Costa Rica lies on a long fault with a big Pacific plate sliding under a Caribbean plate along the Pacific coastline, making it prone to earthquakes and producing 112 volcanoes of which 8 or 9 are still active. The most active is Arenal which first erupted in 1968 wiping out 3 villages and killing 90 people, as a result of which resorts have sprung up all around it and tourists flock there, including us. Up to 3 years ago visitors could watch lava flows from an unsafe distance, but now, although not dormant it is at least snoozing and we hoped it would doze on for a couple more days.
In the morning we visited a small local school to be greeted by small children in national dress, shown around the school (which has 125 pupils but only 5 teachers so kids attend in morning or afternoon shifts) and treated like visiting royalty with their national anthem and a dance display. Then they bought hats and satin scarves for the men and the same bright coloured satin frilled skirts for us to join in, with enthusiastic if inept scarf waving and skirt swishing on our part. We treated them to God Save The Queen in several keys at once and an animated version of 'I'm going on a bear hunt'. The kids looked quite bewildered and strangely we weren't asked to sing our prepared encore.
We were invited to a teacher's house for lunch where we got to make corn tortillas ourselves, in a variety of untraditional shapes and sizes, to accompany the traditional dishes of rice, black beans and squash. We felt very honoured by both visits and the chance to experience real Costa Rican culture and hospitality. The women, who do the cooking were finally able to tell me that the rice and bean dish was called 'spotted cockerel' as it was the colour of a cockerel's tail feathers.
Once the heat of the day had settled we drove to the volcano and walked a trail to see and clamber over the blocks of stone formed from the lava of the 1992 eruption. In 2003 a guide and 2 tourists were vapourised trying to get a close look at the crater so no one goes to the top now. Seems obvious really since the volcano is still growing by 3 metres a year, so something is still going on even if the lava no longer flows. At night the side of the cone started to glow red, after a momentary start it was a relief to realizes it was just the rays of the setting sun. If it erupts most of the hotels and resorts will be in the firing line so we were happy to drive away before it wakes.