When did one of the most dangerous natural phenomenons become a tourist attraction? I mean is it really a good idea to build a million dollar resort at the base of a volcano? I mean seriously what kind of morons would go to a place like that? Table for two, Beck and Amy. Actually three of us went together to visit Volcano Arenal for the weekend, a very active volcano which has caused significant damage to the surrounding area from major eruptions in the last ten years. It is constantly active, creating small eruptions every day for tourists to come and enjoy (I'm going to be pissed if it turns out its an anamatronic volcano). So after three buses and about 9 hours we made it to La Fortuna, (there used to be another town on the other side of the volcano called La Disafortuna.....) a small town with only one purpose, to collect money from tourists. In La Fortuna everything costs twice as much as it should, they add a 15% tax (which we think is a gringo tax), and a 10% service charge (which they don't tell you about, and expect a tip anyway). We went to eat at a Mexican place, and decided to leave because we felt 30,000 Colones (about $55) was too much to pay for a plate of enchiladas which would normally cost at most 3,000 Colones. At any rate, we found a hostel and another traveling buddy, making us four: Amy, Ryan, Gunhild and myself. Our hostel kindly offered us to drive us to the volcano for a fair price of $35 per person (the park was less than 5 miles away) so we opted to rent a car for the day. I offered to drive and return the car, but only Ryan had the appropriate ID so he rented it under his name. I really should have specified that I don't drive stick.... At any rate so there I was, driving a stick in a third world country where there really were no traffic laws, nor anyone to enforce them. We did however read on a sticker in the card that the minimum speed was 40 kph....
So there I was, driving the stick, only having stalled only once before leaving the parking lot (every clutch is different, right?) and eventually we found our way to the entrance of the park around 2:30PM. The volcano can be seen from anywhere, but the lava was only coming from one side so if you want to see it you have to observe from this park. So I pull up to the gate, and we pay. Then I nervously try to get the car moving, and stall. I smile and nod at the nice lady in the window, restart the car and proceed to immediately stall again. Third times the charm..... stall. At this point the woman angrily yells down at me from the window (in the best English I have ever heard a Tico speak), “Sir, there are people behind you!!” . And then I was off..., out of the driver side door as Ryan, our only respectable stick driver, ran laughing out of the passenger side door and took over for me. Now what made this really funny, is that the women at in the window thought we were ass-hole gringos making jokes, where-as in reality we were just incompetent gringos making jokes. The other additional bit of humor in this is that this is not the first time I have held up a line at a gate trying to get a stick to go. I remember the same thing occurring trying to cross the Arizona-California border with Theo, and the Canada-US border with Yosh. Its really a tradition for me now....
At any rate, eventually we made it into the park, which was very cool. We hiked up to the “view point” and watched the volcano belch smoke and make a very scary growling sound. The sort of sound that makes you think “I should be running, why am I not running?!”. So we ate lunch, enjoying the occasional eruption and chatting about our travels. We then decided to check out the trail that circumvents the base of the volcano. As we started to hike we were surrounded be 15 foot tall reeds and were soon startled by a strange sound. It sounded like someone was electrocuting a rooster. It turned out to be a large black bird that was trying to impress another large black bird. The bird was performing a matting dance that started by ruffling its feathers in such a way that it literally sounded like electricity, during which it was leaning further and farther off the branch until it reached a point where it's legs were parallel with the ground and then suddenly jerked back upright making a sound like an extremely loud “coo-coo” from a coo-coo clock. After observing this amazing display, we continued to cross a HUGE lava bed, that had a sign on it stating that this was the extent of the 1992 erruption, and that it was extremely dangerous and that if you can read this sign you should be running, or sacrificing a virgin. We decided the best thing to do was to take a picture with the sign! Cool!
We continued our hike, hearing howler monkeys in the distance as we delved into a thick jungle. Seeing a toucan in a far tree, and then having one land directly above my head was amazing. It's beak was as long as its body, sweet!! We continued our quest for monkeys, as the sun began to set Amy decided it was time to see if vines can hold her body weight.
The jungle it became far too dark, far too quickly so we decided to turn back. We never found any monkeys but we did see some head-sized morpho butterflies dancing together.
As we rose out of the jungle, the sky was on fire, not from the volcano, but from the sunset which was unreal.
We continued on to the lava bed, which we decided was the best view of the volcano (hoping that volcanoes are like lightning and never strike the same place twice).
The volcano exhibited two fantastic behaviors. One of which was lava flows, which was this flow, like water, but you can only see the “crashing” of the front, which is still molten. It would jump in bounds of bright red light, and the pause and jump again. The other behavior was red hot boulders which were blown from the top, and then bounced as the fell to the bottom of the volcano (not towards us thankfully). After watching for a few hours we decided that we should finish the hike back, in the dark. We lost the trail in the lava bed, and were yelled at by a local guide telling us that there were many poisonous snakes and we shouldn't wonder. Thanking him, we asked him were the trail was and we followed it for ten feet, and lost it again. Eventually we made it into the reeds, where Amy found some amazing glow-in-the dark worms, SWEET! When we reached the car we noticed that we were the only car left in the parking lot, weird huh? So we decided to make a loop back up to the “viewpoint”, which was nowhere nearly as good as the lava bed. We were soon stopped by a ranger who informed us that the park had closed to the public four hours earlier (interesting that the nice lady at the desk didn't tell us that the park was closing at 3:30 when we entered at 2:30). He escorted us to the exit and opened the gate for us. After that we headed back to town for pizza and beers laughing about how we had managed to be the most retarded gringos in town.
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