Costa Rica: Day 5.
Poas volcano was massive and beautiful and cold, and we saw all sorts of lovely plants, like the spiny-leaved, yellow flowered plants called poas, after which the volcano was named, and massive-leaved plants called Poor Man's Umbrella. And then we went to La Paz waterfall. It was gorgeous, of course, and we took some amazing pictures, and even saw Becca and Matt down there. But it was right next to the road, and trucks kept barrelling through. Of course, there are no sidewalks there, either.
We went over to a hummingbird garden, where we saw tiny brown hummingbirds, and green ones, and a huge purple one called the Violet Saberwing. Fantastic, I know. Actually, I didn't see that one, but Jeremy and Lisa did.
I also got to hold a tarantula, and we had tamarind juice and fried yucca and empanada.
Then we went over to ride in a boat down the river in the jungle, where we saw toucans, lizards that run across the water, a three-toed sloth, kingfishers, an anighua (a bird that is related to a duck but whose head looks like a snake, and which also hunts for fish), the rainforest version of turkets, and FINALLY, monkeys. No crocodiles, though, alas. There were also a lot of sulfur-colored butterflies (perhaps to go with the sulfur smell from the volcano). Oddly, with the exception of really cool root patterns, the plants didn't seem as interesting as the ones on the volcano. Up there, we also saw a bush with flowers that look like the pasta in pasta e fagiole.
We had another awesome lunch with great mashed potatoes and beef stroganoff and blackberry juice. Afterwards, the bus driver told me I was very kind and muy bonita and he was sad that I was leaving on Monday and that I was there with mi novio. He said he wasn't sure if he would be able to get over me, which was interesting since the only prior interaction we'd has was me saying thank you for him helping me out of the van, and asking donde esta il bano. Hmmm. His name was Juan.
We also went to a market with strawberries and wine and coffee and liquor.
Our tour guide that day was Esteban, who was very informative and talked too much. Nice guy though.
I think, after that, we went back to the Marriott, to pick up our stuff and head over to Hotel Aranjuez on the other side of San Jose.
Hotel Aranjuez is not as upscale as the other places we've been, but it was clean and environmentally friendly, and we had our own rooms.
We went to an Italian restaurant called Vesuvio, on recommendation from our host at Hotel Aranjuez. It was decidedly mediocre. I had overcooked gnocchi and prosciutto e melone, which turned out to be ham and pineapple -- decent, but not what I'd ordered. At least then we were full.
We went back in the rain, Lisa and Jeremy said goodbye to Jason, and we went to bed.
Jason left very early in the morning, 5:30, and I got up at 7. Jason, fortunately, had lent me his extra cell phone that works only as an alarm, so I got up early enough.
The three of us had breakfast, which was again amazing. We sat in the breakfast garden and ate fruits and quiche and pastries and bread and more blackberry juice and coffee. There was an omelette bar, too.
Today we're on another tour. Today our driver is Mario and our Tour guide is Paola. I like her better. She is still very informative and doesn't talk quite as much, except when we ask questions. And she introduced everyone to everyone else, two from Poland, one from Venezuela, two from Colombia, one from Arizona. The whole tour iss dual-language since not everyone speaks English. We were picked up at 8:30, and drove up to Irazu volcano ("mountain of the thunder and the earthquake" from 2 indigenous words), and it was so amazing. There are 5 craters in this volcano, and we saw three. The main crater was HUGE and had this terrifying pool of green acidic water in the bottom, green from the sulfur, I'm told. It looked like watery slime, the perfect place for Dr. Evil to threaten his enemies.
We also went to a place nearby where I had the best hot chocolate of my life and we all shared a cheese empanada. We also saw a really neat animal called a long-nosed coati, related to rats and raccoons, so all the Costa Ricans wanted him gone, but all the non-Costa Ricans thought he was adorable.
After that we had an absurdly short stop at a gorgeous basilica called Our Lady of the Angels, angel statues all over the top, beautiful sculptures and paintings and stained glass inside. I knelt down and prayed for about five minutes. I wanted to go get some holy water, but the line was too long and we only had 15 minutes allotted to the church stop. Ah well. After that, half the tour went back to San Jose, and just the three of us, plus the Venezuelan woman (Roxsana) and the Arizona woman (I can't remember her name -- Nina maybe?) went on to lunch.
We had yet ANOTHER amazing meal. We went over to this place with a massive buffet. It was like super classy restaurant meets Costa Rican barbeque meets Fourth of July Picnic in Ohio. I had four kinds of grilled meat, zucchini-ish squash, grilled chayotes with cheese, potato-onion-cheesy goodness, salad, coconut flan, and drank iced tea, and also something made of milk and rice and chocolate and cinnamon that tasted like chai without the actual tea. Oh man, so so so good.
Lisa and I also bought paintings, she bought a waterfall, I bought a monarch butterfly.
Jason was gone by this point, so I had to figure out how to communicate in Spanish, which I hadn't taken since middle school, although Jill's taught me some key phrases like donde esta il bano and que divertido, and Jason has taught me other key phrases, like besa me and es mi novio. But somehow I ended up with my painting, and merely the problem of getting it back to Massachusetts, since it definitely didn't fit into my luggage.
Afterwards, we went to the Jardin Botanico, which had two full rooms of orchids, and Roxsana, who speaks hardly any English, and I, who speaks hardly any Spanish, pointed out the most amazing orchids to each other and traded "bonita" and "beautiful" back and forth.
