Lava Land here we come

We boarded our bus to La Fortuna ($3 each for the 4.0 hour trip!) on Thursday morning and wended our way slowly up through the hills surronding the central valley and on to the small town where the famous Arenal Volcano is located. Arenal is the only really active volcano (ie lava producing) and people flock in hopes of viewing the lava flowing down its slopes.

I had booked our hotel a few kms outside the town of La Fortuna at one of the many hotels advertising a good view of the volcano and lava flows. (By the way, La Fortuna changed its name to "good fortune" after a major eruption in the 70's spared the town while destroying much of the surrounding area and another town.) We checked into the Silencio del Campo, which means silence of the country, and it proved to be one of the most delightful places we've stayed at. The rooms were all individual cabins with small verandas facing the volcano which loomed above the hotel grounds. The whole area had been wonderfully landscaped in the most gorgeous tropical plants and a small stream meandered through the property. This hotel had been open only for about a year and seems to be an undiscovered gem as we were one of only 2 or 3 occupied cabins. After our complementary fruit punch welcome drink, and a couple of pictures of the large iguana that wandered into the open air reception area (was he trying to check in too?), we settled into our cabin and then enquired from Alex, the young fellow at reception, about tours to the volcano.

We arranged an evening tour of the park which went through the jungle at the base of the volcano and ended up at a view point just after dark where we hoped to see one of the periodic eruptions from the volcano. Apparently the lava is best veiwed after dark, and on this particular day we were anticipating seeing the display as the omnipresent clouds around the peak had not descended to lower levels as they frequently do, eliminating any chance of seeing the flows. (A few days before we had spoken with a couple who had spent 3 days at Arenal and hadn't even seen the cone-shaped mountain, let alone the lava, as it was continually covered in thick cloud.) Anyway, we were picked up about 4:00 at the hotel by a mini van with about a dozen others onboard and we drove about 20kms around the volcano to the entrance of the park.

Our guide led us on a very informative hike through the jungle in the waning late afternoon sunlight, the golden rays giving the forest an incredible orange hue as sunset approached. We saw a number of birds, some monkeys and, strangely enough, a herd of cattle which apparently are allowed to roam free through the park. But the highlight of the walk was our encounter with a small green viper curled up on a palm leaf by the edge of the path. I can't recall its name but our guide said it was indeed poisonous. He asked us not to use flash to take pictures of it as the light hurts the reptile's eyes, so I was unable to get a good picture as it was almost dark by this time. However, it was neat to encounter our first (though not last) wild snake in Costa Rica.

We reached the observation point just after sunset and it wasn't two minutes later that a bright red stream started cascading down the mountain side. Rather than continuous eruptions, Arenal spurts our lava and hot rocks every 20 minutes or so, though this can be quite irregular and you may have to wait quite a while to catch a flow. But we were lucky and we stood transfixed by this most awesome display. We had seen lava oozing out of the ground, slowly expanding and cooling quickly when we had visited the Volcano Park on the Big Island of Hawaii some years ago, but this acutal river of lava was something new and quite spectacular. Within a minute, however, the lava had cooled and virtually disappeared. We waited a few morning minutes, but no other eruptions occurred and we finally headed back to the hotel. The rest of the tour group was going to the thermal hotsprings nearby, but we were kind of tired and anyway...been there, done that...before.

We had our "casada" dinner at the hotel and had an early bedtime. We were up the next morning before six to watch the sunrise behind us in a clear blue sky, and get an early morning, pre-clouds look at the volcano. What an incredible sight it was, the green base giving way to the barren grey and black upper slopes leading to the cone itself, ringed by a few wispy clouds. As we watched we were lucky enough to see another eruption. Although we couldn't see the red of the lava in the bright sun, we could see a series of white puffs as the huge boulders thrown out by the volcano, rolled down the mountside bouncing along and throwing up clouds of dust. Our binoculars gave us a great view of these huge cascading stones which, as our guide had told us, crash down the mountain side at over 120mph, coming to rest at the near the tree line, or even sometimes crashing into the thick jungle. Certainly a sight to remember!

After yet another wonderful tropical breakfast, we took a taxi to a nearby waterfall park. This particular park boasted a huge waterfall and beautiful surroundings and we weren't disappointed. The trek started with an observation platform over the falls which provided a panoramic view of the tumbling water and lush surrounding jungle. Then we set off on the 500 metre descent along a steep path to the base of the falls, to experience the turbulent waters at the base of the falls as the water pounded with great force into the pool at the bottom. A couple of people were swimming in the pool, though obeying the warning signs not to get too close to the thundering stream from above. After a cooling break at the falls, we began the arduous return journey, because as we've learned so often on this trip, what goes down, must come up again. I must admit I wondered how some of the people going down that we met on the way up would ever make it up again as some of them were definitely out of shape and overweight. The night before on our trek through the park, one middle-aged and overweight lady had huffed and puffed her away along the path having to stop frequently to get her breath, causing the whole group to make slow progress. And then, when reached the observation point...what does she do??...lights up a cigarette!! There's no accounting for some folks.

Intent on getting a decent amount of excercise, we walked the 6 kms back to the town and returned to hotel where we refreshed ourselves in the pool. That afternoon we again saw a flow of lava. We were watching the mountain when all of a sudden the clouds around the summit turned red and next thing there were rocks tumbling down the slopes again. The locals think these small eruptions are good in that they prevent pressure from building up and causing a major catastrophe. But I guess time will tell.

The next morning we were again up early but were not rewarded with a good view as the whole area was cloud covered and threatening rain....naturally as it was a travel day for us. We packed up and took of for our jeep-boat-jeep excursion to Mondeverde....stay tuned.