Costa T+7 Saturday
I don’t know where to begin describing today. Simply amazing does not come close. For $65 each, we were picked up at our homes, taken into San Jose, provided a driving tour of the downtown area – all the parks and cows, then taken to Volcano Irazu, Paradise, lunch, a botanical garden and home again. All entry fees paid and lunch was free. WOW.
Volcanoes are notorious for for having a micro climate that prevents viewing of the crater floor. Today we were lucky – we arrived, walked and viewed all that Irazu had before the clouds rolled in. It felt surreal since there were places were vegetation was trying to take hold – fighting the noxious out gases. BTW, this volcano is around 12000 ft, add that to being near the equator, clear skies, 11am and you have a recipe for sunburn. The entire bus gooped on sunscreen, wore rain jackets and long pants since we were warned the weather here could change drastically in 5 minutes.
The volcano was the main item on my list as I headed out, but that’s not the way the day ended.
After getting to the volcano as early in the morning as we could, we back tracked to Cartago to visit the church – Our Lady of the Angles Basiluca. Since it was Saturday, there was a wedding. The attendees that I saw weren’t dressed up and the church is so large that I could only see the bride and groom kneeing in the distance. There’s a little statue of a black mother Mary, La Negrita. We lost a few tourist there, then went back to pick them up and headed off for lunch.
After driving on small winding roads for 45 minutes, I was positive the food would be bad and the trip was simply some way to get kickbacks for the tour operators. I was wrong. Along the way, we stopped at a lookout point over the famous Orosi Valley. No high quality photo can do it justice. Picturesque doesn’t cover it either. When you image Paradise, this is probably what your mind creates if it appears to be a valley with manicured farms, small homes, and a few locals tending.
Next, we traversed over the Cachi Dam – a hydroelectric plant. The lake appeared to be 30ft low due to el Nina. On the other side, we headed into a coffee plantation to the La Casona del Cafetal restaurant. This location is recommended in Foder’s CR Guide. The food was good, but the views were better. With the lake higher, it would only be better. After desert, they brought out a coffee cup with a filter bag held over it on a wooden stand. The coffee was tasty, not double roasted/burnt like some places in the USA do it. I haven’t seen anything but local coffee houses here. Britt coffee seems to be the most marketed – similar to Starbucks.
Next we headed back towards Cartago but veered of the main road to hit the Jardin Botanico Lankester. This is a world class botanical garden concentrating on rare orchids with more than 1100 varieties. Sadly, my camera battery ran out of charge before the tour finished, but I was able to nurse another 25 photos out of it and get the best of the remaining flowers, trees, plants and cacti.
After all the sun and outdoor viewings today, we were done and headed home.
I thought my day was complete, but I was confused. After dinner, I settled down to read a book – actually, I quickly dozed off. Anyway, my host father and mother came and told me we were going to Barro. I didn’t think they drank, but perhaps tonight, they’d let lose? It turned out that Barro is a nearby town that was having a fair. Fairs are just like we all remember, good for people watching, seeing old friends and family, but not much else unless you’re interested in buying junk. We quickly left the fair after looking over all the over sized masks. Barro is close to Heredia, so it was an excuse to stop near the central plaza there and get some ice cream at Pops, yummy. As we drove home, we saw some fireworks in the San Joaquin central park – celebrating a wedding. The finale happened too quickly, but what can you expect from a private party fireworks set off in the central plaza of a small town?
Not too bad for a last day in the central valley.
