Into the Jungle

I finally feel like I'm in Costa Rica now. San Jose wasn't terrible, but it was close. I spent the last three days in La Fortuna, a town located about 20km from the Arenal Volcano. The day we (Erin, Erica, and myself) arived we walked a few K and found a swimming hole popular with the locals. It was something out of a movie with two waterfalls a few feet high. We saw it from the road and the trail down was somewhat confusing, but some local kids showed us the way. We were definately amusing to them. They showed us their rope swing which we all used to swing into the pool formed between the falls. After going back we grabbed a few beers and passed out. The next day we went went to the main fall and hiked down and back up and then down again and back up looking for the main hiking trail (the fall was the beginning of the trail). Finally a nice local pointed us the right way (it was at the top). After a few tries and things the might make lesser travelers think they were headed the wrong direction (and I thought I was done low crawling under barbed wire for the summer) we found a sign written on a rock pointing us the right direction. As we began to enter the thicker jungle however, we decided the rain had made the trail unsafe and decided to turn back. We did catch one amazingly clear view however of the volcan spouting smoke into the air and heard the rumble of the boulders formed by the cooling lava rolling down its side. That evening we took a guided tour of the rainforest (forgot that I hated guided tours) and got to see some glowing lava spout from the volcan. To cap off the evening we spent three hours in the Baldi hotsprings. Today I caught a bus to Santa Ellena near Monte Verde. Outta time. Will write more later. Peace Guys.

Chaz

P.S. Forgot to mention that a pack of monkeys swung over us while we were hiking. That was pretty cool