la fortuna.

I honestly don't feel like I'm old enough to be doing this. Somehow, without even the smallest hiccup, three other girls from my program and I traveled solo this weekend. We made three different bus connections before arriving late at night in La Fortuna, where we braved a thunderstorm and caught a taxi to our hotel.
The following morning, I woke up at 5:45 to my friend, Marlene, yelling, "You're gonna want pictures of this!!" I leapt from bed with an enthusiasm that I've never had that early in the AM, grabbed my camera, and ran to the front porch of our hotel room. I couldn't believe it: volcano Arenal was completely clear (it's usually covered in clouds) and we had the perfect view of it from our hotel. The night before, we hadn't even known it was there. The volcano's height made all the other mountains look like little Tennessee hills, and after less than 10 minutes of staring at it, I saw it erupt. During the day, the eruptions look like big puffs of smoke. I saw one eruption at night, as well, and could see the bright orange/reddish color of the lava. Oh, and while we were freaking out over the volcano, along came a cute little (very friendly) green parrot.
After a yummy breakfast, we headed to Baldi Hot Springs. From there, we could see the other side of the volcano and where a lot of the lava had dried. There were pools that were too hot to touch, and others that felt amazing. After the hot springs, we rode horses through the rainforest to La Fortuna waterfall, which is 70 meters tall. HUGE, and so so beautiful beyond words. At night, we went to the one and only discoteca in town and practiced the latin dance moves we've learned in class. I'm officially obsessed with dancing Merengue.
Today, we explored town in the rain, and couldn't even see the volcano because it was covered in clouds. Then, we caught a bus and headed back to San Jose and then Heredia. Like I said, I don't feel old enough to be doing this on my own; old enough to book hotels and catch buses and ride in taxis... especially using only Spanish to figure out what is going on. But, the trip went so smoothly and couldn't have possibly been any more fun.




I took this through the rainy bus window, but it was a cool place...







this little puff of smoke is post-eruption!