the roads are better so it was just a van boat van trip. Not the same but fun anyway!