San Carlos and Volcan Arenal

Emily and I headed to Ciudad Quesado (known as the capital of the San Carlos area) to stay with Esteban, a friend and business partner of Tucker. He has a ranch in Platanar that has 40 or more horses, beautiful landscapes, fields, pastures, and more. The region is known as the wild west of Costa Rica, and many people have farms, ranches, ride horses to town, and work in agriculture.

The ride to San Carlos was beautiful, going through endless green hills and valleys. La Fortuna and Arenal are in the same region, so you can see the volcano from a few places on the drive in. We had some archaic directions from Tucker to get off at the bus stop just past the sugar mill, walk into the bar, tell them "Soy el hijo de la gringa. Estoy buscando por Esteban (I am the son of the gringa (Tucker), I am looking for Esteban)" and it would all work out. So I walk into the bar, tell them that, and they look very confusedly at me. Then a kind fellow at the bar, overhearing the conversation pulls out his cell phone and calls Esteban. There are always guardian angels watching us.

Esteban picked us up, and took us to the Centaura Stables. They were amazing. The hospitality was amazing, "mi casa es su casa" was the truth, and we loved it. We went horseback riding, biking, and almost hot air ballooning.

We spent a day at Arenal, hiking around the active volcano. We rented an awesome scooter and headed for the mountains. The scootering was awesome as we zipped around the countryside, honking at the locals and slowly climbing the hills.

In the evening we went to the Eco-Termales Hotpools which were amazing. As we were leaveing the pools, some guy told us that the clouds around the volcano had cleared and that we could see it. It was awe-inspiring. We could litterally see the molten rocks and stuff spewing out of the volcano, a firey glow in the night sky. Amazing.



We are now back in San Jose and Emily is leaving for Colorado tomorrow morning. Travels are good. My birthday is in two days....