How to hike a volcano

First of all, you don't actually hike the Arenal volcano.



Because it's friggin' dangerous, man! It's an active volcano! Throughout the day, you can hear its stomach rumbling. You never know when it's going to spew! So "hiking the volcano" actually means hiking very close to the volcano, near its base.


So close that if the volcano exploded we would have three minutes to run away, so we might as well just sit and watch it because we'd never make it out alive. At least that is what our guide Daniel told us. He also showed us animals, plants and stuff we would have never noticed if we had hiked the volcano on our own.


Like crazy termites in the trees. Daniel just tapped a stick on the bark and all of a sudden, they all came out. Gross.


Daniel told us as a kid that he used to collect fossilized leaves, just like these.


On the trail, he pointed out many spiders, each one getting bigger the deeper we went into the woods. This was the biggest one of them all!


Although you can't tell from this picture, we're standing next to the tree from Avatar. Just kidding. But that's what it looked like in person.


After the woodsy part, we hiked up a bunch of volcanic rock left from some explosion in the 90s. It took the rocks five YEARS to cool down.


On the top of the rocks, we saw a beautiful view of Lake Arenal.


We took a requisite portrait in front of the volcano.


Then I attempted to take a more artistic shot of the volcano.



And another.



After the hike, we went back to the hotel to lounge by the pool and then on our way to dinner, we drove past these cows grazing in the pretty sunset. I had Dan stop the car so I could take a picture.


And then we ate a steak (sad but true). It was good.

So that, my friends, is the way to hike a volcano.