Volcan Arenal and more...

So, we went to Arenal Volcano last weekend. But the volcano wasn't the only exciting thing we saw.

The first interesting thing that happened was that we encountered one of those people who gets on the bus and tries to sell you something or does something in order to try to get you to give them money. This time it was a man about 70 years old, singing songs with sexual implications, one of them about celebrating Mother's Day (which is coming up on August 15). This probably doesn't sound that exciting, but watching this guy sing/shake his booty was hilarious.

Next, we went on a tour of the Trail of Silence near the volcano.

These mushrooms are poisonous.

It was pretty cloudy when we got to where we could see the volcano from. The volcano was really hard to take pictures of because it was getting dark at the time and the clouds in the sky make the picture look weird, but here it is. A couple times while we were looking at it some lava fell down the side in the form of rocks. That was exciting since it was the closest we would be able to get to seeing the lava coming out the top of the volcano, but it was impossible to take pictures of because the rocks disappeared after 1 to 2 seconds.

We took these pictures at the entrance to the hot springs where we went after seeing the volcano. We had a very relaxing time there but unfortunately couldn't take any pictures without risking getting our cameras wet, so you'll just have to go for yourself.

Before getting on the bus back to San Jose the last thing we had to do was track down an elderly woman named Elsie who ran the hostel next door to ours in the town where we stayed near the volcano. At our hostel in San Jose we met another woman named Ligia (pronounced Lee-he-ah) who suggested that we stay at Elsie's hostel. Unfortunately, Elsie's phone wasn't working when we called to make the reservations which was why we had to track her down ourselves for Ligia. When we found Elsie we discovered that she was very nice and invited us inside to chat and have refreshments (unfortunately we had already eaten breakfast).

We told her all about who we were and all the details of our trip to Costa Rica and Elsie was very pleased to hear everything about us and to tell us about her life. She also told us about her worldview, how natural disasters are occurring in many places because of "contamination" caused by certain people in the world. Unfortunately, I'm almost positive she wasn't talking about pollution or global warming. Before we left her house Elsie insisted that we not only stand with her while she recited a prayer, but that we repeat every line after she said it. Meeting people like Elsie isn't all that uncommon here, I've met others previously, but it's certainly an interesting experience. They're all very polite and accommodating, but the encounters are always an adventure.

When we got back to San Jose Ligia was no longer staying in the hostel so we have no way of getting her Elsie's phone number. Oh well.