the beginning of the dock story 3/5/07

Well after our awful day yesterday, we returned to the port to try again and recover the trucks. It took another 1.5hrs to finish the paperwork from yesterday a further hour to have everything photocopied then we were taken by car in my flip flops!!! To get the trucks. We were then quickly out of the dock. What made all this worth while was the fact that the trucks were in perfect condition and we paid no bribes not even asked, yes it had taken a long time but in my opinion worth the time.

Then back to the hotel put the stuff back in the cab, radio, CB, etc. Took the bars from the windows; had a shower and lunch in the hotel and then back on the road again, heading for the Laguna del Arenal and the Volcano Arenal. We hope again to be able to a volcano spitting fire and brimstone.
We turn east from the Pan-American highway towards the town off Tilaran, this is a small town and ranching center but we are to early for the rodeo I am very sorry to say, (it is very hot). We continue making our way up the Tilaran Mountains and we have a lovely cool breeze, once we reach the lake the temperature is a lot more pleasant, the lake is very pretty with the Volcano at its end now everything is much more jungle - the flowers are very beautiful and different; also there are a lot more birds - most of them are very colourful we continued around until we came to the small village where the German Bakery is, here I had apple strudel and ice cream lovely!! Les asked were we could park for the night and were sent down a couple of short dirt roads to the lakeside, when its dark we should have been able to see the volcano spitting red fire. Low cloud we could see nothing!!! (Just our luck) this night we had torrential rain, my roof windows were open I knew it was raining when I got wet!! Following day we continued around the lake the ride is very beautiful and interesting the Arenal Observatory, this is a hotel with some wonderful jungle trails and with a great view of the volcano, we had a lovely walk through the jungle the flowers and birds are magnificent we had a wonderful afternoon in the evening went to watch the fire spitting from the volcano low cloud, rain we could not see anything.