We saw lava and a quetzal!

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Hello all, me again! Andrew is addicted to his book. Well, you guessed it, we saw lava which was the most amazing thing ever. We had chatted to other travellers who saw either nothing or an "orange glow" at Volcan Arenal, and I had very low expectations to avoid disappointment. But we just got off the bus and saw the volcano spitting molten rocks again and again. I was surprised at how quickly they moved down the cone. Our tour leader said we were really lucky, and we have decided we are the lucky group because we keep fluking lots of cool things.

Today we travelled to Monteverde, a privately owned but protected area of cloud forest. We hired a guide, and it was sensational. We saw racoons, monkeys, a vulture, hummingbirds, snakes, massive stick insects, a toucan, but best of all, we saw both a male and female quetzal, which is the most beautiful bird you could ever imagine. It is a large bird and very round. They are blue, green and red and the male has beautiful long blue tail feathers, maybe about 40cm long. They have an extremely cute face an they are the national bird of Guatemala. The national bird of Costa Rica is a brown finch which looks much more boring. The guide helped us take some good pictures through the telescope. If you want to see a picture of a quetzal go to http://www.camacdonald.com/birding/Sampler2_Trogons.htm and see the golden headed quetzal, you won't be disappointed, I don't even like birds and I am very excited.

Our guide was full of interesting facts, like that hummingbirds will attack stakes pre emptively in groups. Also, hummingbirds live for 5 years.

This afternoon we are off to ziplining, which is a bit like a flying fox through the canopy of the forest. Tomorrow night we will be in Ometepe, Nicaragua, where there is no internet so you won't hear from us there.

Interesting things: Favourite Spanish word so far - computadora portatil - laptop, rolls off the tongue. Also, pet dogs aren't locked up here, all the dogs of the neighbourhood are friends and don't they just love life. One followed us down to town yesterday and we walked past his buddy and he joined in and both followed us and then another joined in! So cute.

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