Costa Rica 2000

Tuesday, August 8, 2000  - La Fortuna, Arenal Volcano
 

On day 10 of our 2 week vacation, we ate breakfast at the hotel.  Then we took a 2 mile nature hike thru rain forest to get to the lava flows.  When our bus driver took us to the area where we would begin our hike, we were at a trail head.  I was hoping for a nature center with a bathroom.  I asked Elston when would the next '"happy stop", his words, would be.  Not for a couple of hours. :(    We hiked from about 9 am until noon.  The first part of our hike was rain forest (secondary growth), and the next part was non-native plantings that looked similar to sugar cane, but people use the stem part in decorative stuff in houses - like bamboo.

Black-shouldered Kite (aka White-tailed Hawk)            Secondary rain forest growth.

Left to Right:  Elston, our guide; (I forgot - sorry), Asher, Skyler, Matt, Jack, Connie, Jerry and Annie.  Not shown are Mary Ann and her husband Glenn and their youngest son, Josh; Sam and Max; and me, Patty taking the photo.  On the right is Patty, Asher and Skyler at the base of Arenal at the lava flows.

Along this walk, Elston gave us some insite on the area, as usual.  We stopped by a Cecropia tree while he explained how it fit into nature.  In rain forests, epiphites are plants that grow on trees and other plants.  They are not parasitic to the host plant, epiphites only use the trees to get closer to the canapy and to the sunlight.  Due to the abundant moisture, the epiphites wick what they need from the air.  The Cecropia tree has no epiphites growing on it.  It has a hollow trunk with white bark.  If you look closely at the bark, you will see many small holes.  These holes were made by the ants, and ants use the inside of the tree.  The ants keep the epiphites off the tree.  Since the tree is hollow, it could not support hundreds of pounds of epiphites growing on it.  The ants benefit from the Cecropia tree, and the tree benefits from the ants.  Sloth are often found in Cecropia trees.  The leaves are one of their favorite leaves.

I learned something about volcanos.  When I heard we were hiking to the lava flows, I thought HOT lava.  Nooooo, that would be too dangerous.  We hiked to the old, cold lava flows - black lava rocks.  Elston thought that it would take a year for the layers of hot rocks to cool.  I told Elston what I thought I saw the night before was rocks bouncing out of the top of Arenal and falling and breaking down the side of the mountain.  Before, I thought lava flowed out of the top in a hot, liquid state.  He said that Arenal lava was hot rocks, but other volcanoes like in Hawaii did have hot, molten, liquid lava.  Arenal is constantly errupting.  From where we've been, we can't see it in the daylight, but it is very visible at night.  Two weeks after our vacation, Arenal errupted more violently, and 2 tourists and their guide were hit with hot gasses and ash.  Two of them died.  We were not in the area they were in.  Shortly after that, a plane of 10 people crashed near the lava flows on Arenal, apparently flying closer to look at the recent lava activity.

There were lots of black lava rocks as seen above.  Across from the volcano was Arenal Lake which supplies 40% of Costa Rica's electricity.  Their dam overflow is not like ours (that I know of).  There is a small house-like cement structure in the water.  When the water gets high enough to go into the windows, it does, and goes thru a tube under the lake and out the other side of the dam.

We ate lunch in La Fortuna.  I had bean soup (sopa negra).  It was runny black soup with onions and something nasty like raw oysters in it.  But it wasn't oysters, it was 2 eggs dropped in while the soup was hot.  It was not my most favorite meal, but I like to experiment.  Skyler had a taco, Asher had a chicken sandwich.  After lunch we walked across the street to an internet store.  There you pay after you use it.  The price was 450 colones for 10 minutes, 60 colones for each minute after that.  We read three short notes from Dennis and sent Dennis a note.

After that, we voted to go to Tabacón Hot Springs.  I'm sure glad we didn't do something else.  It was magnificent!!  It sat beneath Arenal and the water was hot tub temperature since it was heated by the volcano.  The hot water was natural, but the channels it followed were man-made.  There were many small streams with waterfalls built just to the height that when you sit under one, the hot water is flowing right over your shoulders.  The one below was designed to stand and have the water come over your head.  There was a place to get out of the water behind the big waterfall.  It was not always easy walking in the streams because the flow of water was fairly strong, but also because they left the bottom somewhat natural with lava rocks - sharp.  The scenery was wonderful, howler monkeys were in adjacent trees.  There was one water slide and a pool with a swim-up bar.  Also a kiddy pool.  Best water park I've ever been to!  We swam from 3:15 until 6:30 pm.  Since the view of the volcano was unobstructed, we went back to the same restaurant for a night view of Arenal.
 

Tabacon Hot Springs.  On the right:  Sam, Josh (standing), Skyler, unknown in forground, Asher in red suit.