Volcán Arenal

May the glory of the Lord endure forever; 

may the Lord rejoice in his works – 

he who looks at the earth, and it trembles, 

who touches the mountains, and they smoke. 

Psalm 104:31-32

Let the sea resound, and everything in it,

the world, and all who live in it.

Let the rivers clap their hands,

let the mountains sing together for joy.

Psalm 98:7-8

Two Fridays ago, our Spanish teacher canceled class on us.  So spur the moment, we decided to take advantage of the day off and head to the mountains for the weekend.  We went to the little town of La Fortuna, which is home to probably the most famous active volcano here in Costa Rica:  Volcán Arenal.

All the guidebooks have pictures of Arenal spewing lava at night.   

We have never been lucky enough to actually see anything like the above photo (this was our first time to Arenal since moving here, but we had been a couple times when we studied in CR 8 years ago).  But it didn’t matter.  Yeah, it would be a sight to behold to see lava like that, but the volcano was almost as glorious without the lava, as the clouds cleared away after an initial rainstorm, and revealed an almost perfect cone shaped stratovolcano, or composite volcano. (Pulled that science fact straight out of 4th grade curriculum I used to teach!)

 

We took full advantage of the good weather and went hiking on both Saturday and Sunday.  As I’ve mentioned before, San Jose doesn’t have much to offer as far as getting outdoors (our backyard is actually a pretty good option).  So our little getaway enabled us to escape the concrete and traffic of the city and enjoy nature at its best.  Being in God’s creation always puts life and its temporary problems in perspective for me and reminds me of His awesome majesty and power.  I hope it does the same for you. Enjoy the pictures!

"Baby" comes everywhere we go...

Gorgeous bird of paradise flower.

Taking a water break on our hike.

Walking on the lava rocks.

The trail actually followed a lava flow from 1968.

My two favorite hikers.

Joe was the backpack

"I'm so tired daddy"

Joe. Duh.

Me and Kate.

Un Casado: a plate of typical Costa Rican food.  A beautiful dish.  Casado means 'married' - which in this case means a marriage of different food and flavors - I think.

The maid created this elefante out of towels.  Pretty cool.

Childhood bliss.

You could mistake it for clouds, but there actually was smoke coming out of the mountain here.