This weekend I headed to another national park with an active volcano. This one is called Rincon de la Vieja and is only an hour or so from Bagaces. However, it ended up costing me a lot more to get to the park because there are no buses there and I had to take a taxi.

Originally I was going to camp overnight at the park, but they were only allowing camping at the other entrance, so I arranged a lift back in the afternoon. The first trail I took was a loop trail that visited a lot of different types of volcanic activities such as boiling water and bubbling mud pots. It was very hypnotizing watching the perfectly formed mud bubbles bursting and the air was full of the smell of sulphur. I also saw many of the famous blue morpho butterflies and continued to see them throughout my stay at the park.

The second trail I took was a 5km hike to a waterfall. Near the ranger station there was a coatimundi rooting into holes in the ground and the tree were full of a pack of white faced monkeys. The monkeys were amusing to watch. Some of them who I got close to would start to shake a branch menacingly at me, and half the time the branch would break and the monkey would nearly fall out of the tree. The trail wound through the forest before coming out on a ridge with a view across to the ocean. I passed a large group of what looked like Canadian high school or university kids returning from the waterfall but by the time I arrived at the waterfall there was nobody there. The waterfall very beautiful and suprisingly big considering the rainy season has just started. The water was especially blue because of the copper salts in the water. The water was cool and refreshing and very deep.

By the time I returned to the main park station it was 4pm, the time I was scheduled to go back, however my ride had already left. I had another offer for a ride but I decided to stay because I still hadn't had a chance to climb the volcano yet. That meant I had to walk 8km to the other ranger station. It was starting to get really dark by the time I reached the other campsite, so I hastily set up my tent and went to sleep. Luckily for me it didn't rain that night, because I didn't set the rain fly properly in my rush to setup and I woke up in the night staring at the stars. The other station had a historical ranch house there that was supposedly once owned by Lyndon Johnson and some museum pieces displayed. I got up at 5 am and headed back to the other ranger station On the way back, I stopped at a set of hot springs where the hot water was bubbling out into a cool water stream. It was very soothing on my aching muscles, however I ended up regretting it later when I learned that it was a hot spot for ticks. I ended up picking ticks off me for the next few days. While I was there I also saw my first toucan and I saw numerous flocks of toucans the rest of the morning but they were gone once it started getting warm. It was an 8km climb up the volcano once I returned to the first ranger station and it stayed sunny most of the way up. The last stretch was very steep and it started to rain, so ended up scrambling up a muddy path. The top of the volcano was very desolate and windy and I had to follow a narrow ridge up to the crater. The volcano is still active and the crater itself was very impressive. The wide crater was filled with churning smoke and you could walk right up to the edge of the crater where it dropped off in a sheer cliff into the smoke. There was a sign there that warned not to stay longer than 15 minutes to avoid the toxic gases. Coming back down the mountain was fun because the slope was steep enough to half slide down parts. At the bottom I managed to catch a ride with a mini tour bus with a bunch of Germans back to Liberia and home.

This weekend I decided to head down the Pacific coast to Manuel Antonio National Park. I first went to the town of Puntarenas where I could catch a bus to the park. Puntarenas is on a long skinny peninsula in the Pacific and has a couple of miles of very clean beaches right in town. The beaches are popular with the local Costa Ricans and were fairly busy. I had a couple of hours before my bus left so I explored the town and the beaches and went swimming.

The bus to Manuel Antonio was 4 hours and mostly followed the Pacific coast as it changed from the dry, brown region in the north to the rainy, green region in the south. One river the bus crossed, I could see 4 or 5 big crocodiles lying on the banks. Later the bus went through the surfing town of Jaco which is full of foreigners. After Jaco there were miles and miles of African palm plantations which were endless rows of large palm trees. These plantations were planted after bananas were no longer profitable because of disease and labour costs. I didn't arrive in the town of Manuel Antonio until after the sun set and I found a hotel on the beach. I didn't bring my tent this time because there was no camping allowed in the park, but I should have because people were camped out on the beach and there was a camping area at the hotel. I went to beach and I was the only one there. The beach had some pretty strong waves but it was very shallow so I had fun playing in the waves.

