finally, some time

in monteverde, our internet time was by the minute, though we had 30 minute vouchers every day we were there. still, not a lot of time to email the family and blog. today, we have free reign on the computers at the hotel.. for now at least.

so right now we´re in la fortuna, which is the city right by the arenal volcano. we arrived yesterday morning after a van-boat-van trip from monteverde. the roads in monteverde aren´t paved and are essentially huge rocks and gravel so the first leg of the trip was bumpy and jolty and no fun because i had one of the fold-down seats in the van. there was a really nice guy from calgary so we were able to talk about the weather - typical, i know. he has been here before and was able to recommend our next stop. more on that soon.

on the first leg of the van-boat-van trip still, there were two girls of the bigger tour group that we were travelling with randomly at the side of the road. so we stopped and apparently had to climb through barb wire fence and then hike through a farmer´s field to get to the boat. this was a little sketchy and we were waiting for the farmer to start picking us off sniper-style. that didn´t happen, obviously. we get to the boat without incident and get on. it was a quick (45 minutes) trip across part of lake arenal and then onto a big big van.

thankfully, the roads are paved in this part of the country. the ride was so smooth! i got a crappy seat again on the bus but the ride wasn´t long. our hotel is the nicest we stayed in this whole trip. i was able to have a hot shower and shave my legs. it was getting a little ridiculous! possibly that´s too much information. moving on.

la fortuna is much hotter and dryer than monteverde so i´m working on my tan. our hotelroom has a perfect view of the arenal volcano (not the active side though. it has 4 craters, but only one is active) and the hotel has a pool. we´ve been up to the lookout point of the volcano twice now and have some really amazing long-exposure pictures (i sound like i know what i´m talking about but really it was j doing all the camera work. he´s calling himself a volcano papparazzi now!)

we met a really nice couple from new york and will hopefully exchange volcano pictures once we´re back home and can upload the pictures.

earlier today we rented a scooter. talk about a weird feeling! i felt enormous compared to this little tiny motorized vehicle, but teeny tiny compared to all the huge four-wheel drive suvs and trucks on the roads. we zoomed up to the catarata park and hiked down into a canyon and spent some time at the base of the catarata waterfall. (oops, catarata actually means waterfall. still with me? good.) the water was super cold but j went in the pool right near the base of the waterfall. i got some crazy pictures of that. (mmm, pictures. soon, my pretties, soon!)

la fortuna is a must-see for anyone who is in costa rica. tomorrow afternoon we leave for the manuel antonio national park. (as i type this there is a lizard making its way down the wall of the reception area of the hotel. on the inside!) anyways, this national park is south of here on the west coast. we´ve heard only good things about it and are really glad we ran into all the people who recommended it.

that´s about it for now. today is day 10 of 15 so we´re gearing up for our last leg of the trip. we´re looking forward to being back home, but aren´t finding being away as hard as we thought it would be. i can say that now that i´ve had 4 hot showers. four! in the day and a half we´ve been in la fortuna! weeeee!