Day 3: Without a Paddle

Hello folks one last time from La Fortuna near el volcan Arenal. Today has been another extremely busy one. Let's just say that if today was having a case of the Mondays, a case of the Mondays may not be such a bad thing. First of all, waking up near a volcano in the morning is not such a bad gig at all. Just saying. We kicked off the day with our normal daily dose of gallo pinto and then went off to kayak Lake Arenal. For many it was their first time kayaking and for me it was my first time in quite a while. At any rate, good times! I would imagine that we were on the lake for about 2 hours and it was a blast. Unfortunately, it wasn't until the time that we were leaving the lake that the top of the volcano started to emerge from beyond the clouds. But we did get some good shots afterwards including the one I took from my front porch at our villa in La Fortuna that I posted earlier today. Lunch was once again mom's cooking and then off to the La Fortuna Waterfall for some viewing of the impressive natural feature as well as taking a little swim around the somewhat chilly water there. Afterwards we spent some time in La Fortuna just hitting some shops and sampling some local food (my favorite will always be the baked goods, I had another very satisfying flauta today). I really like La Fortuna, because, even though it is built almost entirely around tourism with that giant volcano in the background, it really in many ways is a typical Costa Rican town. It is built around a very well kept plaza, with a church one side and a school and bank on the other, will little shops etc surronding it. It's hard to explain what I like about the town in a couple sentences but I like it a lot. At any rate, we capped off our day with a little relaxation at the famous hot springs that are fed by the volcano. There are 16 different springs of varying temperatures (the general rule of thumb is the closer the spring is to the volcano, the warmer it is, and some got rather hot!), and it was about as relaxing a way to wind down as I can think of. The journey continues early tomorrow as we leave the Arenal region and head towards Monteverde. We have about a four hour drive ahead of us, but there is a group of elementary school kids that I'm sure are pumped about our arrival because they have a little show prepared for us to introduce us to some of the folk dances of the region. This is the first time EF has visited this school as the company does its best to mix up the outreach. We have some things planned for them too, but more on that tomorrow. For now this is Roger Prill signing off from La Fortuna, Costa Rica. Good night everybody.