If there are any similarities between Costa Rica and Alaska, it’s got to be their abundance of volcanoes. In Southcentral Alaska, we have Spur, Iliamna, and Redoubt that tower over the Cook Inlet. In Sarapiquí, the big ones that surround us are Turrialba, Irazú, Poás and Arenal, all of which form an east to northwest chain.
Megon and I woke up at 4 a.m. Saturday morning to catch the earliest bus to San Jose and visit our host family’s daughter, Lucy, and her husband Fernando, who live outside of the capital city in a little town called El Roble. After picking us up from the bus station, they gave us a tour of their beautiful farm, fed us breakfast and loaded their car for a trip to Poás, the country’s third tallest volcano at 2,709 meters. Poás separates two extremely different climates: the dry central valley and the humid Caribbean coast, which means cloudless days are few and far between.
“Tuvimos mucha suerte,” according to Fernando, because we had ourselves a blue-bird day without any humidity or rain. It reminded us of a warm summer day in Anchorage.
“Tuvimos mucha suerte,” according to Fernando, because we had ourselves a blue-bird day without any humidity or rain. It reminded us of a warm summer day in Anchorage.
From San Jose, Poás doesn’t look like a volcano, much less an active one. Its appearance looks like something you’d see while driving through the Appalachians. Once we paid the entrance fee to the national park and drove closer to the visitor center, the strong smell of sulfur signaled that Poás wasn’t just any old mountain. We reached the crater and had an amazing view of a green, acidic lake 300-plus meters down below. Clouds of foul gas billowed from the lake. Sometimes the wind blew the gas in our direction, forcing us to hold our breath until it passed.
After exploring the hiking trails up and around the summit, we headed down the mountain and spent the afternoon at a zoo in Alajuela. The zoo focuses primarily on rehabilitating injured birds. We learned that Costa Rica has more than 850 species of birds, more than the United States and Canada combined. Our favorites were the Macaws, which are sadly on the critically endangered species list. Our long day ended with well-deserved, delicious pizzas at an Italian restaurant in El Roble.
We had to catch the 11 a.m. bus back to Sarapiquí on Sunday morning, which gave us just enough time for a short hike with Lucy and Fernando around the perimeter of their farm. Part of the journey involved crossing a wide creek that slices through the middle of their property and supplies their house with water. Everyone made it across by jumping a line of small boulders … well, everyone but me. Standing on the middle rock with two more to go, I went for a big leap but instead of my right foot lifting like I had expected, it slid into the water, followed by the rest of my body.
“Oh my God!” Megon said. “You fell in their drinking water!”
The water was so deep that I didn’t touch bottom. Thankfully, the current wasn’t all that strong, I didn’t have our camera, or cell phone, and the water was bathwater warm. Eventually, the sun and wind dried my clothes before we came home, so all that was left of a great weekend were a pair of wet shoes.
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