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Volcan Arenal
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La Fortuna and Volcan Arenal, ****, Monday Feb 12th-13th, 2007..No globalization
Arrived in Costa Rica yesterday after a four hour wait at the super busy border crossing. Slept a quick night in the little town of Tilaran and a quick 6.30am start led us to La Fortuna, home of Parque Nacional Volcan Arenal, the tenth most active volcano in the world.
Everybody says that Costa Rica is different to the rest of Central America but these differences were evident immediately...from the minute we crossed the border to Penas Blancas. The first thing that I noticed was the lack of Central American chicken buses with fifty men halloring the names of 100 locations. There were, instead, a host of coach-like buses that you had to wait in line for..instead of just hopping on the nearest one to you. There were also a great deal less vendors of fruit, fried bananas and bread and the place was a lot cleaner.
There are times then when you realise that Costa Rica has many of the same problems faced by its Central American neighbours. Like the battle against AIDS. This was glaringly obvious when we were crossing the border. There looming over us was a huge billboard warning against the dangers of AIDS. The slogan went. "Aids affects all, it does not recognize borders"..or something to that note..my Spanish translation is not so top notch! Costa Rica has a high percentage population of those affected by HIV.A lot of the travel manuals say that AIDS is most rampant on the Carribean coast of Costa Rica and warn against random flings.
I thought it was interesting to note that while Central America have huge problems with this disease, the only places that we have seen many signs have been in Costa Rica and San Salvador..the two places that are the most populated by Americans. San Salvador with vacationing Peace Corps workers and Costa Rica that is full to the brim with Americans.
After a few hours travelling through the Costa Rican countryside, we arrived in La Fortuna, a chief backpacking and tourist location. And the word "touristy" is an underexaggeration.You enter a shop here and address the employees in Spanish, they answer in English. You ask the price in colones (Costa Rican currency), they answer in dollars. A couple of Costa Ricans pass you in the street saying "what`s up dog??!" in a slow American drawl. Crazy. It`s only a small town but there are many steakhouses etc around. Sometimes you have to slap yourself on the face to remember you`re in Costa Rica.
The volcano itself was very impressive. There are countless "active" volcanoes in Central America, most of which cost about 50 USdollars to climb them but most of the time, you never see anything with the mist and clouds.We were naturally not allowed to get very close to the volcano as its last major erruption was only in 2001 (First erupted on July 27th, 1968 killing 80 people and 45,000 heads of cattle after being dormant since 1500AD) but we saw a lot of spouting lava from our vantage point. We were lucky because the clouds were kept to a minimum and the sky was particularly clear when the dark crept in, making the contrasting, warm, red glow of the lava all the more obvious.
We also did a little guided trek through the forest before settling at the look-out point during dusk. We had a great guide called Luis who reminded me of my Daddy a lot. Not as scattered but very well read and someone who would do anything for anyone. We were, once again, lucky as black cats to spot three creatures that are on the endangered species´ list, these being the spider monkey, the crimson fronted paraheet (a green parrot like bird with red spots on the back of the head) and the agonti. We also saw a great Curasaw which is a large, black bird with a black peacock like design on his head. I`m really getting into spotting wildlife at the moment and where better to try to do it than Costa Rica eh..
Next day, we headed to the world famous National Park..Monteverde..
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