The next morning I got up to get to the park when it opened at 7:00. The park is only open from 7-4 and there are strict rules about how many people can enter each day. It is also closed on Mondays. I was one of the first people in the park and the rest of them headed straight for the park's beaches so I had the trails to myself. The park was full of wildlife. I was only in the park for about 6 or so hours and I saw pacas, which look like huge hamsters, raccoons and a coatimundi. I saw quite a few large, rather tame iguanas and many other types of lizards. The were also groups of the white-faced monkeys hanging around and I could hear the howlers monkeys. The park also had the endangered Central American squirrel monkey, but I didn't see any of those. The forest floor was full of large red and black crab with purple pincers. They would scurry around trying to return to their home before I got near, and if they couldn't find a place to hide they would raise their claws threateningly. But the most interesting sighting of the day was spotting two sloths up in the canopy. One was sleeping and the other was moving in slow motion along a branch.

One trail had a warning sign on it saying the trail was closed, but since I had walked the rest of the trails I decided to check it out. It went to a beach where the trail was mostly washed out, but I managed to find a way down to the beach. The beach was very large, but rocky and it was completely secluded and probably hadn't had visitors in a while. The sand was covered with bright red crabs who would part like the red sea as I walked along the beach. I spent the rest of my time in the park exploring the rocks and the dark crabs that lived on them and swimming in the waves.

On the return bus ride I was unable to return through Puntarenas because there were no late buses so I was forced to take a roundabout route 8 hour trip through San Jose. The road to San Jose was very scenic as it climbed into the mountains. The only time it rained the entire trip was when I was sitting in a bus, and when we arrived in San Jose it was raining hard. The gutters where full of water and some of the roads were slightly flooded so it seems that the rainy season is in full swing in San Jose. Here in Bagaces, the rain has faded again and it has been dry again for the last few days however the vegetation has become more green from the few days of rain. I caught the last bus back to Bagaces and didn't get back to my house until midnight.

This weekend I avoided doing my usual cheap travelling and decided to splurge a little bit and stay in an all-inclusive four star resort on the beach. I was invited by the former Saco employee Emer and Randall, her Costa Rican boyfriend. After she stopped working here at Saco, they started up a web design company in Bagaces. One of their clients was this resort on a beach in nearby Papagayo and they were offered a good discount for this place. Her two other employees, Katherine and Jessica, also came, along with Katherine's boyfriend Henry.

I took Friday afternoon off of work so we could get down there early and take as much advantage as we could of the all inclusive part of the resort. It was only about an hour and a half drive and the road down to the beach was actually paved and had no potholes. I was expecting a one building hotel, but it was actually a group of separate buildings, each with a view of the ocean. A van was constantly circling the resort, so moving from building to building wasn't difficult. There was two types of restaurants, the buffet style and a regular sit down restaurant. The sit down restaurant was only available for reservations, so we made reservations for the Saturday when we checked in. After checking in we immediately went down to catch the end of the lunch buffet. The lunch had less choices than the supper buffet but still had plenty to offer. After lunch we all took it easy and relaxed in the pool and the swim-in bar. There were about as many local guests as there were foreign guests in the hotel and there were a group of employees called the "Fun Club" that went around encouraging everyone to get involved. In the evening they put on an impressive dance theatre show.

On Saturday we had planned to take a boat trip at 9:00 am, so it was a struggle to get up, but I definitely didn't want to miss the breakfast buffet. The boat ride was a short trip to a nearby, more secluded white sand beach. The main beach at the resort is black sand, which is interesting, but not as pretty. The first thing we did after arriving at the beach is test out the hammocks. It was shady and food and drinks were brought out. Later we played beach volleyball and soccer with some of the employees. It was very hot but the water was cool and clear. We returned to the resort in the afternoon and there were plenty of things to do around the pool. There was 8-ball pool, ping pong and foosball. We met a young Canadian guy on vacation from Calgary. He is the first Canadian that I have met in Costa Rica, although I have been told there are plenty here. In the evening we got dressed up and went to our restaurant reservation. It was a fancy Italian restaurant with excellent food. We had 3 course meals with wine and thoroughly enjoyed the food. After we returned to the pool where they had a live band playing popular Cosa Rican songs and everybody was dancing. We stayed out until 2 am and everybody had way too much to drink but it was a lot of fun. I managed to get up for the breakfast buffet but I returned to the air-conditioned room to sleep. I woke up again just in time for the lunch buffet and then we had to check out at 1pm. I thoroughly enjoyed the all-inclusive part of the resort and the resort and setting were very beautiful.

