Excursion a Irazu y Orosi

7-9-11

                Today we were supposed to go to Braulio Carrillo national park, but because they have had so much rain (ironic because we have had none…) the park is closed since the river is so high. So instead we went to the Volcan Irazu national park, had lunch at a hacienda del café and went to see the oldest church in Costa Rica. Sounds like a fair trade right? Well I actually think that this plan was even better than the original. We still got to see the rainforest, plus a volcano, coffee plantation, throw in a Costa Rican wedding and top it off with a little history and it was the perfect day. What made it even better was that I didn’t get car sick!!

                Our day started early. We met Esteban (our API coordinator and guide) at Veritas at 8:00 to leave for, what we found out, was the volcano.  It was a small group, there are only four of us at Veritas for the second session ( the May-June session is more popular, they had about 40 then) and one of the girls didn’t come (she decided to buy and extra trip to the beach). This is actually really nice because we basically get a private tour wherever we go! Esteban is an awesome tour guide. He know a little about everything and he majored in colonial literature and history so he has all the background information on the exhibits and the towns we visited. We went to Irazu first. It’s a volcano about an hour away from San Jose. Its only about 3700 ft, about the same as Boone, so I thought no problem, I do this all the time! So here’s the lowdown, altitude changes in a tropical country are much more extreme than in the temperate zones.  The temperature changes A LOT. It was about 70 degrees when we left San Jose, at the top of the volcano it was about 45-50 degrees and windy. I however, being the ever prepared traveler and experienced Boone layer, was not too cold (and I hadn’t even know I was going to a volcano today!). I had my rain jacket, and a long sleeve shirt with a hood as well as already coming in pants and a t-shirt. We didn’t spend too long at the very top because of the weather, and we soon went down to the crater level to get some hot drinks and get a close look. I got a te con leche, which I thought would just be tea with cream. However, it was tea brewed in some amazing foam-ed cream, like in real café con leche!  If you know my fondness for cream, then you know that this Volcano coffee bar was my new heaven. We did see a bit of wildlife at the volcano as well, outside of the coffee bar there was the cute Costa Rican equivalent of a raccoon! He/she was a trickster though… One of the other tourists (was not paying attention to her muffin she had just bought (probably because she had not had the two traveling tourist awareness orientations that we did!) the ladronito (little thief) took it and ran a few feet away, just daring here to come and try to take it back!

                After the excitement at the volcano, we drove about an hour to get to a hacienda del café in coffee country for lunch. I got some pretty good pictures of the countryside that will be up later! The hacienda was a very neat place to eat lunch, and of all of the 20 people I know in Costa Rica, I ran into my housemate Randdie and her parents! They had also gone to Irazu as well, and somehow we had missed each other. At the hacienda, the outdoor part was rented out for a wedding and so we got to see some of the things that are typical at a Costa Rican wedding.  One thing that is different is that at one point they have an open dance time with the bride and groom for all of the guests. The bride and groom are each wearing a sash that the guests can cut-in and tack money onto as they dance to give them luck in their new life. Esteban said that some of the more mischievous guests try to put the money in their clothes..  Overall I liked the hacienda, the only thing that was strange was that here in the land of fresh fruit and vegetables they used canned fruits and veggies, which by contrast with all the other food that I’ve had here so far, was not as good.  

                After lunch we took a short drive to the town of Orosi, where they have the oldest church in Costa Rica. It was built in the late 16^th century by Franciscan monks. Esteban was a great tour guide; he explained the significance of all of the religious artwork. He was so good that other people began to follow our little group (he gave all the tours in Spanish). After the tour we headed back to San Jose and an awesome dinner with my host family!

                Tomorrow I’m going to a concert at el teatro nacional!