El Volcán Arenal, Costa Rica

We moved from the beach to the mountains and from the coastal desert into the rain forest jungle. The weather was about the same, but we did have a brief rain shower. The jungle here has a sprinkling of pine trees and is generally more open than the jungle to the south and east in Panama. El Volcán Arenal last erupted as recently as the year 2010. It is considered a dangerous volcano and lies in the middle of a well-populated area in north central Costa Rica but is considered to be one of the top ten most active volcanos in the world. I have seen and climbed a significant number of dormant volcanos during my lifetime. In fact, the first mountain I ever climbed, I climbed alone. It was a dormant volcano called the Cinder Knoll in the Springerville Volcanic Field in Arizona. I was eight years old.