Flamingos in the morning and a Volcano hike 2/24

I got up in the morning today (Tuesday) and walked a short distance to a lagoon where flamingos stay for the night. They fly away each morning (observed) and return each night punctually at 5:00. We'll go back later for their return.

Here's the entire group of 12 at the edge of the Volcan (Volcano) Sierra Negra caldera

Later in the day we were driven from town to the top of Volcan Sierra Negra – the 2nd largest volcanic crater on earth. It turns out that the largest crater in the world is in Tanzania in Africa and 6 of the people in our group have been there as well. You must walk for about 30 – 45 minutes to reach the top of the crater rim. Once there we walked along the rim for about another hour before heading back to the starting point. This volcanic caldera (crater) is 10 miles wide by 16 miles long. It’s quite steep down to the floor of the crater and thus it’s not allowed to hike into the crater. We were also told that the surface is almost all lava and would be quite hard to walk on if you tried. You could occasionally see steam rising from the surface of the crater – an indication of volcanic activity from within the earth. This volcano has erupted several times in recorded history but has never killed anyone due to the size of the caldera. To date, no lava has ever left the area within the caldera walls. Back to the hotel for a afternoon with no planned activities. Connie and I spent some time swimming on the beach which was really nice – no rocks at all! We then watched blue footed boobies dive bombing for fish at a pier right next to our hotel. A nice dinner at the hotel tonight and it’s off to bed. I guess I should mention that it was a quiet dinner because the music has FINALLY stopped. They packed up all the equipment just before we ate at 7:45 this evening. The music actually was tuned down this morning about 8:00 after blasting all last night. The music finally stopped at 6:00 this evening. What a difference this makes - we can hear the surf and talk to each other without shouting. This place really would have been spectacular with out the idioic noise.