On fire

---

After the exciting whitewater rafting on the Pacuare River, our next destination is Arenal Volcano.

We arrived at Hotel San Bosco which is located in La Fortuna. The hotel is nice, clean, and inexpensive. From the hotel, on a clear day you can see Arenal Volcano.

Early in the morning, the volcano was partly covered by clouds and the weather was overcast, which made photographing it quite a challenge.

Arenal Volcano is the only volcano in Costa Rica constantly active since it woke up after 400 years with the big 1968 eruption producing huge ash columns, explosions & glowing red lava almost every day. It is considered one of the ten most active volcanoes in the world. It is 5478 feet high.

We spent the late afternoon and evening at Tabacon Resort Hot Springs, a resort close to the Volcano. One nice benefit from the volcano, is we could relax in the mineral pools and hot springs fed by the volcano. There was one of the springs which had a huge cascade of water. A woman sat underneath the falling water, and apparently her swimsuit top wasn't on securely enough, needless to say she "lost it". Our group got quite a chuckle out of it (when she wasn't looking).

We could hear the rumbling of its inner activity, rocks tumbling down the side, and see a trail of liquid lava. At night, the trail of lava was even more incredible! How I wished I had a camera with a zoom lens to capture it at night. I wondered if Arenal was going to blow its stack!

The next day, we went to La Fortuna waterfalls which is 230 feet high. The waterfall is located next to La Fortuna city. The falls were beautiful, the water felt cool to soak my feet in, and the plant life around the falls was lush! Life around the falls was good.

After the falls, we went to a wildlife park. We saw Crocodiles, Toucan birds; Howler Monkeys; Three-toed Sloths, White-faced Monkeys; and a variety of other animals.

Our next day we would head towards the Pacific ocean side of Costa Rica to the Guanacaste area.

---

Photos

Cover up job
Arenal Volcano. Cloud cover seemed to strike again.

Striking a pose
Yours truly posing by the falls.

Bromeliad
These beautiful plants were growing in abundance around the falls.

Crocodile
I think someone left their Mother-in-Law behind.

Try again
Judy and I. We had hoped the day would clear up so we'd have a great picture of the volcano.

Swiss Hotel
I was rather surprised to see a hotel in this style. It is right off Lake Arenal. It's really pretty.

Tempisque River
We took the ferry over this river to get to Guanacaste.