When we woke up in La Fortuna on day 3 I saw a sliver of brightness coming through the shades so I jumped out of bed and pulled them open... SUNSHINE! Yay!! From seeing pictures of the cabins we were staying in online, I was under the impression we'd be able to see Arenal volcano from the resort (we hadn't been able to see it yet because of cloud cover) so I told Rich... "I'm going to go for a walk and see if I can see the volcano. I opened our door, took two steps onto our patio... and OH MY... The volcano was RIGHT there... it left me breathless. I said, "Rich, get out of bed, you have to see this!!!" I wish I could express it's beauty to you. I'm almost glad I don't have pictures to post with this, because I know they just wouldn't do it justice. God's artistic ability and eye for beauty is simply amazing! From our front porch it honestly felt like the volcano was just across the street and up some stairs... a lot of stairs. I couldn't contain my excitement so I insisted on waking everyone else up in our group! Each of them gave me the "Are you seriously waking me up on vacation and are you really already in that good of mood?" look, until I made them take the couple of steps out their door... then it was instant "(Insert husband's name) come here!! You've got to see this!!!
We had planned on sleeping in that morning and then taking our time packing and heading to our 2nd destiation, but with the sun out, we had new things on our to do list! Everyone changed in record timing and we were off to hike around the volcano within 30 minutes! We arrived at the park entrance at 7:10am (park opened at 7) and we were undoubtedly the first ones there for the morning. A guide pointed us in the right direction (or so we hoped as he did so in Spanish) Kim insisted that what he was trying to tell us was, "go up this trail, and then come down the same trail". I sure thought there was a lot more said than that... but ok Kim... you haven't failed us yet! As we started our hike... we pondered 1) since we were the first ones on the trail could that mean the animals weren't hidden away from the people yet and might be caught off guard? 2) since the sun is out does this mean we are likely to see snakes not only on the trail, but hanging from the tree limbs that we're walking around at face height? 3) since we are hiking on/around an active volcano, but can't see it because of all the trees, will we get some kind of warning if we need to run away from the volcano instead of toward it? Item #3 became especially worrisome when we began to hear noises... eruption type noises. Rocks tumbling type noises. The first time we heard it, I honestly thought about running... but apparently I was the only one... because the rest of the group kept treking on. Turns out all 3 of the things we pondered didn't come to pass... unless you count mosquitos as animals. I can't remember if I've previously mentioned this... but the trails in Costa Rica aren't like the trails you hike here. Or at least the kind I've been on. I'd consider the trail we were on advanced... and that wasn't only because of the burning in my thighs, they were just very rugged, watch your step type trails. When we got to the end of the trail, we had another beautiful view, this time of the opposite side of the volcano than we saw from our cabin. We were now looking at the side that was erupting (although because it was day time we couldn't see the lava) Basically we saw a lot of rocks tumbling down the side of the mountain. It was worth the hike... but dissapointing that we didn't get to see lava!
When we got back to our van it was 9:00 and free breakfast at the hotel was only served until 9:30. Being that we drove about 5 minutes on paved road and about 25 minutes on a very rough gravel road, the chances for free breakfast were slim, but if you know Rich, you know he took that as a challenge :). Remember me mentioning that I was surprised that they rented out minivans in Costa Rica? If ever Rich was not able to convince me that you should NEVER buy a car that was previously used as a rental... I believe him now! That van... wow... maybe I should be praising it... that thing was a trooper! I'm pretty sure Rich was going a good 40mph on some stretches and well... hopefully you get the picture. I can't remember if I mentioned before that Rich and Matt had put full coverage insurance on the van when they rented it, so the joke every time we hit a really hard bump was "it's ok, we've got full coverage!!".
Is anyone surprised that Rich got us back to the cabins at 9:20??? After breakfast we packed up quick and headed to La Fortuna Waterfall to get a little swimming in before our long drive. As we were climbing down to the waterfall (down stairs the whole way) we noticed how tired the people coming up were and I kept thinking... maybe they should warn people not to come down here. Let's just say... on the way up I was soo determined not to look like those "old people" looked!! Holy smokey pete there were A LOT of stairs to climb!!! I took one 30 second break about 3/4 of the way up (to Rich's ashamement) and forged on. My legs were like jello the rest of the way to the vehicle... I imagine anyone on their way down who hadn't done the trek yet thought I was drunk. But great day all in all!!! Next stop Dominical!
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