We got up early in the morning to go on the lodge's complimentary guided hike through the jungle to a lava flow. It was much less humid than Osa, allowing us to hike in pants and not get eaten alive by the local mosquito population.

Our guide, Bernardo, pointed out lots of plants and their uses, like one he said worked as mosquito repellent.

The forest was the thickest we had been in, with plants growing over the trail and trees forcing us to bob and weave. Bernardo brought his scope, which we used to look at some blue morpho butterflies and a coati hiding in the trees. We heard howler monkeys, but never saw them. They kept up loud roars and grunts for our whole hike.

The volcano was also being noisy. We thought the sounds were airplanes, until Bernardo explained that it was actually gas escaping. Frequent gunshot sounds that echoed off the mountain were rocks getting spit out and tumbling down the sides of the volcano.

Our hike took about an hour through the forest, until it level out a bit and the ground changed to dark, ground-up lava rock. The foliage changed to high grass and scattered plants and flowers. Finally, the path opened completely into lava rock, the remains of a 10-year-old lava flow, and we were able to get an uninterrupted view of the volcano.

The clouds hanging over the top drifted away as we walked up, revealing almost the whole mountain. The combination of volcano noises - the rushing gas and crashing rocks - and howler monkeys, a light wind and gray skies and the frozen waves of black lava rock cascading around us created a pretty eerie effect.

Below, we could see the jungle and Lago Arenal, the second largest lake in Central America, according to Bernardo, and source of 50 percent of Costa Rica's energy.

Above us, clouds kept small parts of the volcano concealed, although as they moved away from the top we could see a slightly darker, thinner cloud of escaping gas.

After the hike we left the hotel and drove back down the dirt road away from the observatory lodge, stopping in front of a field to take pictures as the last clouds lifted off the volcano, and headed for the nearest creek, where we were supposed to find heated water.

We found a spot along the side of the highway and hiked down to the creek. The water was warm. We didn't swim, since we were worried about getting to Monteverde by dark. We started out on pretty good highway - no lanes, but wide enough for two cars and paved. We drove along the lake's edge, and the scenery was nice. At one point, we stopped at a promising viewpoint to try and get a good look at the full volcano over the lake.

Two turismo buses were parked there, and as we stepped out we heard a man tell us, in American English, that, "you guys may want to wait a minute."

Two steps forward revealed a line of guys relieving themselves in the direction of the lake.

"Don't pee on your shoes!" one lady yelled at them from the bus, where several others were standing around smoking.

"It's not my shoes I'm worried about," said one guy, emerging from behind our car and zipping himself up, "it's my thang."

We decided to skip the lookout.

The road gradually deteriorated as we headed west. "Careterra en mal estado" signs warned us about the more severe potholes, including once when a sign warned us that the road was in bad state, followed by the entire left half of the road actually disappearing where a sinkhole had taken it out. There were also plenty of unmarked dips and bumps, and sometimes the paved section would end for a few hundred meters.

At the base of one hill, just as we started up, a cat-sized emerald basilisk lizard ran in front of the car on its hind legs, looking about as much like a dinosaur as anything possibly can. We swerved around it and just missed.

Shortly thereafter, we pulled into a roadside souvenir shop and restaurant to let several tailgaters pass. Since we were there, we went into the shop and looked at the menu, which had an eggplant sandwich on focaccia bread as one of its five items. We stayed for lunch, eating outside on a patio overlooking a huge garden and the lake. Bananas and other fruit grew in the garden.

Back on the road, we soon came to the town of Arenal, in the northernmost corner of the lake. In Arenal, the highway split off without signs. We guessed wrong at the first one, going left until the road ended about 1 km later. At the next intersection, the only wide road seemed to be going the exact opposite direction from where we wanted to go, so we stopped to ask three people, on the theory that if all three told us the same thing, we had probably understood correctly.

The road in the wrong direction turned out to be the correct one, and turned out to change direction just past the intersection. We rounded the northwest corner of the lake, past a long series of windmills and lots of signs for homes for sale and rent. One lakeside house was going for $37,000.

After passing the southwest part of the lake, we reached the town of Tilaran. Once again, there were no street signs, so we stopped at a gas station for directions. As we pulled in, a car with huge speakers drove by, blaring radio advertisements. The station attendant found this perfectly normal, and looked at Eric like he was from Mars when he asked him what all the noise was about.

The advertising car was so loud it would've been the envy of every American jerk who rolls up at a stoplight with stereo thumping so loud it shakes the other cars.

After the car had turned down a side street, the station attendant told us to go two blocks, then make a right, and we'd be on the road to Monteverde. He was pretty close to correct.

The pavement soon ended, and after a turn onto a very rural road (following a sign to Santa Elena, a town near Monteverde), we were on our way.

The next 30 km was dusty, bumpy and loud, in a rattling sort of way. We passed one or two milk trucks and supply trucks, and a few more residents on horses or ATVs. Once in a great while, another SUV drove by.

We passed farmhouses, with kids out playing or walking home from school, and small groups of 10-15 houses with residents sitting out on front patios talking. Most waved at our car, and one group of women on their porch waved very enthusiastically and blew us kisses.

In one town, the entire male population had gathered at the field to play soccer. There were probably 60 people, old and young, in one huge pick-up game in the central field. Each town we passed had a church, one-room school, and soccer field. As evening settled in, we saw and more residents beginning dinner, cooking outside or eating.

We finally arrived in Monteverde just as it was getting dark, around 6 p.m. After sorting out some confusion as to the location of our hotel, which was 10 km from the biological reserve (we thought it was closer, so we drove past it on our way to the reserve, ignoring a sign pointing us in the other direction), we bounced off the dirt road and onto the Monteverde Lodge's smooth dirt driveway.

The lodge was pretty nice, with an expansive entryway with jungle-view restaurant and fireplace. Our room had huge windows again, this time looking out over trees and a garden. We put our stuff down and went out to get dinner at a local vegetarian restaurant we had passed earlier while lost. We were there near the end of the dinner hour, it seemed, and the two girls working the restaurant were cleaning and blasting Janis Joplin. Both were singing along fairly enthusiastically in the kitchen.