Poas, La Paz

Today, Stella, Stephanie, Jenny Z, Eun Young, myself, and bus driver Leo headed out of San Jose, not to raft on the river, but to explore nature again! We arrived bright and early at the Poas volcano because we awoke early with the rafters, and we had to wait for the national park to open. When it did, we discovered the price was more than twice as expensive for foreigners. Oh well. Anyway, we got off the bus, and we realized it was really cold, but none of us had dressed warmly. Oh well. Everyone had told us that Poas was a better deal than Arenal, because it is lower and thus is not as affected by cloud cover. Not so today. SO MUCH CLOUD. The volcano crater looked like a big white foggy nothingness. As did the side lagoon. So while we did not quite experience the volcano-ness of the volcano, we did go for a walk in the rainforest. It was chilly and windy, but the trees protected us a bit. We saw some really cool plants, including flowers that look like teeth and gums. We also discovered that Stella is really scared of big leaves. We walked through dark, tangly woods with root systems that threatened to grab us like in a horrific fairytale or in Lord of the Rings or something. Then we returned to the bus for warmth. And that was Poas.

Next, we headed to La Paz waterfalls. This was a pricey deal with no student rate. But the four of us who went for it thought it was well worth it. La Paz was like a mixture of botanical garden, zoon, and hiking trails (one of which included huge waterfalls). So we spent 3.5 hours wandering through ferns, getting close up views of Costa Rica's birds, frogs, monkeys, and butterflies, and walking up and down a "constant stairmaster" in Stephanie's words as we walked along the waterfall series. Everything was really well maintained and actually safe feeling.

Then we headed back to our host families, but not before stopping at a roadside soda for tipical food and spending 10 minutes at the end of it trying to figure out how to pay for one bill when none of us have exact change in colones.

It was a good day!

Jackie