after writing the last post, the next activity we signed up for was the volcano hike to an observation point where we would eat pizza and drink beer then we would head to the hot springs.

sounds fun if the weather was right, but as soon as we got out of the bus, guess what, it started raining. the guide was named walter and despite his bland behavior, he was very nice and super knowledgable about everything, even the latin names of animals and trees. i think someone said he was a biologist, it would fit.

anyways, i bought one red and one yellow poncho for occasions such as this. of course, fashion isn’t an option when you wear these things, but we were styling! we also had umbrellas so dee used hers. i have a great pic of her sporting her poncho and umbrella.

she looks like she is about to give the weather forecast. i was also carrying a much unnecessary backpack. john said i looked like a yellow hunch back and i should be ringing the bell tower. also wearing a yellow poncho makes ya look like a big chicken so i did the chicken dance for em as we walked through the forest.

the rain was coming down and the poncho was doing just fine except i was sweating like a pig underneath it. we entered the forest, which, according to walter, is a humid forest, not a rain forest. the variation in forests depends on elevation, amount of rain and amount of condensation. the forest we will enter in monteverde is a cloud forest. it gets its moisture from being in the clouds, not from rain. i think. i could be way off.

anyways, i digress. the walk through the forest was ok. we saw a couple of spider monkeys swinging in the trees, which was amazing and a bit startling. i thought i would be excited to see monkeys, but after seeing their long arms swinging in the tree and the way they looked, i was a little scared. it reminded me of the movie signs by m.night shamalon. for the ones who haven’t seen it, it is about aliens invading the planet. the monkeys reminded me of the aliens in the movie that scared the crap out of me. i have a huge fear of aliens, which is probably from all the movies i watched that featured them as evil instead of friendly. so, i lost my excitement to see them in the other jungles.

so, it is soaking wet in the forest, more like a jungle. the jungle has so much foliage and life, it was unbelievable. the guide showed us the different types of trees and explained how the volcano devastated the forests and what we were hiking through was secondary forests. arenal volcano has destroyed and will keep destroying the area. there are signs everywhere talking about high volcano risk area

and to only stay at the observation point for a short amount of time. while we were walking through the jungle, we didn’t hear or feel any tremors so no worries about being evaporated by lava.

actually, i forgot to mention that the observation point we were supposed to hike to was closed due to inactivity and we would travel to another one after the hike. so, the hike was an effort to educate us on the jungle and bring us closer to connecting with it, so we would gain a higher respect for the jungle. the guide even thanked us for coming since our tourism to the jungle would insure its survival because the government would tear it down if it was not profitable.

so, we are all completely soaked except for dee cause she had the umbrella. smart girl except if there was lightening, then she would be toasted girl.

we emerge and arrive at the guard station at the entrance of the park to meet Blaine who had pizza and beer for us. she made an executive decision to cancel the observation point since we wouldn’t see anything anyways and we would eat pizza and drink beer at the guard station while it poured rain. i mean POURED! it rained so hard that we had to shout to be heard. i didn’t care. i was starving and ate two slices at a time.

while we ate, we spoke to the guide who dee enjoyed talking to very much cause he answered all her questions with great detail. he recommended us going to bocas del toro in panama as our next stop after the tour ended. so, that was encouraging and i am looking forward to the scuba diving in that area.

after we ate and drank everything we headed for the hot springs. i didn’t really know what the hot springs would be about except water heated from a volcano. i was really impressed with the place. it had many different pools varying in different degrees of hot and some had swim up bars. it was very clean and had manicured plant areas and nice paved walkways to the various pools. so, we all changed into our swimsuits and headed for the water.

we climbed up a bit to hotter pools and as soon as i got in, every muscle just relaxed. it was so warm and soothing. i was so happy. the stress i had from walking through the forest and being soaking wet all disappeared. it was amazingly perfect, and as a bonus, it had a swim up bar. the pool also had two waterfalls. one was warm and the other was really really hot. the warm one was my shower temp and the other was dee’s. so, we stood under them and got a nice water massage. i was expecting a crowd but it was pretty empty and we had most of the pool to ourselves. john and dee got pina coladas and i got a beer and we had a great time just hanging out in the pool. the bar area had a roof over it so we didn’t get rained on, but parts of the pool were without the roof and the rain was cold and hard so we were staying put until it cleared or lightened up.

the time flew by while we were in the pool and before we knew it, two hours had gone by and it was time to head back. but first, we found the hottest pool and holy crap it was so hot. walter, the guide, said the japanese love the hottest pool and are the only ones found in it. the rain had died down enough to be bareable and we were soon dressed in street wears and back on the bus.

after we returned, dee organized everyone to go out together to a bar. one of the guys said there was a karoke bar up the street and they were thinking about checking out. john is a phenomenal singer from his history of growing up in a musical family and being in a band and on and on. he knows the words to so many songs, it’s amazing! so, i thought i was a great idea and i was excited to see him in action.

the karaoke bar was at the end of a very dark and suspicious dirt road, but at the end was a barn like structure with music blaring and lights shining. after a while, the staff gave us the song book.

john wasn’t the only one in the group who wanted to sing. the guy that recommended the place was checking out the book too. while we were looking, the ticos were singing some songs and they were pretty good singers. course, i couldn’t tell if they were singing the song correctly or not. it was cool to hear them sing regardless.

john’s first song was careless whisper by wham. he had the whole room going. the version of the song was different than the original. some verses were missing, but john knew the words so well that he sang them anyways. in fact, he didn’t look at the tv much as he walked around singing to the women and being, well, being john.

the next one he sang was copacabana. once again, he had the whole room dancing and singing. i had turned down the quality of the video so i could cram more of john on the camera thinking he would be singing more. i’m upset i did cause that was his last song. so, the quality sucks on his last song, but it is still fun to watch. i will post it later.

there were other groups of tourist from the states (i guess) and they were singing and dancing with us. it was a fun night and then the heavy set ones got some liquor in em and started shaking what they were packing. all of them got on a table which was bending while they were dancing. i took a pic of them and kept my camera focused on them in case the table broke.

after a while, it turned into a hip hop dance club and fat girls dancing with the locals and it was late and we had to wake up early so we left.

we had changed our hotel rooms early in the day cause the last one sucked. the new one was much better and had a/c so we slept very well.

i’m writing this post from monteverde and have a whole day to write about later. however, this mountain’s internet connection is really slow so i can’t transfer pics to the website yet. i will be able to in two days when we go to quepos, aka the beach.

i will write about today’s travels later. right now, i got a cerveza with my name all over it waiting at the bar with dee and john. we are having a great time!