Hola mi amigos. Right now I´m in an internet cafe (with AC) while looking out the window at a volcano that looks like its less than 2 miles away...really. Today Carol and I braved the local bus system for 4 hours to arrive at this town called La Fortuna in the Northern Central Highlands of Costa Rica.

Okay, so I last left you with my first day in Alajuela. Well the next day Carol and I went to Cafe Britt which is a coffee plantation and learned how coffee was made...pretty interesting. I´ll give details to whoever asks. We got a delicious meal and tons of free coffee. That night we went to a nice italian dinner and sat out on a romantic balcony...ahhh. We met a ton of people at our hostel that night and one boy named Pete that we are now traveling with. Pete is a law student at Pepperdine (he said he wasn´t smart enough to get into Yale). He´s been all over the world, so he´s been fun to talk to.

So, with the direction of Pete (we had to use him for something right) we made it on the bus to La Fortuna. To put this in perspective of how slow the bus it, La Fortuna is actually only about 40 miles away from Alajuala but it took us 4 hours with two break downs. They even hauled us off the bus once and told another bus was coming in the middle of nowhere. They decided everything was fine, but us back on and about 20 minutes later i swear i heard a cannon go off. No, it was just a tire and according to the driver, it was no problemo...so we just kept driving with the flapping tire sound out of the window!!!

We arrived safety and cheaply (3 bucks) and are now staying at Gringo Petes for 5 bucks a night. Pete is from Washington State and has really cheap tours, so we found the good place. We went to this waterfall area that Pete knew about and jumped off rocks and rope swings (yes mom and dad...i did it and have a big red mark on my back to prove it). We met another Pete at our hostel from England and he went with us as well. Then we went hiking to another waterfall which was beautiful. I really wish i could show you picture, but my camera is being stupid with this computer and i can´t figure it out. We saw a toucan in the trees and tons of tree cutter ants (ants that go marching in a row with pieces of leaf on their backs). Evidently if you mess up their path they get all disoriented and don´t know where to go...i haven´t tried that yet.

The volcano was OUT (from the clouds...which evidently is really rare this time of year), so i got lots of pictures of that. Tomorrow, carol and i are going on a hike where we are promised lava!!!

Okay, well that is all for now. I´ll try to figure out this picture thing and post a bunch at once. Hope you are well and talk to you soon.

P.S. I just checked my site and evidently this is the only posting that made it on the site...my first one didn´t go....so you all missed out on my adventures in Alajuala...they weren´t that exiciting, so I´ll say more later.