First day in the park

We went on two hikes the first day in the park and saw so many things you wouldn't believe! In the first few hours, we saw a HUGE spider, ants the length of a quarter, a Costa Rican raccoon, a mini-volcano, hot springs, bubbling mud, horses, monkeys... and so much more! This is at the beginning of our hike - it looked a lot like hiking in Tennessee at first with streams going through woods,etc.








But then we started seeing trees like this! They are considered Ficus trees, but nothing like any ficus trees I've seen in the US. We saw even much larger ones than this, but got tired of taking pictures of trees. Sorry that this is rotated - Scott's camera take fancy pictures and the picture is normal when we look at the file, but not once I post it on this site. Anyone know how to rotate in HTML?







We next saw something that you'd NEVER see in Tennessee - a volcanito (or mini volcano)! It made noises like you would expect to see from a volcano and was just off our path - it was so amazing! We took videos, but I have yet to figure out how to post videos on this site. Andria and Kevin - help? Everyone reading will have to let me know how to make things look better. :D







We also saw something like the equivalent of hot springs baths, but you wouldn't want to get in these. It can get as hot as 260 degrees F! This is similar to the water they use in fancy spas, but I guess they have to cool it down a bit first.







There were also mud baths with boiling mud! Again, the video shows it much better, but you'll just have to wait until I've figured that one out. Girls - it's like Glen Ivy - but much warmer!