Our final days staying near the volcano gave us the chance to visit Arenal National Park, Arenal Lake, and other areas around Fortuna. The images in this blog post will provide a glimpse into some of the typical scenery (roads, houses, culture, etc.) in Costa Rica. Some of my favorite images from the trip are the volcano sunrise photos I took around 5am right outside of our hotel room.
The dirt road entrance at Arenal National Park. You can see the lava trails down the volcano.
One of three snakes we saw at the national park. The biggest was about 6 feet long and slithered across the hiking trail in front of us!
The giraffe tree had some impressive roots
Unfortunately, we didn't see any activity :(
Something else that was very unique are the fences all over the farm land and properties. Barb wire was simply wrapped from tree to tree to create the fences. You would also see tree branches stuck into the ground as well to create the posts of fences.
The houses were very simplistic with mainly pieces of sheet metal for the walls and roofs. Christmas trees were often placed outside on the porches due to lack of space inside. There were many different colored houses, some being multi-colored.
Dogs may out number people in Costa Rica. They were everywhere and mostly in the middle of the road.
Pizotes travel together and reminded us of raccoons with long tails.
We even found a Christmas tree made from car tires in the city park of Fortuna. This is in the town square in downtown Fortuna. Pine trees are hard to come by, so they had to get creative. There were also trees made out of 7-up bottles and white plastic bags.
Arenal Volcano view from our hotel room. The flowers were so vibrant and seemed to grow everywhere.
Lake Arenal- I used a Lee Big Stopper to create a long exposure during the day. This creates the glassy water effect and blurs the motion of the clouds.
The man made lake offers kayaking, fishing tours, boat rentals and sunset cruises.
Sunrise with a clear view of the volcano.
Erin woke up to just in time to see this beautiful sunrise view!
Attempted to catch the silhouettes of these worker ants against the sunrise lit sky. Didn't quite nail the focus, they were moving so fast!
Another long exposure image, you can see the movement in the clouds. I liked the fog at the base of the volcano as well.
Our last and final blog will document our stay at Los Altos de Eros and our time spent on the beach :)