The hotel's landscape was absolutely magnificent, with their houses of 8 rooms/building sprawled out among almost a hundred acres of lush rainforest-filled hillside. Our rooms were some of the closest to the volcano that exist, so that was pretty amazing.
We were blessed in our entire trip that it was sunny and clear almost the entire trip. Usually during the rainy season the peak of the volcano is rarely visible, as clouds normally cover it. But, for our entire weekend we were incredibly fortunate to have the weather be clear AND there were an unusual amount of eruptions (I think around 8 or 9 in total)! It was an incredible display of God's creation as we gazed into the night sky to see stars littered throughout the black backdrop, with the moon shining brightly upon the volcano's peak, revealing bright red/orange lava flowing down the side. Since the lava only flows down one side of the mountain, I was only able to see it flowing down once, and regretfully I didn't have my camera :'(
The hotel we stayed at had some divine pools complete with water slides and also a naturally heated hot springs pool that had a sweet swim-up bar nestled under a tiki hut. I definitely adopted the motto "When in Rome..." and ordered a piña colada served in an enormous carved out pineapple, which I enjoyed immensely. The Saturday we were there, we went ziplining through the rainforest canopies; a stellar experience. Saw some monkeys swinging in the tree tops about 140 feet above the ground, and was immaturely entertained by watching their feces fall the entire distance to the ground, probably reaching terminal velocity...
After ziplining above the unbelievably exotic rainforest, we saddled up on some horses for an expedition around the volcano. Donning my obnoxiously red Papi tank top, I was given a pony named Tequila for the trip. At first I was a bit uneasy, but we soon became friends and he agreed to listen to my commands (although he didn't agree to not chafe my legs and make my buttocks extremely sore afterwards...) The horseback ride was spectacular, taking us on trails all around the volcano where a village once stood before the large eruption in 1968 which wiped the entire thing out. We got as close as 2 km from the peak when our guide told us in Spanish that if the volcano would have a large eruption, the ash/lava/toxic gas would travel so fast we would be consumed within seconds, so if we tried to gallop away on horseback we would only die tired. Super encouraging- thanks Pancho, for that helpful tidbit.
After the activities, our group was famished so we returned for lunch of fresh ceviche and Tilapia, which was followed by a refreshing 3 hour pool sesh on my part. Unfortunately I fell asleep by the pool, so I got a little bit charred, but nothing too bad.
We had our own church service in a tropical garden with the volcano in sight, and then returned home. I took a few photos of the volcano, and even got a few of it erupting. Enjoy!
In other news, we started studying Costa Rican art/literature/poetry this week. Hard to believe I only have 2 weeks left :/
pura vida!
awesome pictures - wish we were there!
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