Volcan Arenal

This past week, we had off from school because of Semana Santa (holy week). Since there were no classes we took the opportunity to go and see some more of Costa Rica. Our adventures led us up north to the little town of Ciudad Quesada, in search of the volcano know as Arenal. The plan was to spend all day Tuesday and the evening hanging out in the town of Fortuna and sight seeing. Tuesday morning we awoke to heavy rain, that kept coming all day long. Needless to say we weren't able to see the volcano because of the rain and fog. We (Bekii and I and our two friends Joel and Krista) decided to take the advice of a local and leave very early Wednesday morning to see the volcano in the morning. Leaving early meant leaving our house at 5:00am and arriving in La Fortuna the base of the volcano at 6:00am.
When we arrived at 6, I was able to see about 15 feet from the car, the fog was so thick and dense I couldn't see anything. We decided to eat breakfast and see what would happen later. About two hours later it had stopped raining, so we decided to drive and find a place to hike around for a little bit. After finding the perfect spot where signs posted warnings "High Volcanic Activity Enter at own Risk." We thought this would be a good place to hike.
We entered upon the trail and we immediately heard what sounded like a large animal crashing through the woods towards us. We were all pretty uneasy, since it was not a common noise to hear in the woods. As we continued to hike it started to rain and the noises became more frequent. As it turns out the noises that we heard were actually boulders coming from the volcano, crashing down the side of the mountain into the woods below.
As we were leaving the park area, the clouds begin to very quickly lift and we were actually able to see the entire volcano from the bottom to the very top. We were able to see the boulders crashing down the mountain. As they would bounce they would send of a puff of smoke, it was quite a sight. We could see were the flow of lava was coming down the mountain, if it had been dark the lava would have glowed.
The trip up to Arenal was one of the coolest things I have ever seen or heard. Then to finish off the morning we found free hot springs and went and played in them for a little while.