Arenal

Arenal is a famous volcano here in Costa Rica...huge tourist attraction as it has spouted lava continuously since it last erupted in ´68. Went out to see it on a nightwalk with a few other tourists. One lady kept complaining that ¨I just can´t believe there´s no insurance if something happens on the trails.¨ Everyone needs that little safety blanket of insurance I guess; heaven forbid we be responsible for ourselves.

Pretty cool seeing lava from a distance in the night...but the better thing was listening to the boulders come bounding down the mountain. The lava hits air, becomes rock, and down it comes - all day, every day. We were over 2km away but could hear them pretty easily. With that and the howler monkeys I felt...well, close to nature I guess you´d say.

Hiked up an adjacent mountain today to get a good look at Arenal...quite a pretty shape to it. A true volcano. Emblematic. The ´mountain´ today that I hiked up was a dormant volcano with a lagoon in the crater. The lagoon was shaped like a football field but probably 200 meters in width. I´ll swim out in the ocean or across a small bay, but I just don´t feel comfortable swimming in an enclosed body of water like that. Not sure why that is.