Arenal Volcano

We had to get out of bed around 4am in order to prepare for the long drive to the volcano. Volcán Arenal, or Arenal Volcano, as it is known in English-speaking parts of this planet, is just one of the many volcanoes in Costa Rica. I do remember the guide telling us something about it being the currently most active one.

When most people think of volcanoes, they think of these mountains, a crater on top, which spews liquid magma, constantly. This is not the case with Arenal. It erupts lava, but not in the traditional form that movies portray it in. The lava from Arenal is mostly rocks. Rocks that are HOT. The guide told us about how some dudes were totally destroyed because rocks flew out of it after an eruption and although the rocks didn't land on anyone, they were killed by the hot hair released from the rocks as they passed by. That's like, getting burned to death. BY AIR.

Arenal received its name because "arena" means sand in Spanish, and Costa Rican settlers about 40 years ago, were all like, "hey what's with all this sand under our fertile dirt?" Another interesting thing about Arenal Volcano is that its lava's aftermath is very fertile. That is why all the land near the volcano is amazingly green. It is quite the site to behold.

Our journey began with a brisk trek on a path that would give us a good view of the volcano. As I had mentioned earlier, some people died while being at the base of the volcano when it erupted 60mph lava rocks, so people are prohibited from getting that close to the volcano now.

We went from a plain pebbly trail to a grassy hill to view the volcano from a distance. After that, we proceeded into what looked like a rain forest. It was interesting, since we were so close to a volcano. Again, the whole fertile land thing. Oh, another thing, when Arenal first erupted, the lava flew out of its side, rather than its top. It created 4 impact craters and destroyed a village. That entire area is now filled with lush greens trees and grass.



Holy crap, lava!

We then journeyed up some steep rocks to finally reach the top of a hill that gave us a view of the volcano. Too bad it was so cloudy that day. However, we did get a really good look at the lake.