Arenal Volcano

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ENGLISH

...The jam packed bus took 5 hours... 5 hours and we finally hit La Fortuna in the pouring rain (Oh Joy!)... The Cerro Chato Eco Lodge was not that Eco. It's only claim was to only use locally produced stuff i.e. soap!

The volcano in the morning was...well... how can I say... indescribable. In fact it was invisible due to the cloud cover. Also it rained all morning. A bit like the UK really. Thankfully in the afternoon, sunshine and blue skies meant the volcano could be seen in its full glory and we decided to walk the 1 hour or so to the waterfalls and then the 3 hours up Cerro Chato. This mission was aborted when it started pissing down...again! We thought it better not to get washed off the dormant volcano by a torrent of mud on day 4. We'll call this a warm up. It was raining again next morning but we made it to the canopy zip line thing in the afternoon. To get there required an hour long world's-bumpiest-tractor-trailer-ride up another hill but the zip lines were fun. That was just enough of La Fortuna and Costa Rica. Two days of muchas muchas $$$ and the rain had concluded our tour of Costa Rica and sent us speedily on our way to Nicaragua. Only 6 buses you know .

FRANCAIS

...Le trajet sur la longue route sinueuse et dans un bus plein à craquer dura 5 heures... 5 heures au terme desquelles (oh! bonheur!) nous arrivions enfin à La Fortuna... sous une pluie battante.

Le lendemain matin, le volcan était... comment dire... indescriptible. En fait, il était surtout invisible en raison d'une épaisse couche de nuages... produisant toujours une pluie battante. Le ciel se dégagea en début d'après-midi, dévoilant enfin le volcan Arenal dans toute sa gloire!
Le temps si soudainement clément, nous voilà partis pour l'ascension de Cerro Chato (petit volcan inactif qui traine dans les parages de La Fortuna). Malheureusement, à 700 mètres du sommet, nous étions contraints de mettre fin à notre mission en raison de... pluie torrentielles, notre chemin commençant peu à peu à prendre des allures de chutes du Niagara.

Le lendemain, encore de la pluie. Un parcours d'acrobranche dans des arbres de... 500 mètres de haut. Enfin... Peut-être pas tout à fait mais pas loin...

Le surlendemain, pluie. Et c'est ainsi que se conclut notre séjour au Costa Rica: par de la pluie! Direction: les plages et le soleil du Nicaragua!... Moyen de transport: pas moins de 6 bus (des vieux bus d'école américains recyclés datant des années 50)...

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Photos

Mirador Paraiso
"Paradise" viewpoint. Paradise was a very muddy place run by cows

Comments

[sharif]

good...
to hear you have landed safely.... un petit enquiry...how do you decide what to write?...does jay decide then nathalie translate it into french, or is it the other way around?...have you considered each writing something different...then perhaps jay can give us a humourous anecdote about nathalie each time, and then nat can give us one about jay, which because its in french, we'll all be able to understand except jay...! just a thought... ;o)

[Ritch]

Same, same but different
It's been much the same here - except for the volcano and I've not been on a tractor this week...yet!

[lomic]

rain in costarica
salut les ptit loup c marc toesca du top 50, ben alors de la pluie au Costa Ricard, tient vas y jean louis change pas de main, c'est moyen mais apres tout il pleut pas quand hollande, ca fait plaisir. Allez Jean Louis arrete de deconner je bosse la, bon d'accord mais le dernier pour la route. Sounds like fun after all, these american people checking if you are no terorist, ah they always feel important... Anyway I wish you a lot of funky story for the future . Stay human G

[Martin]

Go Brother