There are 120 volcanoes here in Costa Rica - only 6 of them are active. The one that we staked out for 4 days earlier in our stay here, to no avail, is the only one that one can see the lava flowing - not sure we believe that though seeing as we never even saw the top of it :) The second most active volcano is Poas Volcano and is right here in San Jose. This volcano only delivers geysers that one can smell for miles around - sulphur. And so Sunday found us on a day tour, headed up the side of this volcano to see the blue green lake inside and breath deeply of that rotten egg smell.
We were picked up at our hotel, just outside San Jose, at around 3000 feet and tootled up that narrow winding road to around 7300 feet. It was a lovely drive, there are flowers everywhere, huge cork trees which look a bit like a huge knobbly tree drawn by a comic, or like something created in Disneyland. They have fascinating patterns, gnarls and folds all the way up their trunks. The flowers here are amazing - so many different types and colors, shapes and smells and the regular rain seems to light them up and give them an extra sparkle. The bouganvilla is incredible, it flows over walls, climbs other trees, hangs onto the bars in front of the houses and all the colors are mixed in - looks like a salad of colors. And Plumbago - that beautiful soft blue flower is everywhere around too, there are huge bell like flowers, some in a very pale yellow and others in pale pink with white edges and bird spluttering around them trying to get inside. I just know that there is not enough space in my brain to get to know all the different types of flowers, so I did not even try - just happy to see and enjoy them.
It took about an hour and a half from here to the Poas Volcano, winding our way up the mountainside, watching so many different levels of live passing by outside the windows. It seems to be a slow lifestyle as soon as one gets out of hte city - maybe because it was Sunday. Many of the houses were decorated with washing hanging on anything that washing could be hung on, making the scenery brighter and even more colorful. People were all spread out on porches, in the road and draped over cars and bikes as they chatted to others doing the same. And all the way, the flowers lit it all up.
At one point along that tiny, winding little road, we found a good many houses in ruin and were told of the really big earthquake just over a year ago that killed many people and hade a whole community disappear - and it ruined these houses too. Apparently there are on average about 2000 earthquakes a year - and the one we had felt was a 6.4 magnitude - but because it was in Quepos, on the coast, it did not do any damage that we heard about. Anyway, up and up we drove, looking down on the tops of the trees, seeing the sunlight gleaming off the bromelias in the moss laden trees, watching birds flicker all over the place and the clouds wafting through the valley as well. We finally got to the top, often feeling as if we should get out and push, all piled out and walked the last mile to the top. It was a white out. Not cold, just - well, we could see nothing at all through the clouds! So we waited, and waited. We all blew in the same direction together, but nothing helped and after about 25 minutes and the cloud and mist only getting thicker, we once again admitted that defeat regarding a volcano and trooped back down the hill. In the information center at the gates I took a photograph of a photograph and will post that so you can see what we should have seen.
We then headed off to a coffee Plantation.. .Bodega Plantation, for lunch and a tour and explanation. I really found it interesting. The coffee plant is a beautiful deep green, almost shiney and they were all covered with little green berries. Occasionally there were dainty little white flowers, looking and smelling rather like Jasmine, dotting the limbs but the main blooming event was well passed. The berries turn fire hydrant red and ripe starting in December and ending in February. During these months the plantations rely heavily on the illegal immigrants to do the picking. The berries have to be hand picked, one by one and a basket full gets the picker the equivalent of $1 ! And we are not talking about a small basket at all. Its tied to the pickers' waist so that he can pick with two hands, the depth of the basket is about from your finger tips to your elbow and almost as wide. An experienced picker can do up to 20 baskets per day. Wow. Hard and backbreaking work for very little reward.
The coffee then gets taken to a sorting area where they are floated along and sorted by quality or weight - the ones that float are low quality and discarded. The cherry then gets cracked open to let the coffee bean out and its taken outside to the courtyard for drying in the sun. The top quality coffee beans gets dried this way, the others go into a dryer at high temps for a day to dry. Outside, the beans are turned over by hand with a rake looking tool, every twenty minutes, for three days. If/when it rains, its all quickly raked together and covered up to stay dry. Repeat process. At this point, the coffee bean has absolutely no taste and is a pale cream color. Its then sent to the roasting machines where the time its roasted is critical. Seven, 13 and 17 minutes all deliver a totally different color, quality and taste of coffee, so a close watch is kept on the clock. Apparently Starbucks buys a lot of their coffee at about $160 per huge bag that makes about 1000 cups of coffee. Quite a profit worked in there, it seems.
And so we left there to head to the small town of Sarchi where we were promised a good shopping experience. The bridges here are painted with really pretty intricate little patterns, as are many of the buildings, or part of them. We stopped at the worlds largest ox cart - a really beautiful and huge piece of art, and I wondered if it could still be called an ox cart if there were no oxen big enough to pull it? And then we came to the souvenier shop where we picked up a few items - there was not much of a choice and too much of the goodies were either too heavy, breakable or too expensive.
By now it was raining really hard again and we headed home. The guides have so much really interesting information and I really should have taken my notebook with me. One of the things we saw on the way was a huge soccer stadium being built. Its really fancy and reminds me of that huge stadium in Australia - you know, the frilly edge and all right on the water front? Apparently China is donating it all - down to the last nail. When I asked why, the guide said that everyone knows that China will want something in return, but it has not been asked for yet. Now I dont know if its just me - but does that not sound just a tad insane? The other interesting tidbit that I remember is that Costa Rica has an agreement with the USA - Costa Rica is to keep on protecting as much of their land as they can, even the woods used for the tourist trade is imported from Nicaragua, and in return, if it is ever needed, the USA will protect Costa Rica with its army.
