Day 6 - La Fortuna, Costa Rica

OMG!!  WHERE DO I EVEN START!!! This day has been so ridiculously awesome that I´m really wondering if everyone will even believe it all!  Lucky for me I have the pictures to go along with everything...haha. :)  And since it was so amazing, that means a LOT of stories and typing.  Like too much for even me to type, so I´m going to leave out a lot and if you want to hear details about it (or more details I suppose) then you will have to talk to me about it when I get back, I´m 100% positive this day will be etched in my mind very vividly for a loooong time! :)

Costa Rica is quickly moving in to the number one spot of my most favorite place in the whole world. :)  Seriously, I´m not even going to attempt to write about my whole day.  I would be here on the computer ALL NIGHT and still not be able to convey how awesome this place is!  Just very briefly though, I´ll try :) 

Met two awesome guys also staying here, one from south Texas and one from Denver, both who speak Spanish.  Ate dinner with Max from Denver last night and had the best conversation  I´ve  had with anyone in a long time - for like 4 hours, about everything from religion to politics to drugs and government...haha.  Good guy.  Slept in the top bunk with 8 other people last night, right below the air conditioner.  Screw AC, I´ll take the humidity over freezing cold any time.  I slept in sweatpants and my one long sleeve t'shirt, and covered up with my towel and anything else I could find, and was still shivering.  Got up early and went canyoning with Martin, from Texas.  Absolutely, hands down, one of the top three coolest experiences ever.  We drove in a 4x4 jeep through the jungle, hiked IN the river bed in the rainforest for a couple hours, rock climbed, and repelled down four waterfalls.  UNBELIEVABLE.  Martin and I got to go first and ahead of the other four people in our group because we were a litlte more atheltic and nimble. :)  I only fell once, and cut up my elbow pretty good, it´s definitly swollen, but nothing major.  Not bad for hiking through water and rocks in a rainforest. :)  Seriously though, this place is just ridiculously unbelievable.  Can´t even begin to put it in words.  I've never seen anything like it before!!  LOVE IT.  :) 

Oh yea and when I was walking along the river bed in the rainforest, I decided I needed to bring something back with me from it, so I picked up a few rocks here and there and put them in my pocket.  So when I got back to town, I decided to try and find a cool bowl or something to put them in to display back home.  I walked in to town to a couple shops, and finally found a guy on the side of the street making something cool so I stopped to talk to him.  He makes these really cool clay people out of bottles.  BUT he had just the perfect bowl I was looking for, make of bamboo from the rainforest, clay, and Costa Rican coins, with his name (Luis Herrera, he´s at least 50 or so) written in the clay.  PERFECT!  I love buying things that I know locals made, and he was so nice. 

We got to talking, and he told me he and his brother have a little butterfly garden just down the road and said he would take me for free (he usually charges $6 entrance fee) since I was one of his customers...haha.  Sign me up!  We walked a block or two off the main road, through a couple gates, and in to a beautiful butterfly garden in the middle of town.  It was crazy!!  He told me all about the different species of butterflies and flowers and plants, etc.  He was REALLY in to it and was so excited to have someone to talk to about it. :)  Oh and there were these super cute little orange frogs with blue legs too!  I have some pretty awesome pics from it. :) 

After the butterfly garden, Martin and I stopped at a little restaurant and had a banana split and a beer.  Well he had a beer and I had a banana split, of course. :) 

Martin left for Monteverde this afternoon, while Max and I hopped on a little bus to see one of the world´s top 10 most active volcanoes, Volcan Arenal, which had a pretty good eruption last week!  I hadn´t heard ANY good stories about this volcano unfotunately since I´d been here.  Apparently Costa Rica actually has rules and regulations (unlike Guatemala) and since it spit up some flaming rocks and volcanic gas last week, they won´t let you climb it right now. I was hoping for another marshallow roasting experience!  So anyways, with low expectations, we got on the bus to the Arenal National Park, and okay, okay, okay..well SHIT.  The internet place is closing!!  They are kicking me out.  Long story short, I am not kidding you, the freaking volcano ERUPTED while we were right there!!  AND I got to swing from a vine in the rain forest, just like Tarzan.  I can now die a happy woman!! ;) I seriously have to go now...haha...I am so sorry!  The guy is standing right here.  Inernet closes at 10!  I will write in the morning, I promise!! :)

I honestly feel like I could leave Costa Rica right now and feel like it was still the best vacation ever.  HOWEVER, tomorrow morning Max and the guy from Slovakia (I can´t pronounce his name) and I are going to hop on a 4x4 jeep to take us to Arenal Lake, a boat across the lake, then another jeep from the other side of the lake in to the town of Monteverde (4 hours total travel time).  CLOUD FORESTS tomorrow!! :)

Bye for now!!

TK