White water Rafting - Volcano - Bar Maid

We rafted the Rio Toro yesterday. We travelled about 17 kilometers in 60-70 minutes. That is a pretty good clip, a far cry from tubing down the Brazos. Normally this would be a “3 hour tour” (sing the song) but the water was up and moving fast. We have no pictures to share, I don’t think I will be buying them from the tour company as nothing is really in focus, maybe we were moving too fast for a junior photographer.

About 17:00 yesterday it started to get really clear, so we decided to go see the volcano. We drove down near the national park on the base of the volcano and there were cars and tour buses everywhere just past the river. I thought I was going to rip the bottom out of the Toyota Yaris as it bounced off the river boulders. In isolation it would have been a great observation point, but ignorant tourists were everywhere, kids were playing with flashlights, just shining them in random directions and the camera flash from wannabe photographers was rendering our eyes insensitive to the subtle changes in hue of the smoke at the top of the volcano as it started to glow like a cigarette tip.

Mark napped from 3 pm to 5 pm yesterday, Karl and I walked over every street and visited every store for 2/3 of the town. I picked up an 8 port 10/100 mb/s rj45 switch so that we could all use the internet simultaneously and a new headset for skyping.

We gave up and drop to the Arenal Observatory where for a $4 cover fee each we sat in chairs on a lovely deck way farther up the mountain and observed the volcano with people who had a clue, taking time lapsed photographs from tripods or watching through binoculars. Not a one of them thought that the flash from their cell phone would illuminate the top of the volcano that was 2 kilometers away.

I went to bed at 11:00. When I woke up at 6:00 Karl was not here. When he returned at 7:00 he reported that things were a little slow here last night so he went to the bar and was with the barmaid (a California girl) and that she wants him to be his room-mate. Then he went directly to bed. I guess the 8:30 lava trails walk is off..