Mr Lava Lava

I´m sitting in a little town called La Fortuna about 100km northwest of San Jose. I met up with a Canadian guy in San Jose, Richard, who is also travelling alone in Costa Rica for 3 weeks and decided to catch a bus up here. The 100km took 5 hours! La Fortuna is famous for its very active Volcano Arenal. Thats Rich in the picture.

We arrived yesterday afternoon, checked into a very nice backpackers called Las Palmas ($6 for double bed en-suite) and headed up to the hot springs. That place was awesome. We smuggled in some booze, like a bunch of varsity students, as beers there were $3 each! The springs are directed off the volcano into 12 different pools of varying temperatures and we had one hell of a party there with people from all over the world - even some Swedish chicks!! I´m pretty bummed as none of the photos with me in them came out properly...

Hanna and Sarah with Rich in a hot spring

This morning we took our hangovers for a hike up to the La Fortuna waterfall. Was beautiful up there, with crystal clear water and tons of birds. I´m yet to see a toucan though...

We´re now about to head up the mountain for a night walk to see some lava eruptions. Holding thumbs as the peak is almost always in cloud. In two days I´ve seen it clear for 5 minutes. Tomorrow Rich and I are taking a jeep-boat-jeep trip to Monteverde to see the cloudforests and hopefully my first Quetzal.

I´m having an absolute blast, and I´m sorry I have to be so brief - but fireworks await me tonight!