Yesterday Gerardo (the taxi driver we just HAPPENED to run into again the day before) was at our house at 7:30am. We were surprised, since we asked him to come for us at 8am. He came early back in January, too, and we rushed around madly just because "he was here!!!" This time, we decided to go about as usual, and pretend he wasn't there and still plan on the 8am agreed-upon time. We brought our luggage out around 7:55 and around 8:04 we were off to David. When Gerardo let us off at the airport, he said if we ever come back, we are invited to dinner at his house!
Things went smoothly at the airport with only one little minute of worry when the agent said to the other agent "she has two carry-ons". I told the agent that in one was computer stuff and in the other was my camera and he said ok. Whew!! That was it! No worries now. After we get off this small Air Panama plane, we'll get a rental car and then the next flight will be on Continental where they allow more luggage. So, we feel relieved.
The flight went smoothly, getting the rental car took a little while but that went smoothly also and now we are in Costa Rica. We stopped in at the same little fast food joint we always eat at in San Jose (Rosti Pollo) for lunch and then we were on our way to La Fortuna, where we're going to spend the night close to a volcano.
The drive to La Fortuna from San Jose was good. We passed these fields where they had dark cloth covering plants to protect them from the dry-season sun.
The country-side looked quite dry.
Pretty much after we passed these fields, the road started going through tropical rain forest. It was very pretty and there were plenty of scenes to take pictures of, but nowhere to pull off and take those pictures. Of course, we could have done what people do here in Costa Rica, just stop in the middle of the street and do whatever it is they want to do. Everyone does it, everyone knows everyone does it, and everyone knows it could be happening just up the road so it's just something that people know they could run across. But we just kept on driving. Whenever there WAS a good place to pull over, well, everyone else was pulled over there, too, because it usually meant there was a nice river down below or something. Since it was Good Friday, and a holiday, people were out in droves on the rivers just enjoying the nice balmy day.
We've been to La Fortuna before and have lots of pictures of this volcano, but probably none as good as we got today. Here is one of the first good opportunities we had to snap a picture of Arenal Volcano.
And I didn't think it'd come out (the windshield was a little dirty) but this view came out pretty good.
The next few pictures are taken from around our cabin.
These are the grounds that the cabins are on and the view as we were checking in.
This was our little cabin.
Ehhh, it's an ok cabin - looks cute and everything- but it wasn't that clean, the room was too hot, the bathroom is no place to linger in, etc. The big thing this place has going for it is the view to the volcano. It is one of the best views around here.
As you can see, this is definitely an active volcano!!!
When we were in Costa Rica in 1995, we stood in a spot that was much further away from the volcano than where we are now, but from that much farther away spot back in 1995, we could HEAR booms coming from the volcano and then we'd see smoke blasting out from the top. We just can't imagine how that must have been for the people that were as close to the volcano as we are today.
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