At the moment I live in a town in Costa Rica called La Fortuna. There was nothing much here apart from farming until the 1980s, when the nearby volcano of Arenal erupted, and it kept on erupting for the next 20 years. Suddenly all the springs and rivers around Arenal warmed up and became thermal baths. There was a thermal bath boom, a spa-rush, as hotels and spas scrambled to grab access to the springs and sell it to tourists. Today, La Fortuna is one of the most popular towns in one of the most popular tourist destinations in the world. Everything is booming, until the volcano erupts again.

Read More