OneWayTicket

Day 57: Rumblings and ramblings

(Photo: The husband became a hummingbird stalker in Arenal, but this picture made my day)

We awoke to the sound of birds. Half a dozen hummingbirds were buzzing in the flowering bushes outside our window. A Mumbai taxi-coloured Toucan sat in the tree across (see photo, below).

I´ve never heard so much birdsong--and this without even getting out of bed. We´ve decided to skip all touristy pursuits (hot springs, more canopy rides, canyoning where you rappel off a waterfall, a lava tour where you can see sites of previous explosions, a serpentariam, a butterfly garden and god knows what else) and enjoy our room and this property. We missed Gitu and could visualize her glued to her camera.

After breakfast we decided to head for the free hike in and around the grounds of the Arenal Observatory Lodge. The air was bursting with birds who love the morning. The observatory deck adjacant to the restaurant has spectacular views of the artificial Lake Arenal in addition to the volcano. That´s where we met Phil, who told us he hadn´t seen anything like the previous night´s fireworks in the last four years.

Phil is a retired American doctor turned underwater photographer turned wildlife photographer who couldn´t live in the US any more and had somehow managed to acquire a house in the area. With his white beard, green combat pants and jungle boots, he looked every bit the original explorer. It became part of our morning routine to drink coffee with Phil on the deck and imbibe his gyan. He said rocks had carved a channel that was around six feet deep and 20 feet wide all the way to the bottomo f the volcano. That´s why last night we had visualized a ¨waterfall¨.

I asked Phil how the Ring of Fire experience compared with Arenal--he and his wife had lived in Indonesia for many years until security became a problem. He said Indonesia´s volcanos were much more inaccessible. Actually that´s the beauty of Arenal. You have a front seat view of the action without the crowds or the real world entering the picture. So it´s a very surreal experience.

The morning walk was great fun. We clambered over a hanging bridge, walked down slippery steps to a hidden waterfall, and saw lots of birds including a white hawk, toucans, la paloma , a crested wild turkey, a robin chasing a moth. Phil accompanied us for part of the walk and picked up a harmless snake. He offered it to anyone who wasn´t wearing bug spray. The husband took him up on the offer. (see photo, below)

We passed the building that housed the area´s seismograph and our guide Eduardo said scientists were bound to pop in today for readings after last night´s activity. Don´t touch that Angel Trumpet Tree he warned. Its fragrance attracts bats at night but it also contains the belladona toxin. If you sleep under one you´ll get high or die, he said.

 (Photo, above: The angel trumpet, inhale and die, said Eduardo)

At one point we heard a group of coyotes howling. We rushed towards them but they had slipped away into the primary forest that surrounded us. And yes, sitting on a bed of pine needles, we heard the story of the volcano. For 400 years she had lain dormant. Locals said she was a mountain, not a volcano. And then, in 1968, as the farmers in the area slept, they felt tremors and heard distant rumblings for many hours.

No one saw the first explosion.

In the morning, after the farmers went to their fields, it suddenly became dark. All that ash was blocking the sunlight. Everyone saw the next eruption. Clounds of sulphur gas killed 88 people. Then rocks began crashing into houses. Rocks were flung for 3 to 4 km and hurtled over the coffee, banana, and sugarcane plantations and soon everything was dust. Today, tourist magnet Tabacon hot springs, from where you can soak in the sulphurous water and drink some Malbec as you take in the view, is located in the most dangerous area of Arenal, we were told.

Over the next 40 years, the vegetation grew back. Over the years, there have been four active craters on this volcano. Only Crater C at the rim of the volcano remains active; it has rumbled steadily for 40 years making Arenal the most active volcano in Costa Rica. What used to be Arenal town lies buried under Lake Arenal, built with lava and concrete. Forty-five percent of the country´s electricity requiremets are met by this lake. There are more than 350 volcanos in Central America but I think the husband picked just the right one for us to visit.

Today though she´s spent most of the day hiding behind a cloudy veil.