Costa Rica Closure and hot waters ala Volcano

Our last week before departure was a volcano study. We headed off from San Jose to Arenal area for 4 days and had a wonderful time. Clearly if you only have a week in Costa Rica you should spend it primarily in Arenal and a couple final days in Manuel Antonio, you can even take a bus directly from Arenal or Manuel Antonio to the airport, so there is no need to pass by San Jose again.

Arenal volcano is a recently active beast, though it hasn't flowed lava now for 6 or 7 months. It was very active from 1968 onwards though, and has killed many people in that time. The volcano is huge, daunting, and jets right up from the earth with a little brother called Cerro Chatto, or "little flat one".

From the volcano comes hot thermal waters, and an ensuing bloom of hot spring retreats. The most beautiful of which, is by far Tobacon. A perfect romantic retreat for a couple on a honey moon. Very natural and beautiful cascading pools, any one of which would have been enough for a day but instead you get like 15 or 20 pools to explore, a real treat.

We had lighting and rain in the evenings, sometimes it even felt a little dangerous, or magical. As if the water falling on my back from the waterfall was electric, ethereal or otherworldly. I felt like a magician playing with some power source that was somewhat beyond my control.

We played in giant waterfalls, stayed in a beautiful observatory lodge near the foot of the volcano on the isolated fresh-lava side and did really adventurous hikes to the top of the old little volcano to dip in the old crater where a mineral green lake has formed.

These were some of our best days in Costa Rica and a perfect way to end our time here. It feels sad to be leaving Costa Rica, it is a shame that there wasn't enough opportunities and too high a cost of living here to stay longer, but we are sure to enjoy our lives in Thailand as well and we are still really in disbelief at our great luck at being able to get a one-year visa. Tomorrow we fly via Canada for a day and then its hello Asia!

Many new pictures are being uploaded for this last week, you can find them on my picasa album: