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Lake Arenal and Tilaran Mountain communities seem to be weathering Costa Rica's
record and near-record rainfalls with a minimum of disruption. To this point (October
17), it appears nobody is flooded out of a home, and the roads are are passable,
though there's the occasional challenging muddy spot. Of course, I can't know
everybody's situation. A recent two-hour walk between the villages of Los Angeles
and La Palma on the west side of the mountains found no problems whatsoever. A
couple of large streams were full but not overflowing and the walk was instead
slowed by hundreds of Costa Rica's 1200+ types of butterfly, who were busy along
the roadside investigating the new flowers. Los Angeles is a small ranching center
halfway between Canas and Tilaran, while La Palma, a kind of Shangri-la in its
being so little known and visited, is a scattering of houses on a slope well below
the wind turbines that top the ridges at the west end of Lake Arenal. We encountered
seven or eight of | the
La Palmans going about their business on horseback, any who have gas guzzlers
leaving them parked in their combination patios/car ports. Way below La Palma
and Los Angeles, meanwhile, the heavy rains are causing great disruption and hardship
in some of the Guanacaste lowland's farming and resort communities. Traveling
through Costa Rica soon will be an author who made quite a few friends during
her visit to Lake Arenal last year while researching a second edition of her very
useful book, Living Abroad in Costa Rica. The author, Erin Van Rheenen, wrote
about some of our local populace and also included some materials written by locals.
Her second edition has now been published. It is available on her attractive website,
www.livingabroadincostarica.com. She writes that she may make it to our end of
the lake if she survives canyoneering near Arenal Volcano. La Fortuna's Desafio
Adventure Company will be helping her up and down the waterfall-ribboned cliffs.
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