We had an amazing day trip this weekend! We like that on Saturdays we have gone and explored various parts of the country. We have gone to places based on peoples' recommendations and we have not been disappointed! Saturday morning we left around 9 am and headed for the Poas Volcano - about 2 hours of curvy, crazy roads. We drove through some serious road construction due to major landslides when the area had an earthquake last January. It was really interesting to see some of the damage and the way they are terracing the land so it is less likely to create landslides next time. We got up to the National Park and took a short walk to the edge of the huge crater of the Poas Valcano. It is the second largest crater in the world - a mile across! It is considered an active volcano, though it hasn't spewed lava in ages. It is basically a geyser now and you can hear the water bubbling and steam and sulfur pours out of the top. It was great!
Next we headed about a half an hour away to La Paz Waterfall Gardens. They also had major earthquake damage and landslides took out most of their walking paths. Normally there are paths to 5 different waterfalls, but right now you can only walk to two. Even still, this place was amazing. The waterfalls were great, but the highlight was all of the animal preserves they have - birds, monkeys, frogs, a butterfly garden and a hummingbird garden where you can possibly observe up to 26 different types of hummingbirds - more than anywhere else in the world! When we were in the aviary building, we even got to feed the toucans! It was really incredible! We met the builder/designer and the general manager of the place (the wife and kids of the general manager were there and the daughter recognized us from the airport in Dallas - they had eaten next to us at the Bennigans during our layover 3 weeks ago!) We got talking to them and talked maybe about being able to bring some of the kids from Roblealto for free this fall. That would be a great opportunity if we could!
When we were at the Waterfall Gardens, we learned a lot about the area. Because it's in a rain forest, for a long time no one considered the land useful - it was too wet to grow coffee or anything else. Eventually, they built dairy farms and imported cows from none other than Madison, Wisconsin, which we thought was hilarious! And of course, since it is a rain forest, at about 4 pm it started to POUR. We waited it out a bit, but wanted to get down the mountain before it got dark (at 6 pm). Luckily, as we went down, the rain and fog let up a little. No need to add pouring rain to the craziness of driving in the mountains!
We are excited to start our last week of classes tomorrow. We plan to go to the beach again next weekend as we figure we'll most likely never live only 3 or 4 hours from the ocean again! Next Monday we start at Roblealto! We are thinking of you all. Please keep praying for our Spanish - we have a lot to learn! Much love!
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