Today has easily been my favorite day in Costa so far. No classes, no schoolwork... all fun. We left the Soltis Center around 8:15 this morning to head to La Fortuna, a city a little less than an hour away, where we first went to the most famous volcano in Costa Rica, Volcan Arenal. Just like everywhere else here, we had to hike about 1.5 miles through the rainforest to get to the lava-rock field. I thought we were going to be able to get closer to the volcano, but since it is still VERY active, it now makes sense as to why we had to stop where we did. Needless to say, the view from the point where we had to stop was stunnning. If you looked one way, you would see the humongous Volcan Arenal (and there wasn't a cloud in the sky today so you could see all the way to the very top of it), but if you turned around 180 degrees, you could see a huge lake past the canopy of trees. Everything up there was gorgeous. Of course we took hundreds of pictures, and I felt super cool... I made the hike in my Vans today. I guess I was going for style more than comfort because I was tired of wearing my hiking boots, and I actually didn't mind it. Vans are my favorite shoes for a reason! (Here is a quick video of the view from the lava-rocks that we hiked to)
After the volcano hike we grabbed some lunch at a cool local restaurant, which was completely open to the outside just like everything else in Costa Rica. They don't really have air conditioning anywhere, so they make all of the buildings/restaurants open everywhere with hardly any walls or doors. It's really different from the U.S. and I actually like it. It makes everything feel more inviting and friendly. After lunch, we drove a little bit longer to a waterfall that was in La Fortuna. I was thinking that this waterfall was going to be like the one that we hiked to at the Soltis Center the other day, so I didn't really have my hopes up for anything spectacular. BOY WAS I WRONG! The hike to this waterfall was nuts... it wasn't so much of a difficult hike, but we had to go down about 700 steps in order to get to the bottom of the falls. These weren't your normal stairs either... these steps were so steep and were not very wide at all considering we were in the forest still, so they were just made out of dirt/some kind of waffle-shapped rock formations. The tiring trek was definitely worth it. The waterfall was amazing! (I don't have any pictures of it right now to upload because I didn't bring anything with me since we were swimming... but other people got some so I will put those up as soon as they send them to me). It looked like it was coming out of the trees from nowhere and dropped about 300 feet at least. That's probably not a very good guess, but it was a loooooooong drop. The waterfall dropped into one pond which flowed down a small stream to another swimming hole where everyone went swimming. A few of us guys decided that we didn't want to swim in the designated swimming hole, but we wanted to swim in the pond that this monster waterfall dumped to. We climbed over the sharp rocks and jumped in the water which was absoultely freezing cold. We kind of swam around the front of it trying to get close to the dropping water, but it was so strong that it was making waves that kept pushing us back. We decided to swim around the pond to the backside of the waterfall... basically underneath the huge cliff that the water was dropping off of. There were 4 of us that swam/climbed over slippery rocks underneath the cliff, and when we got back there we found a huge rock that was in the water that was probably about 10 yards away from the waterfall itself. So of course we swam to that rock to sit on it! The rock was so slippery, but we all 4 managed to get up there and just sit right next to the waterfall. Just to give an idea of how close we were, the spray from the water was blowing in our faces and the waves were crashing on us... and when we swam off of our rock, we were almost right under the actual waterfall itself. This description of where we were doesn't do it justice. But this was probably one of the coolest things that I have ever done. Sitting under a huge cliff on a rock in the water with a 300+ foot waterfall being 10 yards away from me and 3 of my friends... it was breath taking. All that any of us could do was smile, first of all because we could hardly hear each other talk over the roar of the waterfall, but also because we all knew that this was a once in a lifetime opportunity. I will never forget sitting on that rock for as long as I live. (What we didn't know is that later on, other people tried to go back where we were but a security guard yelled at them because it was illegal to go over there... it just makes my story that much cooler).
After our waterfall adventure the day still wasn't over. We went back into downtown La Fortuna to just hang out and walk around and really do whatever we wanted. Dr. Quiring told us where he was going to be and when to meet him to get back on the bus to come home, and then he turned us free to wander the city on our own. It was so much fun being in a city just being able to walk around with no set plans. We ended up going in a few stores, but La Fortuna is a very touristy place, so everything was pretty expensive. We also went to a few restaurants and bars... and all got cervezas! Yay for the drinking age only being 18! All of the people in Costa Rica are very nice and friendly and surprisingly speak English pretty well. (They call themselves "ticos"... hence the title of this blog. Our director as the Soltis Center, Dr. Eugenio Rodriguez came along with us today, and said that while driving our bus around, everyone was probably pointing and saying "look at that bus with the gringos and ticos!") I even had a conversation with a few guys at one of the bars as well as I could. They were speaking mostly spanish, but they were super nice and funny. They kept making fun of each other and calling each other fat haha!
Today was a great escape from the Center. We definitely didn't waste any of the day at all considering we were out for about 12 hours, but it was a day to remember. I know this post was a little long and wordy, but there was just so much that happened today and it was all awesome. I really didn't want to leave that rock under the waterfall... it almost felt like we were in another world. What a perfect day :)
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