I spent last night at the foot of an active volcano. It's called Volcán Arenal, near San Carlos de Fortuna, northwest of San José.At night the summit glows bright red, and glowing ash and rocks are hurled out, coming most of the way down the mountain. A spectacular sight with the full moon. As a consequence, trips up to the main viewing platform are out of the question at the moment because they don't want to kill any more tourists. There are no pix to show you, either, as my little digicam doesn't do the equivalent of ASA1600 with a huge aperture, which I imagine would be the only way to photograph it.

Costa Rica is probably the most beautiful country I've been to so far. It's as though it's designed and maintained by a Master Gardener. Even the rampant rain and cloud forest vegetation seems to have a certain discipline in terms of variety and colour schemes, shapes and sizes. The inhabitants themselves clearly take a great pride in their country, which is clean and tidy, and all the houses with beautifully-maintained gardens. The roads are good, too; I've not seen any vehicle with tyre-inflators fitted--from Brazil southwards all buses and 18-wheelers have inflators on all their wheels, which give some indication of road quality (or lack of).

The hours differ madly from elsewhere in South America as well. San José was buzzing, with busy streets, from 6:30am every morning, then completely quiet and deserted by 10pm in the evening. Bit of a contrast from Argentina where it was unusual to find a restaurant which opened before 9pm. Here they close at 10pm.