Amigas y Volcan Irazu

My good friend Smita came from Atlanta this past weekend to visit, and we had such a wonderful time. We planned to just stay in San Jo since Neto and I had just gotten back from a week long trip to Nicaragua. She cooked me and my friends and Indian meal TO DIE FOR Friday night. Saturday, Maureen was leaving back to Boston and it was too sad. We planned a breakfast surprise for her at the Hotel Grano de Oro, a beautiful 20th century mansion with a courtyard restaurant. Smita, Neto and I discovered this hotel while on an apartment hunting trip before we moved here. It has such a beautiful courtyard with stained glass and lush plants, an oasis in the middle of the city. The rest of the day we sat by the pool for some much needed girl talk. In the evening we accompanied Ernesto to watch the final four basketball games .

It was great just to hang out with my old buddy, but we also wanted to do 'somethin different'. I mean she did come to another country to visit us, right? We decided to rent a car for the day and go to Volcan Irazu, which is only about an hour outside of San Jose. Neto and I havent been there so it was new for all three of us.

We were on the road by 830a, and on the way we passed through a town at the base of the volcano called Cartago. I had posted a picture of the Basilica de Nuestra Señora de los Angeles last year. But back then I didn't know the history, only that it is a big beautiful church.

Built in 1635, the church has undergone many restoration projects, the most recent was after the earthquake in 1910 resulted in near total destruction of the church. Many people make a pilgrimage to the city of Cartago annually, to visit the enormous church. Basílica de Nuestra Señora de Los Ángeles has a statue of the Black Madonna, known as La Negrita inside. La Negrita is a small statue of the Virgin Mary, and as the Costa Rican folklore goes, was found by an indigenous woman who repeatedly tried to take the statue home with her, but it kept reappearing in that same spot where she found it. Astounded by this "miracle," the people built the Basilica in the same spot. Twice the statue was stolen from the church, and again reappeared. These strange occurrences have led people to believe that it supposedly has great healing powers.

Every August 2nd, on the feast day of the Virgin of the Angels, hundreds of thousands of people walk the 22k from San Jose to Cartago to visit La Negrita... some on their knees. Can you imagine? People come to her with hopes of a miracle. Is that religious or superstitious?

We were so lucky with the weather. It was a crystal clear day, but that of course can change so quickly when you are climbing in altitude. 10 am is usually when the clouds roll in and we arrived at 945a. Just for us though, the clouds stayed on the outskirts of the volcano, so we had a great view. As I looked down....

I saw a crater of volcanic ash. "Did they say that was it?" (my dad said this about Old Faithful over 20 years ago on a family vacation to Yellowstone National Park...my family still quotes him when something is disappointing ) The history is a bit more exciting. Volcan Irazu is the largest and highest in Costa Rica. In 1723, the city of Cartago was destroyed by an eruption and there have been 15 major eruptions since then. The last being 1963, when a blanket of ash covered the whole central valley. Then in 1994 a cloud of sulfuric gas erupted, but has since been quiet. When I looked to the left and saw the real spectacle. The crater has this green lake that is so pretty. My picture captures the shade perfectly too.
It was so weird how the clouds were sitting in just the right spot, not coming near the crater, but creating a white fluff all around it.
We stopped at a the little volcano museum and I tried to get pictures of all the beautiful hummingbirds, this one was the most colorful. I don't know the species, but it is irredescent and has a turquoise belly.We wanted to eat somewhere typical. Smita wanted the traditional casado for lunch (married man's meal) which was fine with me because that is what I eat everyday (in the office). There are very few restauants in Costa Rica that do not serve this meal. At this altutude, there weren't too many to choose from, but as soon as we walking in the door, I knew it was the right place.
It was so cool, every wall was covered with business cards, messages, receipts from patrons. Even the window frames were covered. It went up to the ceiling and was creeping over that as well.

We drove through Cartago again on the way home and Lonely Planet talks in the book about some ruins in the square, so we stopped. This next picture, although the background is nice, was really taken by Smita to capture the lady on the moto. Oh. My. Tica!

About five block west of the basilica, in the central park, is Las Ruinas de la Parroquia. This church was built in 1575 as a shrine to St James, it was destroyed in 1841 and again 1910, both times by earthquakes. Despite their beauty, they are not real ruins but an unfinished building, never rebuilt after the earthquake in 1910.

It is a hangout point for the people of Cartago and there are beautiful gardens inside.A hangout for this hot guy with the Panama hat too.

Parque Nacional Volcan Poas

Poas Volcano National Park is about 40k north of San Jose. It is the most visited national park in Costa Rica. Even though its last blowout was back in 1953, Poas is still an considered an active volcano. It was that year that an enormous crater formed. It's 1.3k across and 300 meters deep. There are two other craters, one is a lake. The fact that you can peer into an active volcano, without having to actually hike miles to get there must be attractive to the almost 300,000 people who visit annually.

