First few days and Volcan Arenal

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I just returned from Volcan Arenal, and all I can say is that I hope every weekend trip is as good as or better than this one. We left San Jose at 6 in the morning and arrived at some random waterfalls a few hours later. We all hiked down the mountain until we arrived at the waterfalls. It was amazing! Of course, we took a lot of pictures and then went swimming in the water. It was very cold but we had a blast doing it. After that we ate lunch and then checked into our resort. Yes, a resort, not hotel. I was suprised that they put a bunch of study abroad students in such a nice place. The volcano was in plain view from the resort and it is one of the most active in the world so we saw it erupt many times. It was the coolest at night because we could see the lava. Anyways, after we checked into the hotel we decided to go swimming and to our pleasure there was a wet bar so we all drank a few drinks before heading to the tobagon hot springs. Words cannot describe how cool this place was. We spent about 2 hours relaxing in the springs. After dinner, we went on a beer run to the next city. How cool is is that we went on a beer run in Costa Rica? What is even cooler is that Doctora Rangel offered to take us. Most people got beer, but me and Christie were in the mood for some fruity girly drinks so we bought a bottle of Barcadi Limon for 10 dollars. I´m not sure how much it costs in the US, but this seems pretty cheap to me. We also got a variety of fruit drinks. In the end, it was really good. We got up early to go to the canopy tour. Before we went, Katie realized she lost her wallet with a lot of money and her debit card in it. It sucks so bad that something like that can happen without even realizing it until the next day. Anyways, after all of that mess we went to the Canopy tour. I didn´t see any animals but it was still pretty cool. We were harnassed (sp?) to the zip lines that went through the canopies of the rainforest. It was a pretty cool experience. I also accomplished one of my fears when I rode a horse to and from the rainforest. I haven´t ridden a horse since I was 14 when I got bucked off, so this was a huge deal to me. After the canopy tour, we came back to San Jose. San Jose is not a bad city, but I can see why tourists skip here just to go to the Costa Rican sites. There are not a lot of things to do or see here. Amalia took me around the city on Thursday and it was really nice, but nothing that interested me too much besides shopping. That is about it for now, so ADIOS!

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