Twittering

Bathing in the Fog of a Volcano

        “The animals, they don’t like the rain,” Alexander told us. “They stay home when it rain and don’t come to greet the tourist.”
        While it rains in the rainforest, it generally rains for fifteen or twenty minutes before stopping.
        “First time in three years I give a tour and it rains in the rainforest,” Alexander said, meaning it was the first time it rained for the entire two-hour walk. We left early in the morning to get the tour in before the afternoon rains, but a warm front appeared to have stalled over our vacation, bringing with it a day of rain. While the shower was not particularly heavy, buy the time it filters through the leaves of the trees, quarter-sized raindrops were falling on us, soaking us to our core.


        There is green everywhere in the rainforest, and it’s easy to catch myself admiring the beauty of a tree, only to realize it’s a houseplant sitting on my desk back at home. It’s if we’re walking through a greenhouse on steroids at Home Depot. Only the next day, after we had dried off, did we realize how lucky we were to be walking on the rainforest in a full-fledged thunderstorm. First, it’s a rare occasion to be doused with so much water at one time. Second, the other option was very hot and very humid and certainly more uncomfortable.
        As we emerged from the rainforest, the clouds began to break and we saw sun for the first time since arriving in Costa Rica. While it didn’t last for long, it gave us enough of a break to wring out our clothes before getting in the bus for our next stop. We might have been soaked to the point where we had to lay our dollar bills out on the car seat after our walk, but we were far from cold, and no where near hot.
        For lunch, we headed up the side of Volcano Arenal to Arenal Observatory Lodge, which had a view of Lake Arenal and the volcano. We were told the view would be spectacular, but clouds enveloped the conical-shaped mountain. Scores of tourists come to see the volcano every year, however locals estimate that only one in every two actually see it when it’s clear of cloud cover.
        After lunch, the wind had shifted, and the clouds began to move away from the mountain peak. Almost a day after arriving, we were finally able to see the conical twin cones that make the peak of Volcano Arenal, and a puffy plume of grey gas and steam bellowed from the peak like a smoking chimney. It was more spectacular than the exploding volcano at the Mirage in Vegas, even when you’re standing in the front row. Considering the odds of there being no clouds, we felt luck to see the peak, even for just a moment.


        We took another stroll through the rainforest, this time headed to the lava flow that took out a portion of the rainforest in the 1992 explosion. Alexander led us through a trail that clearly functioned as a rain gully in a severe rainstorm, but lucky for us, the rain appeared to be done, at least for the afternoon.
        Deep in the rainforest, as we tracked wild boars and searched for monkeys, we heard a rumble that was a cross between that of a locomotive and the whine of a jet engine that probably intersects closest to grandpa in the bathroom during the early morning hours.
        “You hear that?” Alexander said, stopping on the trail, a silence falling over the rainforest.
        “Is that the volcano?” Tony asked.
        “Yes. It a exploded like that again, tour is over. We go right away.”
        “Wouldn’t it have to be louder?” I asked.
        “Oh, yes. I really like the explosion when everything shakes. The whole jungle. All the trees and stuff, they shake and it’s really loud. That a happen and we go really fast. Usually only explosion like that once, twice a day.”
        About five kilometers into the rainforest, we arrived at a wall of lava rock. Climbing up to the top, in one direction was Volcano Arenal, and in the other Lake Arenal, both with an amazing view. It was perched on top of the lava flow that we saw our first toucan, with it’s magical swooping flight pattern where it appears the bird’s body is pulled toward the treetops by its curved oversized beak until it flaps its wings, pulling it upward in the air.
        Returning to the bus, we had easily hiked fifteen kilometers through the rainforest canopy, on the rainforest ground, across a lava flow, and negotiating a river. As darkness fell on Volcano Arenal and the rainforest, we ended the day soaking our muscles in the natural hot springs of Ecotermales Fortuna. This private spa resort had five hot water pools, each dropping in temperature, with waterfalls tumbling down between the rock-bottomed pools. The foggy rainforest loomed all around us as we sat in the pools, sipping refreshing cocktails.
        “The only difference between this and a Holiday Inn Holidome,” I said to Tony, hot water beating on our feet, “is the temperature of the water.”