Volcan Arenal

Well, lots has happened in the past week. After Jaco, I said bye to Leslie and Miguel, and headed down to Quepos, to visit park nacional Manuel Antonio. Found a nice, new backpacker joint for $7US, which in Costa Rica is pretty cheap, then headed out to the park the following morning. Wow, it was truly breathtaking. At some points along the trail I was surrounded by monkeys overhead, who seem to follow you as you walk. The park is thick, thick primary forest that meets long stretches of white sand beach and huge cliffs...I'll get some more pictures up next time I get free internet...it takes a while. After a long day, I met up with 2 israeli girls at my hostel, and we all travelled back up to San Jose together. They took off the next morning back home, and I bussed up here, to La Fortuna, Volcan Arenal.

Wow, it's gorgeous here...again. The volcano towers out of a large plain in Costa Rica's central lowlands. At night, you can actually see lava spweing out of it and down the sides. In fact, in 1968 an eruption wiped out this entire city I'm in now, killing almost all the inhabitants, but it hasn't been dangerously active since then...hopefully they'll let us now before it blows again. I found a hostel last night, packed with Aussies. For some reason for every Canadian I meet down here, I meet another 10 aussies...wow they're savvy backpackers. Anyways, this morning I rented a bike to get upto the volcano, then sat in some hot springs, and came back in the pouring rain.

I booked a ticked on a boat ride across Lake Arenal for tommorow, where a jeep picks us up and drives us to Santa Elena, Monterverde. I also just got an email from one of my friends from the Quebec exchange who happens to be about 20 miles west of me right now....coincedence! Anyways, hopefully we'll meet up, her plan is to go through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala too!, so we'll see what happens.

That's it for now, I promise some more pictures really shortly, I've taken tons so far! Hope everyone's doing well, and watching lots of hockey fo my sake (what kinda place doesn't show hockey, ridiculous). Till next time.

Pura Vida,

Ian

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