El volcan Poas, Grecia and Sarchi

Hello again everybody!

I am doing well writing my blog recently aren´t I? So, today, Linda, a girl from Holland, and me went on a trip offered by the school. This morning, they picked us up at 7.30 am and than we picked up some other people from luxury hotels around San Jose. On the way to the volcano, we stopped by in a coffee sowage and it was nice to see what a coffe plant looks like, I did not really know what it looked like before. It was all a bit touristic though, busloads of tourist being dropped of. Moreover, the coffee we got to taste was not very strong, it was more like a cup of warm water.

We stopped over at the side of the road again to watch a sloth hanging in an electric cable eating leaves from a tree. I had never seen it from so close and I can tell now sloths are very strange animals.
All the way from San Jose to the volcano Poas, our guide was talking a lot but not really telling much. He made some very bad jokes, he makes the same ones every day I suppose. Anyway, when we finally arrived at the Parque nacional del Volcan Poas, we walked for a little bit and could then peer into the crater, where fumes come out. We were very lucky because there was not a lot of clouds and hence we had quite a good view. Most of the times, the crater cannot be seen very good because of the clouds. Volcano Poas is the biggest volcano in C.R. with a length of over a kilometer and a depth of about 400 meters. We walked a bit to the highest point of the national park where we had a look at a lake that used to be a crater as well.

After that, we went for lunch in a ´typical tico restaurant´ which was more like a tourist trap but the food was still good and it was free with the tour, so it was ok. After lunch, we held halt in a little village called Grecia, where the only thing worth seeing is a little church in metal. It was constructed in Belgium and it was supposed to be shipped to a harbour somewhere in Chile, but by mistake, it was sent to a little village at the Costa Rican coast with the same name as the Chilean harbour. As it would have cost a lot of money to send it back and as in Grecia there had been an earthquake destroying the local church just before, they decided to install it there.
Then, it went on to Sarchi where they only dropped us of at a massive tourist shop. Sarchi is very known for its woodwork and cheap souvenirs. I expected the souvenirs and woodwork to be sold on a nice little market or so, but unfortunately that was not the case. To finish, we paid a visit to a company where they paint ox carts in all colours of the rainbow which is quite nice to see. They have the biggest ox cart in the world!

Anyway, that was about it, I would not recommend this tour to anybody. I think one would better take a bus to explore another volcano like Irazu or Arenal on his own and explore the surroundings a bit as well.

That´s all, amigos

Take care

Pura vida