My 250 word travel essay.

It was 4 a.m. and it was time to go. I had just woken up and discovered the persistent clouds had finally cleared. The glowing-red cone of the volcano was silhouetted against the inky pre-dawn sky.

Still in our pajamas, we drove over pothole strewn dirt roads to the active side of Arenal, hoping for just a glimpse of the light show I had waited my entire life to see. From the time I was a child I held a near-phobic fascination with volcanoes. Yet here I was, thirty years later, racing with my family to confront my greatest fear…and fantasy.

We parked on a deserted flood plain we had forded during the previous afternoon’s storm and ran to the steel bridge. My 5-year-old son danced with excitement as we caught our first glance of glowing red lava going down the mountain. Rumbles and crashes soon broke the silence as we watched molten boulders the size of cars tumbling down the volcano, breaking into tiny pieces, like fireworks falling into a darkened sea. Again and again they fell, leaving trails of smoke and steam in their wake.

As it grew light, the outlines of the vivid green jungle around us slipped out of the mist. My son and husband collected volcanic rocks along the rushing river bank while the morning sky turned a perfect shade of blue. Just another day in the paradise of La Fortuna, Costa Rica. And it was not even time for breakfast yet.