I had been wanting to visit Poas all year. Im really facinated by volcanos, and its an easy day trip from San Jose. (Poas was actually the epicenter of the huge earthquake here on January 8th. I missed it by the skin of my teeth. I was in Atlanta and arrived that night, 6 hours afterwards)

My boss Steph asked if Ernesto would mind entertaining her sister and friend for a day while she was at work. (they are here visiting for spring break) When they decided to go visit Poas, I had to invite myself.

We used Steph's car and left as early as we could. (cough cough) There is a very strong smell of sulfur as soon as you enter the park. From the visitors center there is a short paved trail to the main crater. It was a bad sign that we could barely see the trail in front of us.

You really need to arrive early before the clouds come in at about 10am. Unfortunately, we arrived at 10:10am. So what was supposed to be a view like this

[pic from wikipedia] turned out to be a view like this: I took this picture. Really, all by myself.

ok, ok, we thought, even if we can't see down the crater, we still can hike the little trail in the dwarf cloud forest and enjoy the foliage right? We were surrounded by flowers, lichen, bromeliads, and moss covering curious shaped and twisted trees.

I finally broke out my new Canon XSi camera for a trip. I definitely need some classes, but Ill share my amtuer pics anyway. I love this one, but you can see that the focus is on the tree to the left, not Neto.

The 30 minute roundtrip trail called Sendero Botas leads to an extinct crater that has filled with cold water and is called Laguna Botas. The Volcano base is 8200 feet above sea level, and even though this was a wuss trail, I could feel that after one minute my breathing was strained. Come on, it's over 8000 feet! It was cold up there too, but "cold" for me now is low 60s.

At the top... Again Ugh!, nothing but clouds. But alas, after a few minutes the wind blew the clouds out of the way so we saw...something.

Ernesto tried to see what was over there in the clearing.

A minute later, we could see the marvilous lake. It made it all worthwhile. Can you believe this was a volcano?

We smiled for the obligatory pic. It a framer!

Mis Padres Travel Costa Rica

I can't believe my parents have been here a week already. Neto and I were waiting for them at the airport  Monday night in San Jose. They arrived on time and were happy to see our smiling faces. Especially when they saw my homemade sign. "Welcome Mom and Dad Arnold" I wanted to make sure they didnt miss us. (the pic is not the greatest, it was taken through dirty glass)

They are our first visitors (hopefully not our last, hint hint) in our new apartment. The first 2 days we spent in the city. Ernesto entertained them during the day while I was at work. We walked in the park in the mornings and then they relaxed, went to the downtown market and did some shopping. At night and we made dinners in our cute little kitchen. (I really love our new apt. minus the horribly uncomfortable couch)

One night we went to the casino across the street. It wasn't crowded and nobody won big = not too exciting. My mom and I wasted a bit of money anyway on the slot machines.

For the 12 day visit, we thought a rental car would make the most sense since we wanted to cover some land, and with the good rate my dad found online at FOX car rental (I have never heard of it either) it would end up being cheaper than all those bus tickets (not to mention more convenient) The rate was $78 for the week! ok plus tax and the mandatory insurance =$178! still a great deal!

Since there are 4 of us, and not too much luggage we went with an economy car. We took a bus out to the airport to pick up the car. My parents aren't regular public bus riders, but they are really good sports and up for anything, as long as they have their spanish translators with them.

My dad feels a bit out of control since he doesn't know the language, but he's "doin a good job". He even made up some of his own words. My favorite is the money here. They are called Colones. [co-lo-nez] He has been calling them Ca-lo-knees.   He brought his GPS which has a Ca-lo-knee converter.  Needless to say we have been laughing about this all week.

At the car rental office we were told my dad needed his passport, not drivers license to rent the car. UGH! ok, back to the apartment, back to the car rental place. On the road by noon...

We were heading to the famous Volcano Arenal first, which is about 3 hours Northwest of San Jose in a town called La Fortuna. As soon as we climbed up the mountains we were in the clouds. We stopped at a cute outdoor place for a late lunch with 'typical food' and a bottle of red wine to warm us up, it was chilly up there! Again my dad whipped out his GPS to make sure we knew the altitude. We were at 2800 feet.

