I got up at 5:20 this morning to take a picture of the sun rising over the Caribbean Sea on the first day of the new year. Sunrises aren’t as dramatic as sunsets, especially when the sky is completely clouded over. Everything gradually got brighter, but there was no way to see that the sun came over the horizon at 5:50am.

As I was setting up my camera, another gentleman walked out onto the beach. We smiled at each other and he headed down the beach. Then he stopped, turned around and walked up to me with a big smile and his hand outstretched. We shook hands and he said "I wish you a very happy new year," in a wonderful Northern European accent. I wished him the same, and he turned and walked down the beach.

There was something really moving about the encounter – it was so genuine and sincere on both our parts, standing on this remote beach, that was so different from the typical “Happy New Year” greetings we toss about.

Around 6:30 I got the rest of the family up so we could pack up to continue our journey. The boat left the dock at 8am, and we were looking forward to the hour long boat ride through the river and canals back to the bus. Unfortunately, the sky opened up again dumping enough rain to cause the captain to stop the boat and roll down the plastic window sides. If you’ve ever tried to look though the back window of a convertible you know the kind of view we now had. An hour of humming engine and the occasional banking turn, while blurry trees slide by outside the window.

The rest of the day was primarily a day of travel to get halfway across Costa Rica to our next stop in Fortuna. The bus ride was broken up with two stops – one for lunch at the same place we ate a couple days ago (delicious! No problem having a repeat), and one at a 300 foot suspension bridge over a river. The second was kind of a novelty stop that was fun to do but mostly broke the trip into segments so we could stretch our legs.

We arrived at the beautiful Lomas de Volcan hotel in Fortuna around 4pm. We traveled about 150 miles today by boat and bus, over about 5 hours of travel time.

And here’s two shots of the volcano from right outside our room. These were actually taken the next day, but the flow works better if I put them here. These shots were taken about 20 minutes apart – the view of the cone was always changing. I wish I had set up a time-lapse series.