Arenal Volcano and Monteverde

Oh MAN I am behind!

Okay! So. First of all, I absolutely cannot believe that I have already been here a month. I just had my final exam today, so my first Spanish class is already done with! I'll be starting the next one on Tuesday so this weekend we have a long weekend. I'm excited because some girlfriends and I are using the extra day to take our first trip off on our own. We're going to Manuel Antonio - a beach/National Park on the pacific coast.

TWO weekends ago I went on a trip with the university to Arenal Volcano and Monteverde which is a town in the mountains. The very first night of our trip we arrive in La Fortuna, the town right by Arenal Volcano. We had enough time to put our bags in our hotel rooms and change into our bathing suits before leaving again to go to a resort built around hot springs. Oh. My. Goodness. Before I left on the trip I was telling my family that I was going to be going to Arenal Volcano and stuff and they always asked me if I was going to the hot springs, like that was going to be the greatest part of the trip. I didn't understand why everyone got this look of pure delight on their faces at the mention of hot springs. Now, however, I completely understand! Okay, it's hard to describe, but the hot springs are natural springs of water that somehow receive their heat from the volcano. The resort was like a crazy nice hotel built around the hot springs so that there was a series of pools filled with warm water. The pools ascended a hill and as you got up to the higher pools the water got hotter. The very first pool on the bottom was nice and warm and it was built around a bar so that you could swim over and order a drink while you were in the water. I mean, I didn't really care about the bar, but just to give you an idea of how nice this place was. Anyway. About halfway up with the most awesome pool. It had a rock structure in the middle where the water bubbled up through it and spilled over the top, creating small waterfalls that you could stand under. It was just like when you stand in the shower under a stream of warm water. Nice. That's not why the pool was awesome though. It was amazing because it had a WATER SLIDE! Okay, this water slide was serious you guys. It looked harmless, but it was crazy. You climbed up a bunch of metal steps to get to the top, just like any other water slide and then you sat down in the rushing water and went. It was a straight shot down, no curves, but it had 3 humps that you slide over before getting to the bottom. I think that the first 2 humps were to make you think it was fun but when you got over that 3rd hump you skyrocketed the rest of the way down the steep incline and hit the water with a crazy impact! I mean, my bathing suit was just about ripped off my body the first time. That didn't really matter though because no one could see me behind the 10ft high, tremendous splash that happens when you land. Oh man. I went down like 3 or 4 times. It was amazing.

The other really cool part of the hot springs was the topmost pool. The water up there was HOT, just like a hot tub at the beach. There was also a huge water fall up at the top that you could sit/lie under and receive the greatest water massage ever. We stayed up at the top pool for probably a good hour. The water up there was really shallow and you could just lie down in the pool so that your body was just barely completely covered. It was great. After a couple hours in the hot springs we got to eat a buffet in the resort which was absolutely delicious, and then we went in the bus to see if we could see some lava coming down Arenal Volcano. We didn't have much luck with the volcano. We drove to the middle of nowhere so that we could see the back side of the volcano where most of the activity happens. It was completely dark outside by this time and the summit of the volcano was covered in clouds. I saw the tiniest bit of lava leak down the side for a second, but we didn't get to see anything crazy. Our bus driver was tired so after about 30mins we left. It's probably just as well because we had to be up early the next morning.

okay, so the next day, saturday, we went to the La Fortuna waterfall. We had to hike down a path that went through the rainforest. It was absolutely beautiful. The trees were so tall and covered in moss and vines. Some of them had hollowed out insides, like a little house. At the bottom of the path was a beautiful waterfall that crashed down into a pool of the clearest blue water. We all (once again in our bathing suits) jumped into the pool for a swim. The water was absolutely frigid after the hot springs, but who can pass up an opportunity to swim in a pool with a waterfall crashing down about 20ft away? It was really hard to swim in the pool and not get dashed against the rocks because the force of the waterfall was so great. It was a fun game to swim towards the waterfall (you couldn't go very far because of the push) and then let yourself be pushed back towards the bank. We swam around for a while in some of the other, more calm areas of the stream. I talked to one of the guides in the park for a while and then we left to go get lunch.

