The last night...

By this time tomorrow night, I'll be back in Athens, and Monday morning, I'll dive into the mad frenzy to pack my apartment and office for the great move northwards. For the moment though, I'm sitting in my hotel room in San José, watching South Park: Más Grande, Más Larga, y Sin Censura, after a final group dinner, and a brief trip downtown to a bookstore (where I briefly considered buying some of the Harry Potter books en español, but they weren't a whole lot cheaper here than they'll be in the States, and I didn't feel like schlepping los libros from San José to Athens to Boston. Some of you will be amused to know that the final book was already sold out in San José. (And though there's a copy of that final book waiting for me at home, I'm absolutely determined to avoid spoilers until I've re-read Order of the Phoenix and The Half-Blood Prince - I made it from the beginning of the series to the last 50 pages of Goblet of Fire before leaving for Costa Rica)

Though we've driven through San José a few times on our trips rafting & down to Puerto Viejo, this was my first time on foot in the city. Our hotel is very, very nice, though it's in a quite sketchy neighborhood; I would have liked to have a lot more time to explore downtown. We passed the national park, the national library, and the national theatre, along with a ton of anti-CAFTA grafitti (including one V for Vendetta reference) - I'll blog about the upcoming referendum on CAFTA soon. My interest in downtown San José was certainly not diminished by my gaydar (or oso-dar?) going off more in 10 minutes than it has in five weeks; I suspect I was checked out at least a little bit a couple of times, although it could just have been guys glancing at the gringo standing alone while the other profs were inside la farmacia. More generally, our brief time downtown was my only real direct exposure to urban Costa Rica, even though the overwhelming majority of ticos live in or within commuting distance of the capital.

We drove down from Arenal and La Fortuna today, stopping as noted in Sarchi, the country's center for crafts and the home of the apparently famous national symbol of the painted oxcarts (though I must admit that I didn't know about these until my friend M. visited). I got the last couple gifts I had in mind, including a small, build-it-yourself uber-mini ox-cart for my niece - my brother reports that she's really into art these days, & I know she's already had a Frida Kahlo stage, so I hope this works for her (I'm utterly unprepared to shop for an eight-year-old girl, I must admit). This came after almost two days in the shadow of the Arenal volcano - I'll post pictures soon, but we spent two nights in a set of cabins almost at the base of the volcano. The hotel was beautiful, what with hummingbirds flitting around the beautifully landscaped grounds and well-kept wood cabins -- I'll have to post pictures of the rose-petal covered "swans" made out of towels; it's too bad I'm not remotely in the mood for such romantic touches -- plus the view of the volcano itself (I never saw the howler monkeys, but I did hear them...) Unfortunately, it was only sunny for the first 30 minutes and the last hour of the time we were there, & we could only see the tip of the volcano just as we were arriving (we did a "jeep-boat-jeep" transfer from Monteverde, or more accuarately, a van-ferry-van transfer). Moreover, the lava changes where it flows out of the volcano every few months, and at the moment, it's flowing towards Lake Arenal and away from all the hotels, restaurants, and spas, which means you can only see the lovely forest-covered side of the volcano from said establishments.

Friday was our super-busy day in Arenal/La Fortuna. We started with a hike to the La Fortuna Waterfall, another stunningly beautiful waterfall that's maybe 150-200 feet high (I'm guessing here), which entailed descending 550 steps and then climbing back up. We then headed to the Arenal Volcano National Park, where we went to the lookout, & then did a 2km hike to an area with a clear view of the perfectly conical volcano. We climbed up on the lava rocks, took a gazillion pictures... and when we were able to quiet all the students down (not a remotely easy task), we could hear the volcano... churning? rumbling? gurgling? It was amazing, & I can't wait to come back when I can actually see the lava. We could see hints of the boulders coming down the top of the volcano - that required looking for the white trails of dust that represented the boulders being spit out of the volcano - at night, those glow red. Most people quickly turned around to head back - one student and I, both being of the attitude that we came to Costa Rica for the volcano, not for souvenir shopping in downtown La Fortuna, headed off for another hundred yards to the trailhead, where we had an even better view of the volcano & the lake as well, & listened quietly to the awesome marvel in front of us. Eventually, we headed back, hiked back 3km through some remarkably varied vegetation to the parking lot, and saw a very colorful lizard along the way.

After a tasty but slow late lunch in La Fortuna, we wandered around the town for an hour, which for L. and me, mostly entailed a quick look at the old church and walk through the town square, plus minor shopping (i now have a mission: to find a Saprissa soccer jersey in my size with their corporate sponsor's logo on the front: Bimbo baked goods). Following the brief trip back to the hotel, we headed off to Baldi Hot Springs, a complex of 16 thermal pools, including bars you literally swim/wade up to. That was fantastic fun, and the only minus was that we got there later than planned because of everything earlier in the day, and didn't have nearly enough time in the water. Still, it was great fun, and as relaxing as it gets when you're still chaperoning 14 students... and oh yeah, there was plenty of eye candy.

Alright, more soon from the States!