Viaje con David!! Part 1

What seems like forever ago was really only last month. David "Boo" Gonzales came to visit!!! I met him at the airport and talked a taxi driver, who let David borrow his cell phone to call me, out of taking a taxi all the way to San Pedro. 80 cent bus ride > $30 taxi ride.

After checking into the small but cozy Hotel St. Pierre, we walked to the Jazz Cafe where we listened to a local band play. They had 3 trombones, a few singers, percussionists, a bassist and a keyboardist. People danced all night to their music and man, have I mentioned that everyone in Costa Rica knows how to dance? And I'm not just talking about standing with a girl and swaying, I'm talking dance. Salsa, Merengue, Swing, etc. It was fun to watch and I wish I remembered more from my summer salsa class with Kassy to bust out some moves.

Anyways, David had the next day to himself to explore San Jose while I attended classes. That night we went to the bar Reventados to watch the Suns vs. Lakers game. We lost to a ridiculous Kobe airball that Artest managed to salvage for a bucket. What? I'm not bitter...

The next day we woke up early and went to the Arenal bus stop in San Jose. But before we stepped on the bus, we had an hour and a half to kill. We made good use of our time/money and bought backpacks - bigger backpacks than our already-stuffed school backpacks . Now these backpacks were not anywhere close to good quality. The lady selling them across the street only charged $19 for each one. She insisted on helping us stuff our school packs into our new packs. David's fit just fine, and mine did too, but once I picked mine up, rrrrrriiippp...there went the mesh lining at the top of the pack. 2 minutes later...David hears a rrrrrrriiippp from his pack, too. So back at the bus station, still with plenty of time on our hands, we decide not only to sew the rips (yes, I had needle and thread with me) but I also decided to return my pack for another. The backpack lady didn't notice my stitching (I'm that good haha) and I got a bigger and better pack in exchange. This time, a Puma!

NOT.

Well, the bus ride was crazy. Going up hills around sharp corners passing semi-trucks is just another day for a Tico bus driver. But we eventually made it to Arenal safely. After checking into the same hostel I stayed at back in March, we walked around town a while and caught a nice view of the volcano before dusk.

Later that night we met up with 2 girls from Colorado and went on a night tour to see Volcano Arenal. It was awesome!! Our guide Ivan got us there just in time to see lava flow down the side of the volcano. Being super dark and having only a mediocre camera, this is all I picked up of the lava:

But trust me, it really was cool! We saw bright streaks of lava flowing down half the volcano; Ivan told us we were lucky. Ivan, in fact, decided the four of us were more than his usual group of tourists. We spoke Spanish with him, took pictures together, cracked jokes, and cranked the tunes in the car to and from the volcano. So after the tour, he took us to a natural hot springs. He brought a handful of candles, too, so we lit the place up and chilled in a natural hot springs that not many people know about! He showed us the place where 2 rivers meet - one river with hot water and the other with cold, so standing right at the juncture felt really neat. There was also a small cascade over a ledge that opened up into a pool, and under the cascade there was a small cave under which we swam. Other than finding a dead frog in there, it was pretty awesome.

The next day, we got up early to go to La Fortuna Waterfalls, which is arguably the most beautiful waterfall in Costa Rica. It was stunning:

My camera couldn't even capture all 215 feet of it! Next, we had planned to take a boat across the gorgeous Lake Arenal, but to our dismay the only available boats at the time were privately owned and would have cost us $70 a person. So, we headed back to the waterfall area to hike a trail to Cerro Chato, a dormant volcano that now has a crater lake. It was an extremely steep climb, but equally extreme in its beauty.



As with anywhere you go, it's hard to capture the entire feel of the place in just one picture. But again, trust me that swimming in a 300 x 300ft volcanic crater lake was an amazing experience and one of my favorite places I've visited so far. True, the hike was a pain, and we had mosquitoes and flies attacking us nonstop the entire trek, pero valió la pena :)

Tomorrow: Monteverde and Conchal!