Then, Lisa and Jeremy and I did a walk through bamboo forests and secondary growth rainforest and took our final pictures on Lisa's memory card before heading back to San Jose once again.
We went over to a hummingbird garden, where we saw tiny brown hummingbirds, and green ones, and a huge purple one called the Violet Saberwing. Fantastic, I know. Actually, I didn't see that one, but Jeremy and Lisa did.
I also got to hold a tarantula, and we had tamarind juice and fried yucca and empanada.
Then we went over to ride in a boat down the river in the jungle, where we saw toucans, lizards that run across the water, a three-toed sloth, kingfishers, an anighua (a bird that is related to a duck but whose head looks like a snake, and which also hunts for fish), the rainforest version of turkets, and FINALLY, monkeys. No crocodiles, though, alas. There were also a lot of sulfur-colored butterflies (perhaps to go with the sulfur smell from the volcano). Oddly, with the exception of really cool root patterns, the plants didn't seem as interesting as the ones on the volcano. Up there, we also saw a bush with flowers that look like the pasta in pasta e fagiole.
We had another awesome lunch with great mashed potatoes and beef stroganoff and blackberry juice. Afterwards, the bus driver told me I was very kind and muy bonita and he was sad that I was leaving on Monday and that I was there with mi novio. He said he wasn't sure if he would be able to get over me, which was interesting since the only prior interaction we'd has was me saying thank you for him helping me out of the van, and asking donde esta il bano. Hmmm. His name was Juan.
We also went to a market with strawberries and wine and coffee and liquor.
Our tour guide that day was Esteban, who was very informative and talked too much. Nice guy though.
I think, after that, we went back to the Marriott, to pick up our stuff and head over to Hotel Aranjuez on the other side of San Jose.
Hotel Aranjuez is not as upscale as the other places we've been, but it was clean and environmentally friendly, and we had our own rooms.
We went to an Italian restaurant called Vesuvio, on recommendation from our host at Hotel Aranjuez. It was decidedly mediocre. I had overcooked gnocchi and prosciutto e melone, which turned out to be ham and pineapple -- decent, but not what I'd ordered. At least then we were full.
We went back in the rain, Lisa and Jeremy said goodbye to Jason, and we went to bed.
Jason left very early in the morning, 5:30, and I got up at 7. Jason, fortunately, had lent me his extra cell phone that works only as an alarm, so I got up early enough.
The three of us had breakfast, which was again amazing. We sat in the breakfast garden and ate fruits and quiche and pastries and bread and more blackberry juice and coffee. There was an omelette bar, too.
Today we're on another tour. Today our driver is Mario and our Tour guide is Paola. I like her better. She is still very informative and doesn't talk quite as much, except when we ask questions. And she introduced everyone to everyone else, two from Poland, one from Venezuela, two from Colombia, one from Arizona. The whole tour iss dual-language since not everyone speaks English. We were picked up at 8:30, and drove up to Irazu volcano ("mountain of the thunder and the earthquake" from 2 indigenous words), and it was so amazing. There are 5 craters in this volcano, and we saw three. The main crater was HUGE and had this terrifying pool of green acidic water in the bottom, green from the sulfur, I'm told. It looked like watery slime, the perfect place for Dr. Evil to threaten his enemies.
We also went to a place nearby where I had the best hot chocolate of my life and we all shared a cheese empanada. We also saw a really neat animal called a long-nosed coati, related to rats and raccoons, so all the Costa Ricans wanted him gone, but all the non-Costa Ricans thought he was adorable.
After that we had an absurdly short stop at a gorgeous basilica called Our Lady of the Angels, angel statues all over the top, beautiful sculptures and paintings and stained glass inside. I knelt down and prayed for about five minutes. I wanted to go get some holy water, but the line was too long and we only had 15 minutes allotted to the church stop. Ah well. After that, half the tour went back to San Jose, and just the three of us, plus the Venezuelan woman (Roxsana) and the Arizona woman (I can't remember her name -- Nina maybe?) went on to lunch.
We had yet ANOTHER amazing meal. We went over to this place with a massive buffet. It was like super classy restaurant meets Costa Rican barbeque meets Fourth of July Picnic in Ohio. I had four kinds of grilled meat, zucchini-ish squash, grilled chayotes with cheese, potato-onion-cheesy goodness, salad, coconut flan, and drank iced tea, and also something made of milk and rice and chocolate and cinnamon that tasted like chai without the actual tea. Oh man, so so so good.
Lisa and I also bought paintings, she bought a waterfall, I bought a monarch butterfly.
Jason was gone by this point, so I had to figure out how to communicate in Spanish, which I hadn't taken since middle school, although Jill's taught me some key phrases like donde esta il bano and que divertido, and Jason has taught me other key phrases, like besa me and es mi novio. But somehow I ended up with my painting, and merely the problem of getting it back to Massachusetts, since it definitely didn't fit into my luggage.
Afterwards, we went to the Jardin Botanico, which had two full rooms of orchids, and Roxsana, who speaks hardly any English, and I, who speaks hardly any Spanish, pointed out the most amazing orchids to each other and traded "bonita" and "beautiful" back and forth.
Then, Lisa and Jeremy and I did a walk through bamboo forests and secondary growth rainforest and took our final pictures on Lisa's memory card before heading back to San Jose once again.