Happy Mother's Day!

I'm sending you some flowers from the Irazú Volcano to brighten your day.  I love you!

The Pacific Coast

On Thursday I went to the Gold Museum, which is built under an open plaza area. It is very cool, the building is an inverted pyramid.  Inside the museum they have exhibits on the Costa Rican money, indigenous traditions around gold and their cultural life.  I learned a lot about Costa Rican history.
Then on Friday we went to the pacific coast.  It's amazing how small Costa Rica is that you can easily go to either side of the country.  Our first stop was a fruit stand so that we could fill up with delicious Costa Rican fruit.  Then we stopped at a bridge to look at crocodiles.  I guess there are always crocodiles at this spot on the river.

I counted at least 25, but there were probably more below the water that I couldn't see.

We were worried this bird was going to become lunch.

All of these crocodiles were staring at it.

Then we went to Tarcoles which is a fishing town.  There were 3 people from my program who lived in this area for their research projects.  We got a tour of the fishing co-op.  It is so interesting, everyone in the fishing co-op lives in the town and everyone has a different job.  There are the fishermen, women who untangle the lines, people who work preparing the fish after the fisherman bring it in etc.

Nets and anchors 

Our tour guide who was missing a few teeth, had lived there his entire life, worked as a fisherman and is still helping as much as he can.  We met another of his children working there also.

We might have played with the sharks for longer than necessary

After the tour of the co-op we went to Punta Leona which is a sustainable resort.  Unfortunately, it started raining shortly after we arrived at the beach, but that didn't stop everyone from going swimming.

This macaw is getting ready to fly away for the first time.

Right before it started raining

Then we had lunch in the restaurant there and these animals called coatimundis came right passed the restaurant and some even came in to look for food.  My camera was in the bus so I couldn't take pictures, but this is what they look like.

They are related to raccoons.

Trip to Cartago: Volcano and Basilica

On Tuesday we went on a trip to Cartago which is a providence to the east.  We saw the Irazú volcano which was beautiful and then went to a Basilica which was incredible as well.  In August over 2,000 people walk to this basilica.  To put this perspective Costa Rica has a population of 4,000 people.

Turrialba volcano that we saw while standing on Irazú.  We got lucky and were able to see two other volcanoes in the distance as well.  Usually it is too cloudy.

My professor is the one being goofy in the background and the man in plaid is a famous Costa Rican volcanologist and is called in for every natural disaster in the country.

Notice the difference between this volcano and Arenal, this one has a giant crater (Arenal was still pointy) and Arenal was in a rain forest so the vegetation grew back a lot faster.

The original barrier got destroyed during an eruption.

Sitting on the edge of the crater.

It was cold.  He is standing beside the ruins of an old lookout that fell apart during one of the eruptions. 

The volcanic ash was warm.

Poor man's umbrella

We has lunch at this look out and it felt like we were in the clouds.

The lookout.

The basilica

People bring little metal figures of the body parts that they are praying for so there were hundreds of different body parts.

The figuring of the Virgen de Los Angeles that was found in this sight hundreds of years ago.

Drinking the holy water

Stain glass of the indigenous woman finding the little statue.

Eating ice cream afterwards.

Soccer Game

On Sunday I went to a soccer game between Saprissa (a San José team) and Heredia (another province).  It was quite an experience.  

Waiting in downtown San José before going to the game.

Advertisement for a phone company (Kolbi) and cirque de sole that is coming in the end of May.

The mascot

The section we were in, everyone sang there entire time and people had brought instruments in with them.  There was even a giant drum.  Also everyone jumped up and down together and the stadiums shook.

For a country without an army, the police were ready for all kinds of craziness.  There were also police on horseback.  Lucky they weren’t needed.

Apparently they have problems with people throwing things so you can’t bring in anything that you can throw like change. Also they don’t give you drinks in bottles, they pour the drink into a plastic bag.

At the beginning of the game they handed out balloons to everyone.  People wave them around for a while and then just let them float away.

The game ended 0-0 and the crowd was super happy.  We can only imagine how they would have acted if Saprissa had won.

At the end of the game people started climbing on the fence.  Our section was the last to leave and everyone was still singing the entire time..

P.S. Bimbo is a bread company that endorses Saprissa, which is why it is on all of the jerseys.  My host mom laughed so hard when I told her what bimbo means in english.