Profile
Blog
Photos
Videos
Buenas!
It´s Monday afternoon here in Costa Rica and it is very very hot outside. The sun has been shining all morning, but now the storm clouds are rolling in and any minute it is going to throw it down! Refuge in an in internet Cafe!
We have just finished a morning shift at the Orphanage, where today I got to feed baby Suzie (lot´s of food spitting!) got my hair put into pig tails by the girls and taught the children a few new games. We also managed to get them sitting down to do some drawings and word games with the alphabet. Josh drew them a race track on the floor using chalk...which lasted the whole of five minutes as once they started to play on it they rubbed it off with their knees! Also one of the highlights of my day was getting bashed over the head with a toy car (ouch!) and nearly choking to death after one of the children decided to jump on my back with his arms around my neck with out any warning! Loco ninos! I´ve never felt so tired!
We arrived back from our weekend trip late yestuerday afternoon after a long three hour bus ride! (Yawwwwn!) Despite the travelling we had an absolutely awesome weekend. La Fortuna is a small tourist town located at the foot of the Arenal Volcano, one of ten active Volcanos in the world and the second most active. Just to bore you a little...the last eruption was in 1968 early one morning and living half way up the Volcano was a small community of people who (apparently) did not know it was a Volcano and instead thought it was a mountain! When the Volcano erupted early one morning in July the whole village was destroyed and in total 80 people lost their lives.
Whilst in La Fortuna we stayed in Hotel ´La Amistad´ at the bottom on the volcano (on the none active side!) Few...! We spent Friday night having a few drinks and dinner at a restuarant covered in Orange and Red fair lights, conveniently named ´Lava Lounge´ On saturday morning the others arrived (Andy, Paul, Shaun and Wing) everyone except Stewie who had finished his project and was on his way back to Oz. After a wonder around La fortuna we booked on a tour that took us on a two hour hike through the RainForest at the base of the Volcano, to the volcano observation point at dusk to watch Lava eruptions and dinner at the Baldi Resort followed by an evening at the Natural Hot Springs (exactly what I had been waiting for!)
During the hike we saw spiders, exotic birds, snakes and monkeys. This was the 3rd RainForest hike we had done so far on this trip and definetly our favourite! For me...it was the first hike that was not uphill! (and it helped that it ended in dinner and a soak in the hot springs!) Seeing snakes was definetly scary, but seeing monkeys swing from the trees above our heads was pretty cool!
We got to the Volcano observation point just as the sun had set and it seemed to get dark very quickly. We perched ourselves on some rocks and watched for an hour as we saw explosion after explosion of hot lava spurting into the air and making its way slowely down the volcano. Absolutely incredible! One of the coolest things I have ever seen!
The tour then took us to the Baldi resort for dinner and then on to the Natural Hot Springs. Twenty five natural pools and waterfalls of varying temperatures! Sitting in the Hot Springs under the night sky was amazing and so relaxing! (definetly worth the hike!) The pools of water were like hot baths with one pool actually having beds under the water!
We got back to the hotel at about 10pm and spent the remainder of the evening at a local bar drinking cocktails! A pretty Perfect day!
On Sunday morning we treated ourselves to a little lie in and then went for breakfast where we managed to convince the nice waitress lady to use Wings PG Tips and make us a real cup of Tea! It seemed like a simple idea but didn´t work out as we had hoped and instead she brought us six hot mugs of milk! In the afternoon we went to a Natural Waterfall Josh had found on our lonely planet map! A natural pool of water surrounded my beautiful waterfalls and rockpools! There was even a rope swing for the lads to swing from into the water at the bottom of the waterfall.
At 1pm it was time for me and Josh to get the bus back to San Ramon as we had work this morning, but the others stayed for an extra night in La Fortuna. It was pretty spectacular staying at the foot of a Volcano and spending a weekend exploring and relaxing under natural waterfalls and Hot Springs!
- comments