After a very full day we threw a few coins in the penny slots, won a few extra's back and sat gently in the room drinking beer and eating chips! How ordinary, but we are definitely getting into the 'going home' mode now. This morning we decided to visit the Rescue place they have here for birds and animals found either hurt or ex-captivity that need a place to stay. It's called ZooAve and they have a fantastic breeding program as well as a re-introduction program too. I really wanted to see a Quetzal, its the most beautiful bird, hard to describe, but I will put a photograph of it up soon. We were told that we were guaranteed to see one at ZooAve. Its not a zoo as in a normal zoo... but its a very beautiful place. The scarlet macaws of different reds, yellows and greens hung out in the branches above our heads, sqwaking as we clicked away, hoping to get that perfect photo to take back with us. The cages that these birds are in are suited very well to each different bird. We passed the parrots, the cockatoo type birds, more green ones, some big, some small. Some had silly yellow looking rubber-like globby shaped things on their heads, the peacocks and other birds happily tootled around the grounds herding their young away from us, fortunate enough to not be behind bars. The iguanas apparently wont breed while in captivity, so they are also loose and we saw them draped over the top of many cages and on branches all over the place - those things get huge!
And so we came to the cage that said "Quetzal". I was almost afraid - I so badly wanted to see one and photograph it and all. But. Again, I had not been specific. I had 'asked' to see a quetzal - not to see it up close and in a way that could be photographed beautifully and all! So, I saw it - waaaaaaaaaay at the back of its enclosure, with its back to us as if in a sulk. The wires on that particular cage were tripled, dont know why, which made it almost impossible to get any sort of photograph of it. I tried, and tried and tried again and after we walked the whole place, we came back to see if he was in a better mood - no luck. But - I had achieved what I wanted to do - I had seen a Quetzal and some of the photos show the coloring, but I will have to look at photos of others to see what they look like.
It was really lovely wandering through ZooAve - it took about two and a half hours and we saw a great variety of very weird and wonderful and beautiful birds, a good many different types of big cats, panther and jaguar included, peccaries, wolf, many different types of monkeys, many of which were not in cages. The whole place is rather like being inside the rain forest, gently dripping everything, strange and wonderful flowers and plants, insects and bugs- and so peaceful and quiet. Mangoes and papaya's grew everywhere and we nearly got hit by a falling mango while we stood and watched the white faced monkeys playing about 10 foot away from where we stood. And then I found the toucans! They were way at the back of their enclosure, but before long they came to play - oh it was glorious! God must have been having SUCH fun with His paintbrushes when he made them! Those beaks are an artwork in itself, and then those feathers, the colors and the bright bright eyes looking at one through the fence with unguarded curiosity. The one particular one with the most coloring in its beak, hopped and clicked its beak at me,posing this way and that and would have gone on much longer if I had stayed. He sounded quite indignant when I finally left him to head on down the path. And then, right at the end of the walk, we came around a corner to hear "Hola! Hola!" and looked around to see who was calling us........ a parrot! And then he proceeded to have a full conversation with us in Spanish - he did both sides! He must have been saying something funny - one of the little kids there was nearly crying with laughter.
We got the young lady at the entrace to call us a taxi and she handed me a piece of paper with the number 1047 written on it. I still dont know what that was about, but it obviously meant something judging by all the hand waving and talking she did. The taxi rattled to a stop in a cloud of dust, honking loudly at us and I bent down and asked him to take us to the Orchid Gardens. No English. But he signed that we get in and he would take us to someone who could speak English. Its very weird in a way getting into a rattletrap, dented and rusty car with a total stranger, in a strange country, no common language and then screaming off at high speed down a narrow bouncing road with hairpin bends, not knowing really where we are or where we are going. I must say that its not a horrible or uncomfortable feeling at all - just odd. Anyway, the Orchid Gardens were closed with no explanations so out came our hotel door key, showed it to the driver, who nodded 'Si, Si!' and took us back to our hotel - at breakneck speed! He quickly learned that I take photos of everything and it was not long before I felt this almost continual light tapping on my arm as he pointed out, with a huge grin, stuff for me to take photos of. Now I have many pictures of things that I have no idea what they are :) He was sweet though and looked very proud when I caught what he pointed out.
And so we have reached our saturation point. It feels like months that we have been here, feels like our heads and hearts are full of the wonders of an incredibly beautiful, diverse and culturally rich country. We flew over the tree tops in Monteverde, dragged our fingers through the waters of Tortuguero on the Caribbean Coast, waited in absolute anticipation for the clouds to clear and the lava to flow at Arenal, walked the treetops over swinging bridges. We have have seen more beautiful beaches here than my camera will hold, screamed down the canals on the Osa Peninsula and almost melted in Corcovado! Each corner we turned gave us something else to treasure, some other adventure, experience or some truth to see and digest. From the sunset on the river, to that awesome little green froglet, the hunt for the Quetzal, the blue jeans red frog, the flowers - oh all those flowers! ..... everything has been amazing and there is too much to mention all over again.
It's been one heck of an adventure with something new every day for almost three weeks. And now its time to head back home again, where we can sit back gently, savor the experience and we can get to see the photos on a bigger screen and relive it all once more - yeah, even Corcovado and that crazy cabin. Tomorrow, Tuesday, we have nothing planned at all - just relaxing, maybe swimming, a slot or three, a beer or two, packing, snoozing, maybe sorting more photos and then very early on Wednesday morning we catch our flight back home.
Through all our travels to these amazing and sometimes insane places, one thing is very clear - that there really is nothing like home. I truely believe that if we did not look forward to going home, we would not be able to enjoy these adventures as much as we do.
All your emails have been wonderful and I am really glad you could share this adventure with us - thanks! The rest of the photos will be online sometime this week - I will let you know when......
Till the next time
love, light and much laughter.
Especially to U3, which is really U6 :)
Annie and Frank
xxxxx
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