Volcano
Trip Start
Sep 06, 2006
1
26
36
Trip End
Sep 01, 2007
San Jose,
Costa Rica
Monday, January 8, 2007
So here we were in Costa Rica. I have alway wanted to come to San Jose, 'Do you know the way to San Jose La la la la la la la la la...... is that the right San Jose? Anyway, I have to say that I was somewhat disappointed with the place. We did try and visit a few of the attractions like the Contemporary Art Museum in the old brewery, but it was closed. The National Theatre but it was closed. The Butterfly farm, yep that was closed too. It was like visiting Paris on a Tuesday but just with much less 'je ne sais quoi.' So we went for some Costa Rican coffee and planned our escape route
1. Riding
.These Costa Ricans are funny, they can`t even spell Arsenal right! Well Arenal was close enough, the name of the town wasn`t why we chose to come here though. The chance of seeing an active Volcano was what dragged us here oh yes! Obviously you can't get too close but we wanted to get close enough to hear and see it. We made the three and a half hour journey from San Jose, well make that six hours. In Central America when someone tells you a bus takes 3 hours its always best to double it to estimate your arrival time.
Volcan Arenal, 3000 odd meters high, is constantly active with hot molten lava pouring down the side of it. Just like when you dip your toast solider into the soft golden yoke of a boiled egg but just slightly hotter and larger. The best time to view it is at night when you can see the lava glowing against the nights sky. What no one bothers to tell you is that its quite hard to actually get to see Volcan Arenal in all its expolding glory! For most days of the year it is covered in cloud, during the daylight hours you might get a glimpse of the whole cone shape but you can`t see the lava at all. In the evening the clouds roll in like a pea soupa so damn thick you can`t even see 20 meters infront of you. So did we get lucky? Well we grabbed a taxi and a couple of beers with our friends from the hostel and went up to the view point
2.nervous?
. We waited, heard some rumbling, (probably my stomach as Cath was rationing our food budget) and stared out into a dark void whilst probably looking in the wrong direction. We waited some more until an hour later when Jorge the taxi man came back to rescue us before we got lost in the mist. So no, we saw no lava but we did hear about a guide called Mr Lava-Lava who could promise you the sights of a BOOM-bastic Volcano. It all sounded like a big scam but i appreciated his name all the same.Costa Rica is great if you have lots of money and are willing to spend loads of it because there are many adventures to be had and there are endlesss tours on offer for virtually everything, queue lots of tourist laden buses. We didnt have much of a budget but I thought we should at least do a Canopy Tour. This consisted of a horse ride up the mountain and basically a series of 9 death slides, zip lines or whatever you like to call them ( I think Cath prefers the term death slide) through tree tops on the side of a mountain! This was pretty cool i thought, although you are quite high up and can feel the tree swaying around in the wind. After the third Cath had stoped talking, for this to happen i know something must be up, something to do with the height i think. At one point Caths harness was digging in and hurting whilst the guide detached her from the line. Cath swore in spanish, a little word we had picked up from Estalin, the father from the family we stayed with in Ecuador. The guy asked Cath if she knew what she had just said, Cath feeling quite confident replied "Si" thinking it ment f*ck. Later on we found out she had basically called the guy a c**t. The guide didn't really speak to us much after that, well not until we bought him a few beers in the bar later on
I did learn to gallop at full speed on my horse that afternoon
3. nice hats!
. One woman decided to fall off, hit her head on a tree and brake her collar bone. I left her there and went to rescue her horse which had run off down the hill. I told her husband that she had fallen off and was hurt, but I possibly didn`t deliver the news in the best way, judging by the look on his face. It's just I didn`t quite know what to say so I begun in the same way you would when telling someone their loved one had just died. It went something like this: "Umm are you David? Umm, theres been an accident, (he is staring at my spare horse with no passanger) Its your wife? Shes errr, shes erm, and shes, err shes, umm... I was trying to do two things at once, very difficult for real men, trying to sit on a horse and talk. Whoah! What Costa Rica also has of couse is alot of rainforest with some really beautiful waterfalls and naturally created pools which you can swim in. So with hangovers, we set off with our bikes for the 5k uphill ride. We both felt quite sick when we got to the top and afterwards read that you shouldnt attempt to cycle here unless you are Louis Armstrong. I did call myself a few names on the way up but not that one I must admit. Also, being a place of volcanic activity there are hot springs to visit. Two of these places are very commercialised and cost an arm and a leg to get in. Luckily the word on the street was to go where all the locals go, in the back door. So with a few beers and a free ride, a small group of us snuck into a disused site and spent a couple of hours in the hot water falls. It made it all the more enjoyable having chilled company and knowing everything was free, sitting behind waterfalls watching the hot water cascade down while I sipped by beer and Cath downed her Smirnoff Ice, well theres always one isn't there, I wonder if she noticed me weeing next to her.
