It stinks! It extremely stinks. We smell warm-humid air, which insults our nose. Next we come to a blockade. Behind it we see the reason for the bad air: Sulphurous smoke scales up through a hole. For me it means to conquer the blockade and, against Annette’s factual exceptions, to come closer to the resource of evil. Or, how it is called right, to the fumarole. Several times I have to hold my breath when the smoke puffs directly into my face, but then, on the brink, I finally take my desired photo of the fumarole. Yippee!
But the effort isn't worth it because straight after the next bend we come up to the famous sludge holes of the Volcancito, which bubble continuously. They're steam spitting geyseres which have coloured the circumjacent earth red. This is -even in Costa Rica- an uncommon spectacle, which makes the way up in the Northwest of the country worth it. In a spring near the national park, the sludge is used as beauty packages. In former times the people have greased themselves with the sludge right there in the national park, but today this is of course forbidden. Especially as the temperature of the steams go up to 106 degree.
The next geyser is a sputtering brimstone lake. The interaction of the afternoon sun with the surrounding trees at the brimstoning waft of mists is very impressively. But the thick rootages of the surrounding fig trees, which seem to be crawling over the way and build some kind of steps, are very nice to look at as well. The aloes, which stand so close that they seem to build a carpet, are very beautiful, too. All together we take a walk trough a landscape like in a picture book.
