Me Tarzan...You Jane

Despite all efforts, we did not get to see a glorius eruption from Volcan´ Arenal (I´m sure the locals were happy about that!) but Mr. Lava Lava did stay true to his word and brought us to a spot where we could barely see lil red lava cinders roll down the mountain. It was quite a sight though, about 30 people all from different tour companies standing on a hill next to a river in complete darkenss looking at a volcano that no one can see cause it was too dark and when lava came out, people screamed "LAVA LAVA" and got way too excited. But that was just the end of our fun filled day. In the morning we asked our friend Mr. Lava Lava where we should go for a couple hours and he mentioned the waterfall was just down the street, maybe 1km. SO, we head out to find this waterfall...about 5km uphill and 1 1\2 hours later, we came up to the entrance! We were not prepared for such a hike in flip flops and just a tiny bottle of water, but it was a beautiful walk. To our surprise after already aching from walking uphill on a rock road in flip flops, we had to walk down tons and tons of stairs, but it was all worth it. The waterfall was amazing. It was huge and coming out of a little dip in the mountain. I jumped in the freezing water and swam around for a bit while Matt took pics. We´ll post some pics as soon as we can. The computers are not the best here.

We decided after walking back up all those stairs to cab it back to town and then we left with Mr. Lava Lava to the natural hot springs. He dropped us off on the road and we were climbing though jungle under the road and then there was this tiny river running through down little water falls into pools and the water was sooooo warm. We were real explorers climbing through the jungle following the river to find a good pool to chill in. I didn´t see any creatures, but I am sure they were out there. We spent about 2 hours chillaxin in different pools of jacuzzi temperature natural pools of water and then we set out for the lava adventure that I already mentioned.

On Christmas we woke up sans any gifts from Santa and headed to Monteverde via jeep boat jeep across Lake Arenal and through the bumpiest road to town yet. We got dropped off at a tour office where we walked through suspension bridges so high in the so called jungle/forest. It was cool, but not worth the $15 dollars we paid. But we did get to climb up a hollowed out tree, so that was cool. After that, we went ziplinning through the trees and on top of the canopy and it was scary but so fun. We were true Tarzan and Jane suspended so high in the air over the jungle. A couple of the zip lines were so high and when the wind caught you, it was pretty scary. Matt got stuck in the middle on two zip lines and had to get rescued but the guides...don´t worry, I have one on video!!! Matt also got one of the guides to mess with me and when I was crossing the Indiana Jones style bridge, the guide was jumping on it to shake me and we repelled down a tree and he let me drop so fast I thought I was going to die! We also got to Tarzan swing it through the trees and it was a sheer drop and then it swung you up through the trees. It was so scary but definetly worth it!

We ended our Christmas with a dinner and met up some people we met at a Tico bar and listened to the loud music, watched drunk white guys dance, and watched crazy men dodge a raging bull on TV. We did get to see a few impailments in the behind, so it made it all worth it. I guess bull fighting is the thing to do in the city during xmas and new years here and anyone can get in the ring and taunt the bull and there were about 100 stupid men doing just so.

We finally got a good night sleep last night and I think I will be good for the next week or so. We are staying in a Tican families home that rent out 2 rooms. Our room is really nice despite the killer gigantic spider crawling on our wall today. Matt heroically smashed the killer spider only letting out a tiny scream! And today we are rained in this little town with nothing to do, it´s been constantly raining for hours now. But we are heading to the Pacific Coast tomorrow morning in search of an awesome beach with waves so Matt can perfect his surfing skills and I can perfect my tan. Hope you had a Merry Xmas, I know we did!