Volcan Arenal

Five of us left the school for the weekend for a road trip north to the Tilaron region of Costa Rica to see the famous and active Arenal Volcano. The driving was stressful to say the least, within the first hour we were pulled over by the cops for excessive speeding. They were the tipical corrupt policia you hear about in third world countries but it the end it ended up only costing 100$ for a ticket (was actually money pocketed by the policia no ticket was actually written).  Moving on, or well in the road trip sense I would say getting lost but it was ok with me because the first place we stopped to pull over was a pet shop where I met the second cutest little boxer puppy (tootsies you get first place).

We were able to see the volcano from afar but you can no longer climb Volcan Arenal because it is active and just 11 years ago a mother and her two children were climbing it and were interrupted by an eruption of lava. The mother died and the children were hospitalized but did end up surviving. People in search of lava and volcanic rock are now only able to view from the National Park or from private properties near the volcano. We hiked for two hours over an old lava trail, to get to a good viewing spot of the volcano. Unfortunately it was not a clear day and we did not get to see the peak as well as we would have liked, but the tropical, volcanic trail was absolutely stunning. It did however down poor for most of the hike so my pictures are not the best but I was still a happy camper.  No lava sightings were in the cards either as the volcano has not erupted for about five months, some are even saying that it may no longer be active. I would hate to know what would happen to the town if the volcano is inactive, so like the tour guide said “we just have to pray really hard for lava.”