This was our last full day in Costa Rica and we’d been staying at the footsteps of a volcano, so we figured we’d probably best walk the Lava Fields. We got up, went to the breakfast buffet, had some guava ribs, and headed down to the main lobby to where we’d be picked up.

We half-expected Isidro to be guiding us again today, but instead it was a slender woman named Indira. It was a short drive to Arenal Volcano National Park. Arenal last erupted in 1968 killing ~70 people. Earlier in the trip, Adrienne had mused, do you think there were signs before the eruption. Indira answered that question for us: there was a small river we passed on the way and everyone noticed that it went from warm to hot in the months preceding the eruption. The farmers complained that they had to take their cattle elsewhere for water. Also, there were several areas (17 I believe) where steam just came up out of the earth. In the weeks preceding the eruption, there were >75 of these. The locals said it was nice because they could sleep next to them.

Apparently, the locals did not know that they were living on or at the footsteps of a volcano. In 1968. Next to a triangular mountain with a dip at the top. When Joseph draws a volcano, he draws a caricature of Arenal. It’s crazy to us that they didn’t know it was a volcano. Apparently the last eruption was in the 1500s. And the next predicted eruption in about 300 years.

The deaths from the eruption weren’t from lava flows or flying boulders but something much more terrifying – pyroclastic flows. This is where volcanic gasses upwards of 1000C flow at over 100km/hr. They are far deadlier than lava flows and flying boulders. Because the volcanic gasses are heavier than air, the cling close to the ground and spread outwards fast and humans nearby are sitting ducks.

The other two, lava flows and flying boulders, still happened in 1968 and we got to see it. We hiked and climbed around on the lava fields. We saw some pretty sizeable boulders. Indira gave us the choice of 3k or 5k for our hike and, even though the >40 crowd was hurting, we decided to do the longer hike. We saw a number of people out on the trails that were in older demographics and were still young enough to be doing the harder hikes. So we did.

One of the most endearing things Indira did was that she asked for permission to show us snakes. Of course! We’re not fraidy-cats! we said. Near the beginning of the hike, we passed two older people hiking the opposite direction (which was the wrong way…it was a loop trail) and one was looking not well. Indira called the park rangers and let them know. We never heard back, but we also never heard an ambulance or chopper so I presume everything turned out okay. It was a difficult trail with all the boulders, and it was nice that Indira was on the lookout for hikers who may need help!

While walking, she stopped and pointed to a small hole in the dirt, about 1.5″ in diameter and about 6″ deep. She had a small flashlight that she shone into the hole. At there very end of the hole were a few little hairy feet – tarantula feet! It was a tarantula nest!

Costa Rica is a very progressive country. The disbanded their military in 1948 and decided to put that money into education. They have a dedication to living in harmony with the earth – promoting use of balanced farming practices instead of pesticides (for example, at Don Juan, they have mosquitoes to pollinate, but then they have lizards to control the mosquito populations). Over 70% of their energy comes from renewable resources: hydroelectric is the biggest. There is a river that snakes around the Arenal Volcano that was damned to form Lake Arenal, this lake and damn are the source of their hydroelectric power. They are also on a continental divide which produces a lot of wind – they have enormous wind farms.

It’s great that they use renewable energy sources, but it has to be mentioned that they do not consume energy in the same way that we do in the US. While we were there, it was in the 70s and 80s, Joseph had school cancelled due to excessive snow. And I believe we have a polar vortex on the way. Meanwhile, a number of houses we passed on our various trips were more “open-concept”. The restaurant we ate at twice, for example had drapes that could be pulled down to prevent side-ways rain, but otherwise didn’t have distinct windows. It was more-or-less a roof with waist-high walls around it. My point being that in Costa Rica they don’t have to consume as much electricity as we do just to survive. And, also, they have the natural resources to provide for renewable energy sources – I don’t know that the three rivers in Fort Wayne would be able to produce much hydroelectric power?

Aside from tourism, and farming (coffee, cacao, pineapples, and bananas), the other main sectors of their economy include microprocessor manufacturing and biomedical instruments.

After completing our hike, we were given the option of being brought back to the resort or having them drop us off in La Fortuna for lunch with us finding a taxi back to the resort. We chose B. So we found a restaurant that Indira recommended called Restaurante Fortuneno which she said was known for having really good chicken.

Well, they did. Adrienne has chicken nachos (sounds boring, right? Wrong! They were delicious) and Chris had “arroz con pollo” which was very, very, very different from the Tex-Mex variety we’re used to. At present, Chris is determined to figure out how to make it Costa Rican style and replicate it home. At the end, with a mixed drink and our two lunches, the bill was a little salty at nearly twenty-two American dollars. We were shocked, expecting something about 2.5x that. (We had no clue how much it cost because the prices on the menu were in Costa Rican Colones…and our total cost was approximately 12,000 colones. The fine print on the credit card receipt said $22!) Definitely one of our cheapest meals of the trip…but the best meal!

Bellies full and legs burning, we found a taxi (right where Indira said they’d be!) and got ourselves back to our room for some much-needed soaking in the private pool.

Dinner was at Mis Amores which is Spanish for My Loves and was a solid finale dinner for an incredible vacation. Chris had sliced rib eye with roasted beets and Adrienne had asparagus risotto.

This is the same restaurant where we earlier had pizzas.

We had one more buffet breakfast, then another trip to the Liberia airport, flight to Atlanta. There, due to Delta scheduling, we had to have a stay-over, then left early the next morning to come home and see our boys and enjoy this snow.

In summary, I would highly recommend going to Costa Rica. The weather was amazing (would recommend going during the dry season, because it rained kind of a lot for being called a dry season, I can’t imagine what the rainy season would be like (oh yeah, I think Isidro told us they get 15′ of rain per year, which is about two and and half Chris’s stacked on top of eachother)).

A few people were put off by the spiders and the snakes – I wouldn’t let that deter you. It’s an amazing place and you can pretty easily avoid those things if you want to. But the coffee! and the cacao! it was all worth it!

Until next time,

Pura Vida! – Adrienne and Chris