July 28th - Poas

Well, I woke up at 5am and got up at 5:45. Apparently Gabi was in a very deep sleep because she didn’t wake up. So I made myself breakfast. A bowl of corn flakes with banana pieces. When I was almost finished with breakfast Gabriel woke her up and she jumped up real quick and went “Ah! Rebecca! You had to make your own breakfast” lol

I left the house about 6:30ish expecting to wait for the bus again, but the bus waited on me! lol The bus driver waited until I and another lady crossed the street. (Crossing streets here is difficult if there isn’t a crosswalk.) So yet again I arrived at Shannon’s way earlier than I needed to. lol She came down with Kaitlin and we talked while I waited on the tour group to get there. They got there about 7:20ish and I was the first one that they picked up, so I ended up getting a tour of San Jose going to and from all these different hotels picking up people. There were two ladies from Switzerland, 2 women from Mexico, a family from Canada, a guy from Germany, a family from Florida, a gal from Virginia and me.

Since the women from Mexico don’t speak much English, he did the tour in both languages. Our tour guide was bi-lingual (English and Spanish), but he talked at rapid speeds in both languages. And I’m glad he spoke in both languages, if I missed something in English I could catch it in Spanish. lol On our way up to Poas he gave some general information about Costa Rica like most of the guides do and twice he had the driver stop the bus/van so that we could take some good pictures of the Central Valley. We also passed close to where the epicenter of the January 2009 earthquake was. It was a 6.2 or 6.3 on the Richter scale. You could see where one of the bridges was damaged, mudslide damage and also damaged houses.

We finally got to Poas about 10:30ish, which wasn’t the best time since it was starting to cloud up already! After a quick bathroom stop we began the “hike” to the principal crater. (It was a straight paved road all the way to the edge.) We got there and saw an amazing mass of nothing. It was completely white. Which in and of itself was quite impressive. It’s like when you’re passing through a cloud in a plane, but actually standing it in. After a while of staring at the nothingness a wind began to blow and we got a glimpse of what was below. Cheers broke out! And then it clouded up again. Then a few minutes later another strong wind and another glimpse. After 20 minutes our guide called us and told us that we were going to hike to the other crater there.

Although this trail was paved, it was a bit tougher. It was all uphill and stairs the whole way. And being such a high elevation it was a bit rough on the body, but I made it in one piece and quite glad for all the walking I’ve been doing in San Jose. This crater is extinct and is completely filled with water. It’s called the Botos Lagoon because a tribe of Indians lived there at one time known as the Botos. After getting some pictures there we headed back. I noticed that the sun was out so I jogged most of the way back downhill really hoping that I’d get to see the principal crater before it clouded up again.

And I got to see it!!! It was quite impressive. It was huge and this was an active crater. You could see the steam coming from the volcano. This one also had some water collected as well. After getting some pictures we headed back to the bus/van and started to head back down. We stopped at a strawberry store. When we got out the workers came up to us and offered us tastes of Costa Rican wine (made from strawberries) and sparkling strawberry juice. Strawberry wine is just as nasty as grape wine. And I don’t like strawberries to begin with so the juice was nasty to me as well, but better than the wine. After that, I went and bought a good ol’ can of Pepsi. lol

And I got further proof that I do blend in here a bit. One of the workers came up to me trying to sell me t-shirts, but he first asked English or Spanish. When I’m not around other gringos they always ask which language before speaking to me.

After that our tour stopped at a coffee plantation and we got a whirlwind tour of some of the plants and the wet mill and roasting areas before half of us were taken back to San Jose (half-day tour people) and the other half taken to get lunch and then go to a market place…Sanchi? I was with the half-day group so I went to another bus/van and we started back for San Jose. I was told that I was going to be dropped off about 1:30pm, but we didn’t get to the city until 2pm and then it was an hour and a half of driving around hotel to hotel. And I was the last person dropped off. So! I called up to Shannon’s room she came down. I gave her the two bracelets she asked me to buy in the gift shop and she handed me my laptop and my grades from my classes. I got A’s in both!!! :-D I headed up to the mall and had some lunch and then headed to my café and began going through my pictures.

Then I got a Skype call from my parents and we talked a good while. About 5:30ish I went to catch the bus and headed home. Hard to believe it’s one of the last bus ride’s I’ll be having here! Got home and found Ashley and Maripaz here. I got a shower, had dinner, and now I’m off to begin the packing process. Tomorrow is a ceremony of some sort and a free lunch and after that I’m not sure what I’ll be doing. I heard that a gal was looking for someone to go see Harry Potter…I’d go again! lol Well, off I go!

:-) Rek