I was lucky to get sun during the weekend because the rainy season started on Tuesday. It poured down and has rained everyday since. It's amazing the changes that have occured since the season has started. The roads are so deteriorated already that I can't imagine how they will look after six months. There are many different types of birds and many frogs and toads have appeared out of nowhere. The rainy season is called 'winter' in Costa Rica because the rain cools the air down slightly, however the humidity now is very high, so I don't think I will need any coats this 'winter'.

This weekend I went to nearby Arenal volcano. It is one of the most active volcanoes in the world and is constantly erupting. It is quite near to Bagaces but it requires climbing into the mountains and going around a lake on some very poor roads, so it takes about 4 hours.

I left after work on Friday, and only managed to reach the town of Tilaran before the buses stopped running. Luckily, Tilaran had plenty of things to see because they were holding their annual rodeo or 'tope'. Crowds of people gathered in the central park and there was a fairly large fireworks display launched from the middle of the park. After the fireworks there was a parade of more than a hundred different horses with riders, each one displaying their horseriding skill. The highlight of the parade for the crowd was when one rider lost control of his horse and they ran off at top speed.

The next morning I caught the 7am bus for the volcano. The road skirted the Arenal Lake and had many scenic views of the lake. The road was full of potholes in many places but there were many fancy hotels and other tourist type places. The lake was created in the 70's by a dam and is one of the best places in the world to go windsurfing because of the consistency of the winds. The dam and the numerous windmills here generate alot of Costa Rica's electricity.

The bus dropped me off at the entrance to the Arenal National Park. My plan was to walk to a nearby town on the other side of the lake and either stay there or find a trail to Monteverde, a famous nearby nature preserve. I arrived at the isolated town just before noon and asked at a Snake Zoo where the trail was. One of the tour guides spoke English very well and he said that the trail was no longer in use and I would need a machete to cut my way through the jungle. He invited me to spend the night at his house where he lived with two other guides and his wife. His house had a great view of the volcano and he said that I would be able to see the lava flowing at night, so I decided to stay.

His tour guide roommates had both recently finished studies at University and one of them was having his tour guide English exam that afternoon. He was very nervous because he had failed a few times before and he asked if I would be his tour for the exam. I agreed and I got a very interesting tour of the snake zoo for free. They had many types of poisonous snakes, frogs and other reptiles in the zoo and many of the non-poisonous ones you could touch, including their 5m boa constrictor and python. Outside they a very pretty garden and a butterfly conservatory. My guide's English wasn't great but I understood what he was saying. He was thrilled when later he found out that he passed. After the tour I decided to explore the trail to Monteverde. It climbed steeply and gave a great view of the volcano and the lake. Once it got into the jungle it didn't disappear right away, and I think that it could be used to get to Monteverde, but that's for another weekend.

When I returned to the snake zoo, the english speaking guide, Alfonso, mentioned that they were going to Tilaran to roller skate and asked if I wanted to come, so I decided to go. We were taken there in the back of an old open-back truck and the 2 hour night ride was rather surreal, with clouds of fireflies in the trees and the stars in the sky. The roller rink was sort of a bust because there wasn't many people there. And then when we were ready to leave at 11 our ride was missing. After a lot of worried conversations, they managed to organize a ride back at 4am and we headed to Alfonso's wife's family house to get a few hours sleep. On the way there we ran into the first snake i've seen in Costa Rica. An extremely venemous coral snake was crossing the road just in front of us. I know it was a real coral snake because I had 3 snake guides to verify that it wasn't a fake coral snake.

The next morning I found that an excellent way to bird watch is to lie in the back of a truck in the early morning. Not only are the birds extremely active in the morning, but you can easily see all the birds in the overhanging branches. I saw countless different species. The three guides were very apologetic about the mess-up in transportation, but aside from missing the lava show on the volcano, I enjoyed the experience. After picking up my stuff, later that morning I caught a return ride back to Tilaran. This time there were less birds and I was roasting in the sun, but the panoramic views of the lake were very pretty. There are still many things to do in that area, such as visiting the hot springs, taking canopy tours and watching the volcano at night, that I'm sure I will visit again soon.