Welcome to Nuevo Arenal!

The Amazing Arenal Volcano~Jerry took this picture early one morning

!Hola from Arenal!

We can't believe it's been over a week since we got here....we left Grecia on July 1st and drove north and a bit west to Nuevo Arenal. On the way we went through La Fortuna which is where the Arenal Volcano is. What a site!  You can see it in the pictures we've posted. We continued around the volcano and the north shore of the lake for about 40 kilometers to get to Nuevo Arenal. What a cute town! There is one road in and it continues right on out after about 2-3 blocks. Then there is another street we have dubbed Main Street. Considering this is a pretty small town, there are a bunch of restaurants with really good food. Our favorite, so far, is Moya's. Excellent pizza! I've only cooked once since we arrived. This could become a habit! Anyway, the lake and volcano views, plus really nice weather are making this very interesting to us. The temperature is in the low 80's during the day with a wonderful breeze and into the 60's at night. Perfect for sleeping with a light blanket. Again, no one has heat or air conditioning in their homes here. The rain tends to come later in the day, about 4-6 pm. Sometimes it rains all night, but always is done by 7 am. Some days are a bit cloudy, some very sunny. Kinda perfect to us!

Nuevo Arenal has many ex-pats and we've met several. All very nice, including our new "landlords" Allison and Jeff. Last Sunday they took us for a drive around the lake. The most southwestern part of the lake gets very windy and it's the home to windsurfing and kitesurfing. There are also a bunch of those gigantic windmills. Along with the windmills, there is hydroelectric power generated by the lake and those sources provide about 25-30% of the power for the entire country!

The people here in Arenal, as it's called, are very friendly. We say "hi" to everyone and the other day an elderly gentleman in his cowboy boots and hat passed us and we said "hi". He shook Jerry's hand and then took mine in both his and shook it, smiling all the time. There are a lot of farms here with cattle, goats and horses. It's not unusual to see a man or boy riding down the street in town on his horse.

There are TONS of things to do in this area: horseback riding, ziplining, hiking the volcano (only part way~it's one of the most active in the world), visiting the hot springs (we're going this week), white water rafting, wind and kitesurfing, kayaking, boating, sailing, bird and monkey watching, swimming in the lake, fishing, parasailing, kite flying and much more. Plus near by is another volcano (dormant) and 2 very large national parks.  I saw my first monkey yesterday, plus we heard a troop in the trees on a walk! They're very loud and the males tend to sound ferocious because they are protecting the rest of the troop. Hopefully we'll get some pictures so we can post them.

Friday we leave this area to go to Playa Hermosa on the beach on the Pacific Ocean. We'll be there for 3 weeks and see what life at the beach is like.

On the way to Nuevo Arenal

Our new house~is 800 square feet and used to have 4 bedrooms! Now is one bedroom and totally remodeled and Gringoized!

Our Side Yard-tons of plants and birds

The living room and kitchen~dining room behind me and bedroom off on the left

Our kitchen with all the conveniences! Small, but it's nice

Our Front Door~isn't it beautiful--all hand carved!

Flowers from the garden

More flowers and bushes

This is "Main Street"~Moya's is on the right where the bikes are, and the gas station is across the street

Un Caballero (cowboy) riding down our street

Rainbow outside our front door

The Bullring~they don't really fight the bulls, more like ride them until they fall off!

Jerry opening our gate

Hasta luego,
Tina y Jerry