After lunch we packed up everything and checked out of our hotel. We took a boat ride across Arenal Lake and it was ABSOLUTELY GORGEOUS!!! The lake was surround by rolling green hills with the huge volcano behind us. The countryside reminded me so forcefully of Scotland that it wouldn't have taken much to believe that I was there again. I talked to the captain of the little ferry boat for a while to practice my spanish and then I went and sat down on the other side of the boat to take pictures. One of the guys who worked on the boat came and sat down next to me and started talking to me (in spanish, of course). He asked me if I liked the countryside and I told him yes, I though it was very beautiful. He said "so are you". BAAAHAHAHAHA!!! I tried so hard not to laugh. I managed to get by with just a smile. Oh man. The guys here are something else. Honestly, for the most part they leave you alone but if you start talking to them the conversation usually goes like this: "Hi how are you? Do you have a boyfriend?" It's funny.... Although my dad does not think so. :-)

So after the boat ride we took vans through the gorgeous countryside - I cannot remember a better word for that in English - and watched the sun set over the ocean while dancing in the van to Reggaton. It was great. We arrived at our hotel around 6:30 and had an hour until dinner. I was about to die so I went and hung out with my friend Matt and the guys in his room because Matt offered me a peanut butter and pineapple marmalade sandwich. Matt is basically the nicest guy in our group. We're friends.

We ate pizza for dinner - our group took up the whole pizzeria. It was really good. The crust here is different and the sauce that they use too, but it was yummy. I went to bed early because I'm not much for the drinking scene and because we had to get up super early the next morning. Breakfast was at 6:30 and we left right after for Monteverde cloudforest. Okay, the hot springs were cool (haha) but the cloudforest was the best, mainly because we took the tour on ZIPLINES! Oh man. Usually I am not one for heights, but this was sweet. Our whole group got geared up with the guides helping to put our harnesses on. The guys who was helping me asked me if it was my first time on a zipline in the canopy. I told him yes and he said it was his first time too. I told him he'd better be lying. We received our instructions on how to zipline correctly. They gave us each a pair of heavy work gloves that had an extra strip of thick leather on the palms. At the end of the line you brake by closing your hand on the rope to slow yourself down. We went through a series of about a dozen lines through the canopy. Sometime you were flying through the forest, other times the lines ran over a huge open space where you could see a big picture of the countryside as you zipped along. It was sweet. At the end of each line was a platform -usually high up in a tree- for you to land on. There a guide would unhook you from the first line and secure on to the next one. The whole process was really quick and efficient. And just a side note - ALL of the guide were really cute. I just can't describe how much fun the whole thing was. In the middle of the tour we landed on the ground and walked over to the Tarzan Swing. Okay, THIS was a little scary. We had to climb up a rickety metal structure, get hooked onto the swing, and then jump. Terrifying. Quite a few people in our group opted out, but I couldn't have lived with myself if I had chickened out. (College has made a completely different person out of me, by the way). I climbed up to the top - I felt like I left my stomach on the ground, so I didn't have to worry about that. When it came to my turn I half jumped, was half pushed off into the air. I dropped SEVERAL feet before the rope began to arch back up. At the very highest point my feet were above the trees. It was about as great as a roller coaster. I loved it! As they say here in Costa Rica ¡Pura Vida!
At the end of the canopy tour I was talking to one of the guides and telling him how much I loved the zipline experience. He told me that I should apply for a job. Oh if only! I mean seriously, if I were going to be here in Costa Rica for another 3 months, I would go work there.

The canopy tour was the end of our trip. All that was left was the drive back. It's supposed to be a trip of about 4 hours. It took us 8. We stopped for about 2 hours for lunch - it was hot and I just wanted to get back to San Jose, but on the up side I did get to see an iguana type thing of which I took about a million pictures. He was cool. We made another stop on a beach with black sand. It was kind of pretty in a very different way. When I finally got back to my house in San Jose I was wiped out. Buuut I had homework to complete and then I stayed up talking to my brother Luis for a while. It's all good. Pura Vida.


I'm really behind on news but I'll try and write about this weekend and last weekend when I get back here to San Jose on Monday. Right now I'm off to the beach! ¡Chow!