Awoke moderately early and went for breakfast at the Montana de Lava. While there we couldn't but help overhear, and laugh at, the conversation going on at the next table between an American, Richard, and Claire who's originally of Scottish descent but has had a well travelled life for one so young. Claire, who works in Costa Rica as a tour guide, told us of a story that happened to her a few nights previously, when she was returning home and after getting near her house she dismounted her bicycle and started to walk it to the house. She felt her bike wheels go over something and she heard a noise so she got her torch or bike light or whatever out to discover that she'd run her wheels over some guy who'd been asleep with a dead deer by his side.
	The two of them being equally surprised the poacher spoke first trying to tell her that he'd found the dead deer and was going to report it. A likely story - from the poacher, I mean, not Claire. I think we outstayed our welcome at the restaurant and bade goodbyes to Richard and Claire before driving out	to see some of the souvenir shops on the road to the volcano. I wanted to buy some T-shirts and postcards for home and Sonia ended up buying a hammock for my place in Taiwan. Still not sure where we can hang it, but we will - someday.

Before leaving we wanted to go out to take a look around the lake. We passed the Tabacon and headed toward the reserve and hadn't gotten too far before we found a group of small hairy mammals with pug snouts and very sharp claws crossing the road.

We still had a little bread in the glove compartment from the bakery at Puntarenas so I broke it up into pieces and started throwing if for these animals. In Spanish they're called bizotes but as I've never seen this type of animal before I'm at a total loss for what to call them. We spent about ten to fifteen minutes hanging around these creatures and they kept on coming for more bread. There were other tourists behind us who stopped to feed the animals, so we weren't alone there. The thing is that when you threw bread for them they'd fight over it and those claws were really sharp. I even had a couple lean their forelegs on my bare legs to get more bread. There's no way I wanted to be in the middle of one of their squabbles.

The lake is a huge damn built in 1973 to supply electricity to the region and we saw a small trail down to the lake. There was a family down there already with two jet-skis. We went down and I stripped to my shorts to take a swim and Luis, the father of one of the families invited me to try a bit of water skiing. I jumped at the chance and seeing as this was the first time I'd ever tried out I did okay. On the third attempt I managed to get myself on the water and into a skiing position.
	It was really exhiliarating. Many thanks to Luis and to his family. We stayed for a little	while and then the distant calls of home came and we took our leave.

From Arenal we felt the chill in the highlands. We'd seen the thermometer go from the 40's down to 14. Really chilly. We	stopped once on the way back to fill up with diesel but for the entire journey Sonia's 4x4 only needed about two tankloads.	Highly impressive. After we filled up we went to a diner so Sonia could use the bathroom and stayed for a coffee. It was interesting to see WWF on TV undubbed but with a running commentary in Spanish. Thoughts came to mind of the hispanic wrestler on the Simsons ('Los Simpsons' - en Espanol.) Sonia'd told her parents that we'd be back around 4, but in actual fact it wasn't until about 8 that we made it. Sonia and I told her mum about the trip over pizza in the kitchen. It was good to be home but what a fantastic trip. Travelling just doesn't get much better than trips like this.

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