Day 5 (In Which We Learn That Water That Comes Out of Volcanoes is “Scientifically Speaking” Incredibly Freaking Hot)

Day 5 (In Which We Learn That Water That Comes Out of Volcanoes is “Scientifically Speaking” Incredibly Freaking Hot)

On Tuesday morning, Carlos once again picked up at 7:30 in the morning for a day trip to Arenal Volcano. Even though it was over two hours by car away I wanted to see it because up until a few months ago it was one of the world’s most active volcanoes, with lava visible from the base almost ever night. It was this constant erupting that actually made it slightly safer to visit than the volcanoes that keep it all bottled up until having a little too much wine at Thanksgiving dinner and exploding and wrecking havoc on anything in the immediate vicinity.

The Arenal area also was at a higher elevation and was in a rain forest which would give us the opportunity to see other animals. The trip described on the website involved some strenuous hiking, and Nancy and I were a little concerned about Isaac, but Carlos had already altered the day’s schedule to make sure we got to see plenty of animals without pushing Isaac to exhaustion.

We drove towards Liberia and turned right on the Pan American Highway, a road that theoretically could be driven from Alaska to Southern Argentina. A few miles behind us was Nicaragua, and a couple hours ahead, Panama. (Costa Rica is about the same size as West Virginia.) We drove south for about an hour and then turned left towards the middle of the country. After another hour, we arrived at Lake Arenal. The top of the volcano was shrouded in clouds. We stopped at a roadside stand in the middle of nowhere to stretch our legs, admire the view, and haggle over the price of wooden frogs with wooden ridges on their back that you stroke with a stick and they make a noise similar to what a frog would sound like if he was rubbing a stick against a jagged wooden statue of a frog.

Shortly after we got back in the car, Nancy felt a sharp pain in her back. I had time to either, kill the wasp on her back or take a picture. Carlos, ever the “nature loving bad ass” that he is, caught the wasp and let it go out the car window.

The car trip was probably almost three hours, but there was so much to see, and we were having so much fun talking and looking for animals, it didn’t seem long at all. When we arrived at the tourist area of Arenal, the jungle gave way to hotels, internet cafes, and a shop boasting “Hand made Costa Rican crafts and German bakery”. We could tell that this tourist area was a little higher end than Playa Hermosa. Carlos took us to a fancy hotel for lunch where we had steak and then got back into his truck and headed even closer to the Volcano.

Instead of taking us into a National Park, we went to a wildlife preserve where the land had been allowed to return from farmland to its natural state. Carlos immediately pointed out sloths up in the canopy. Isaac found a red arrow frog under some leaves. Carlos showed us cacao and banana trees and identified local birds for us. We interrupted an Agouti in the middle of his lunch. Isaac did his best to herd a Jesus Christ lizard toward the little pond in the area to see if he would really walk on water.

We packed up just as the sky opened up and Carlos took us to another hotel/spa that had a series of gardens and pools fed by the naturally occurring hot springs. Carlos got us checked in and told us that we could go up to the buffet and have dinner under the volcano at 5:30. I asked if we should wait for him, and he told us that he had to run some errands, but would meet us after dinner.

The hotel was pretty much how I picture the garden of Eden. Stone paths meandered through thick, well manicured, tropical vegetation. Humming and other birds sampled fruit and nectar in open areas. Dozens of pools were spaced up the side of the mountain. Also in this “Matt specific” version of the garden of Eden there were three particularly dangerous looking waterslides, college co-eds on summer vacation, and half a dozen swim up bars.

The first pool we came to had partially submerged, tile recliners. It looked perfect. I stepped into the pool, completely ignoring the sign which warned that the water was 113 degrees Celsius (235.4 Fahrenheit). Every bug bite around my ankles lit up. I eventually made it over the lounge chair and sat for about 20 seconds before getting out. Isaac preferred the adjacent cold pool.

We tried different pools and hot tubs and found a few that we all enjoyed. I decided to try one of the water slides. Normally water slides are cool, splashy, twisty fun. The water in this one was a relatively cool 100 degrees Celsius (to remind you, this is the boiling point of water.) The slide was pitch black, and just for fun that had random blasts of 100 degree water interspersed throughout the darkness in case you were breathing too easily or moving to slowly. The slide dumped you a very deep pool of 100 degree C water.

It was a lot like what I remember about being born.

As the thunder clouds closed in for a second time, we changed and walked up to the buffet. The food was fancy versions of typical Tico fare and spaghetti. Isaac was most impressed with the chocolate fountain. Like most restaurants that we had been to, it was open air offering a great view of the volcano. The thunder in the distance was not too hard to mistake for rumbling in the mountain next to us, but that didn’t make me nervous. What made me nervous was the realization that I was three hours from my hotel and rental car. I had no cell phone, and at that point did not know Carlos’s number anyway, much less his last name.

I felt a huge wave of relief (and a more than a little guilt) when we ultimately found Carlos down at the lobby drinking coffee waiting for us, just like he said he would.

I was sure that the ride home would be uneventful; perhaps we would all fall asleep. It turns out that riding through the rainforest during a thunderstorm is exhilarating. Carlos had wanted us to see a red eyed tree frog all day, but never found one. In his last ditch effort, he would stop any time he saw a frog in the road, pull over, back up and run out with a flashlight, and umbrella to see what it was.

At one point we passed a snake in the road. Carlos stopped for us and explained that it was a Fer-de-lance viper. He explained that herpetologists don’t like to use the word “aggressive”, but the Fer-de-lance would not deviate from its course if it was coming towards you. Naturally he wanted to get out in the rain so we could get a better look.

When you are in a thunderstorm in a rainforest and a guy wants you to get out and look at a really misunderstood viper in the road, you do it because when the hell is that ever going to happen again?

He found a second snake in the road and he wanted my help to make sure that got safely off into the bushes. He grabbed a branch and started pushing the snake off into the brush when the snake jumped. Normally you would not associate an activity such as jumping with a legless animal, but there we were.

Carlos looked genuinely surprised that I was back the S.U.V. instead of helping him shepherd a jumping viper to safety. Carlos drove us safely home and we said our good byes. I really hope that someday I will get a chance to show him around North Carolina or Florida..

Strength and Honor
Big Matt

If you are ever in Guanacaste, Costa Rica, contact Carlos at http://www.ecoexplorercr.com/ or look up Carlos Jiminez in my friends on Facebook.