Arenal

So we left Friday for a long weekend full of fun and a little bit of education. We took a pretty long bus ride to the Arenal volcano. I have found that it is physically impossible for me to sleep on a bus or a plane so for most of the trip I listened to my ipod or kibitzed with the people around me. We could see the volcano from pretty far off and the first time Roberto (the tour guide for the weekend) pointed it out I was not terribly impressed but then we kept getting closer and it kept getting bigger. Words cannot describe the view we had of this thing. It is one of the coolest things I have seen in my life.
We got our room assignments and I was put with Marty so he and I got to know each other a little bit better this weekend. The place we stayed was not bad at all, even though there were some little bugs in some peoples room, I think that most people were pretty happy with the place. The beds were pretty nice but not quite as nice as mine at the apartment…some people said they were nicer than their host families so I am starting to like my living arrangement more and more. Shortly after we checked in we put on our bathing suits and went to the Baldi Hot Springs.
This place was amazing. It is a hot spring that is naturally heated by the volcano. Once we got there about half the group went to the highest pool because we were under the impression that that is where the hottest pool would be…this was not the case but we found it later. After the highest spring we all went to the water slide. This thing was rough to say the least. After two turns in the slide, you would catch air and then hit the slide again before the water…and when you did hit the water it was like being punched in the face. I went down it four times and it got worse every time. I smoked my head on the slide the last time and could have had a concussion but I don’t think so, it just hurt really bad. After we stayed at the springs for a few hours we had dinner at the resort…best we have had yet hands down. After the springs we just had a free night so we had a little room party but it was nothing too serious.
The next morning we went to see a hydro-electric plant. This was actually pretty cool. It did take a while to get in because they had lost our email with the plans for the visit so G-money Saul and Roberto had to talk with the people there while we all sat on the bus. Once we got it all straightened out we went to the dam and that was cool but just like any other dam. Then we got inside the plant and saw some things that I have never seen before. We had to wear hard hats the whole time and they probably not sanitary. We got to see two turbines in action and they were spinning really fast but it is hard to believe that these things provide power for most of Costa Rica. I got some descent pictures and videos of the turbines but other than that there was not much to the tour and it was hard to hear the guide so I did not learn as much as I thought I was going too but it was a good experience none the less.
After the hydroelectric plant the real fun started. We headed to La Fortuna water fall but we did not go by bus…he rode horses. These are not the typical horse you would find in North America either. My horses name was Camarillo and it was not the biggest or the fastest but it was fun to ride anyway. We all settled up one at a time and when we went into the arena that we waited in all the horses automatically went to the gate that lead to the field. It was as if they were getting ready for a race and they knew it. We started out kind of slow going up and down hills and though small streams but when the horses got out into the open they could fly and they did. If they were going slow the guides would whip them to make them go faster; of they could just whistle to make them go faster. I did not believe it the first time it happened; Diane, Matt, and myself were riding along and the guide whistled from a couple hundred feet back and all of a sudden our horse took off galloping, it was one of the coolest things I have experiences….this might become a theme for all the stuff we do on this trip.
When we got to the water fall I was amazed. It was beautiful and all I wanted to do was jump in the cool water falling to the bottom…but we had to walk down the mountain first. This was not that bad but I did not take into account how many stairs there were and how steep they were on the way down. I got some sweet pics of the water and then we jumped in. It was unreal. No matter how hard we would swim we could not get close to this thing. We did swim around it and apparently we missed the big sign that said danger, do not go beyond this point. After a nice swim it was time to head up the hill………………getting kicked out of the lab more to come very soon.