December 5, 2009
San Antonio de Belen to Arenal
Lodge Dinner
Campsite in Parke Arenal
Volcano Arenal
Lake Arenal

Well today’s drive was yet another adventure. Why oh why do we have so many adventures in our lives. It was to be just a short drive (under 125 miles I think) and the road was to be mostly straight from the map I was reading. Well we left the Alajuela area and proceeded to the turnoff from the Pan Am Hwy at San Ramon to go to La Fortuna on Hwy 142. Not before buying out a whole store of their pottery etc in Naranio. But Bev was pleased and I was pleased that she was pleased.
What looked like a fairly straight road on the map turned out to be one sharp turr after another on a very narrow two lane road. Sort of brings back memories of Baja Mexico.
Well on the way we knocked the passenger mirror on a post on the side of the road and although we have a temporary fix the housing was still cracked. No final repair on it until California I’m afraid. But I do still have as of yet a side view mirror on that side.
It was up and down and around for about 5 hours to complete the trip of 125 miles and when you can only see 25% of the turn in front of you thru the front window of an RV you know it is slow going.
We did stop to buy some local cheese at a stand beside the road. This was great dairy cow area. Next it was thru the Cloud Forest. Now, you have a total canopy above you and the forest seems to grow everywhere. Lots of zip line adventure tours her in the rain forest. Until we arrived at Arenal it was sunny but now it is raining.
I should mention that the road building in Costa Rica the roads are well paved and two lane narrow but the bridges it seems were all built in the early 1900’s. So rather than build a new wider bridge they are kept one lane. You have a CEDRA or CEDA on one lane approaching the bridge and that lane must yield to the oncoming traffic. Now some of these bridges are really long with jungle canopy one either side so it is not always possible to see the oncoming traffic. Makes for an interesting trip across the bridge in an RV.
We were going to have a relaxing day in the hot springs near the volcano but could not get a parking space there. I did unhook little TT so maybe we will go over there tomorrow. Now we are in the parking lot of the Arenal National Park. This is an active volcano but does not have any sulphur coming out of it. So vegetation grows immediately after the lava cools (about 8 years). This is a really neat campsite but no hookups which we had gotten use to for the last 10 days.
Tonight we are going to try to go to the Observation Lodge for dinner and see if the cloud cover goes away enough to see the volcano erupt.
The last major eruption was in 1968 when the town of Arenal was completely destroyed and everything around it, 87 people died. Since then there have been two major lava flows in 1992 and 1997. Now there is a large lake where the town and its airport were. Just a vast jungle now over the lava flow which was once homes and a town center. So sleep well tonight Lorne and think of that.
Ah well if life were not an adventure would we really want to be here?