Volcanoes and Waterfalls

¡Hola!

It´s hot today. Hotter than it was last week. Actually, it is not as hot in Santa Barbara as I had expected. It gets hot during the day, but not very humid. Then at night, it gets cool. But that´s the climate where I am currently staying. Given the range of terrain here in Costa Rica, the climate could be more oppressive (or less so) in other parts.

Saturday I did a little sightseeing.

First we visited a coffee plantation. The Dokka Cafetal (coffee plantation). They sell coffee to Starbucks. Costa Rica is small, so it can´t compete with countries like Colombia or Brazil in the general coffee category. So they compete in the specialty or gourmet coffee category. Apparently the Ticos (Costa Ricans) won´t pick coffee, so the cafetals go to Nicaragua to recruit workers. And there is a shortage of coffee pickers.

Next we went to At 5000 feet, the short, flat walk from the parking lot was tiring. I can only imagine how I´m going to feel in Quito, Ecuador, which is over 9000 feet ASL. There wasn´t a cloud in the sky over the crater, which is very unusual. The view was crystal clear. The crater looked like a blue lake. There´s not much more to say about it.

Then we went to a private forest park call La Paz. La Paz has several waterfalls. We saw only one of them. It was spectacular! We had to walk deep into the forest to reach it. The river and the surrounding foliage was green, lush and beautiful. While at the park we also visited a butterfly garden, a hummingbird garden, a display of Tican snakes (in aquariums), and display of frogs. The frogs were so tiny, not even a half inch long. They are lethally poisonous, however. The hummingbirds where fascinating to watch. Their precision in flying is amazing. Hummingbirds are not cooperative photo subjects.

Afterwards, we drove to the Sarapiquí River where we took a boat ride. We saw a variety of wildlife along the way: monkeys, iguanas, bats, weird birds.

The whole day took about 12 hours. The terrain is beautiful. Green and lush. Lots of flowers and flowering trees and bushes. Mountains and valleys. We even drove through part of the rain forest.

The rest of the weekend I relaxed. Walked around the neighborhood and didn´t get lost.

Well, that´s it for now. I´m not feeling so inspired to write.
Cheers.