Driving into the town of La Fortuna, where the volcano is, was like driving back in time....to 3 months ago, when it was the "rainy season"! No! I don't want to go back! Since December we have been in the "dry season" and it has been perfect weather-80 and sunny! Due to the rain and cloud coverage we weren't able to catch even a glimpse of the Volcano peak. It was a bit disappointing, but the good thing was that I discovered a great place to stay called Vista del Cerro. If it wasn't so cloudy, you would see the monster volcano right here out our window:

It was a great little place. The rooms were spacious and clean, the staff was wonderful, the grounds were beautifully landscaped, plus it was centrally located. For the 4 of us, it cost only $65 including breakfast! That night we ate dinner at Lava Lounge, an attractive place on the main strip that lured me in from the street with its warm lighting and open air dining tables. We munched on some apps, had a few drinks and played our favorite card game "Oh Hell"

We decided if it was still shitty weather in the morning, we'd head for the beach. And that is exactly what we did... after visiting the 200 foot waterfall, La Catarata de la Fortuna. We figured we'd better see something there before we split town. Neto and I had come here last year and thought my parents would enjoy it.

Its quite a steep decent to the bottom, my mom's legs felt "shaky" when she reached the bottom. I told her to "just wait for the climb up!"

But the view is totally worth it when you get to the bottom, and if you have your bathing suit, the cold water is very refreshing.

Ernesto had an idea to incorporate a quick workout and get to the top again as quick as possible. That was a tough 5 min and 15 seconds, let me tell you....I was sweating my ass off!
When driving away from the waterfall, this little boy started racing us. Even in his rubber flip flops on a loose gravel road he was keeping up with our car. It was so funny, Ernesto stuck out his hand with a tip for him. He deserved it.
The largest lake in Costa Rica is Lake Arenal and Neto thought it would be cool to drive around it. Before we left I took a pic with my parents with what we could see of the volcano.

As we drove, the day started clearing up and we saw some of the most beautiful views so we had to stop and take pictures.

My dad is amazed by the amount of pics I take. You can tell in his face I was taking too many. I think I may have won Barbie's title of "picture-ass" on this trip!

I told him a blogger needs many options! (I caught some candid shots, one he forbid that I post here-email me if you are interested in seeing it) We were happy when we saw signs to Tom's German Bakery, it had gotten so sunny and we were ready to get out of the car. We stopped there for a beer, brautwurst, coffee and [too die for] apple strudel. It was a lovely place.

We had no idea how huge the Lake was when we decided to drive around it. Two hours later, we were finally heading south to Esterillos beach, on the pacific side. I had stayed at the Encantada cottages back in December with some friends and we absolutely loved it. Its a perfect relaxing getaway, the grounds are lush

and scattered with hammacks and right on the beach.

Our room was $89, including a continental breakfast. The rooms are spacious and clean.I now know why the hotel/restaurant next door is called El Pelicano. The whole day pelicans are flying over head in clean formations. It was really beautiful. Somehow relaxing.

El Pelicano is also where we ate dinner both nights (there are only two options, this is a very unspoiled beach) and they served us the best seafood. My dad was a happy man. When he is at the beach he wants seafood. Now this would have not been in my volunteer budget, but we did a bit of splurging this week, and my parents were very generous as well (thanks mommy and daddy-I love you) Other than eating delicious seafood, we relaxed to the fullest, yet stayed active. The hotel has boogie boards so we all gave that a try.

Neto is really good and rode a wave the whole way in. My dad and I tried our best, but the only thing I caught was a plastic bag.

I am 100% on board with Ernesto's CrossFit workouts and being at the beach was actually a cool way to incorporate 'somethin different' Workouts on the beach. love it.

Friday: 200 meter sprints and 25 pushups. Repeat 3 times.

Saturday: we did 25 handstands (as long as you can stay up) and run a fast mile .

whew! Sweating MAO! We also played a lot of cards and I brought Bananagrams. If you like scrabble you'll love this. Be careful, it can be addicting, I love that is easy to travel with! My dad doesn't go anywhere without his laptop, and with the free wi-fi at Encantada it was nice to relax and get online.

Ernesto definitley won (hands down) for being online the most. Before leaving Atlanta he bought the ipod Touch and talk about ADDICTED. It is pretty damn cool, I guess I can understand his fascination.

My mom was in heaven because it was a great beach for "shelling" her favorite sport!

She has so many shells at home that she could never use them all (even though she tries) but still, she can't resist to pick up more. She was out there at sunrise to start her search and she really found some beauties!

Valentine's Day was Saturday and I was inspired by someone else's writing in the sand so I made a 'card' for Neto. He snuck up behind me and took a pic and ruined the surprise. Its the thought that counts right?

A heart outlined in shells I collected, so sweet!

Esterillos has the most beautiful sunsets, I know I posted similar pics when I was here last time, but LOOK!

crazy beautiful sunsetsAfter I took my usual 10 pics, Neto and I got a little creative.
The drive home was a bit long partly due to some traffic on a Sunday night, and partly because we missed an exit to the highway and ended up going through a town instead of around it.