Costa Rica (part 3)

So far, a very busy week for us. But we're not done yet!! Who says you get to rest on vacation?? Or, in our case, our honeymoon.

Wednesday we had another 'planned' excursion, this one to a volcano. And then some. We'll start with the volcano, Poas Volcano, to be exact. We though, as we drove up there, we'd have a clear view of the crater because it was a beautiful, clear day! But as soon as we got to the park, we found ourselves in a cloud (literally). And there wasn't enough wind to blow it out of the valley where the crater was, so we only had a vague glimpse of it when the wind blew just enough to blow the cloud off a bit. We could see the edge of the lake and the steam coming up. But no full view, unfortunately. Maybe next time we can see a good shot of this one or another one.

But luckily, this wasn't the only destination for this tour. The next stop was Doka Estates coffee plantation - "The Best Coffee Plantation in Costa Rica" - to learn all about this huge export for Costa Rica. For starters, Starbuck's apparently buys a majority of this company's beans, accounting for about 75% of the bean sales for Doka. That should tell you something. But what I found interesting was the whole process. Did you know that the coffee bean is actually a fruit? And what most people consider the 'bean' is actually the seed in the middle. The fruit's skin and outer pulp is removed, which actually leaves a sweet tasting seed (not to eat, but you can suck on it) to dry, most of which is done in the natural sunlight. And it's an off-white - it's not brown until roasted and the roasting is what gives it it's flavor. The longer it's roasted, the richer the flavor. I had no idea so much went into a pound of coffee - it takes 10 lbs of the fruit to make 1 lbs of the coffee as you know it!

After our little tour of the coffee plant (and another great lunch at the plantation!), we headed to our last stop of the day... the Sarchi artisan shop. When Eric and I arrived, we saw an abundance of these little carts being used as decoration throughout the hotel. We later learned that these were replicas of the ox-carts built and painted by people in this very shop we were going to. It used to be the primary way to transport things around the country, which is why so many of their roads are so narrow. The detail that goes into this painting is amazing! And the fact that they still do it as an art form now is very cool - and just as much detail goes into it. The ox-cart seems to be almost a symbol of the region we were in - and I'm glad we got to see the shop because it made us clearly understand and appreciate the little gift the hotel gave us (miniature replica of the cart that we plan to use as a Christmas ornament).

We got back to the hotel in time to enjoy a bit of pool time before our dinner reservation. There was a great breeze blowing across the resort that made it actually a little chilly to go into the water, but it made for great sitting by the pool and having a glass of wine weather! So it was a nice way to wind down before dinner. Which,once again, was a wonderful meal. It was also nice that they kept portions in check, because the food was so good, you could easily eat too much of something! But, oh, it was so good!

Thursday rolls in - our final full day in Costa Rica. We decided to drive down and hit one last National Park (they have about 25% of the nation reserved as National Parks). Carara National Park is know for it birds, specifically Macaws. We already saw a couple of Macaws playfully fighting in a tree along the side of the road on Sunday, so we didn't need to go to see the Macaws. But we did want to see a true rainforest environment, which the southern part of Carara was. There were trees that towered at 150-160 ft in height! It was amazing to walk among these giants! We did see a few animals as they emerged for their morning breakfast. And there were a couple of Macaws circling the tree tops, squawking at each other the whole time. But the craziest things we saw were the ants! Yes, ANTS! There's were thousands of them, all very organized, carrying leaves back to the colony. They were so organized that they wore a path not only in the dirt, but on the gravel trail we were on! We were both fascinated by this for some reason... It made for a nice last day adventure.

After we had out fill of the rainforest, we went back to the hotel to pack up. Unfortunately, we had to head back into San Jose that night and stay at a different hotel. When we initially booked, our flight left pretty early. When it changed, we didn't change our hotel, and we should have. But instead, we took the same, longer, mountainous route we drove on Saturday night back to San Jose and actually enjoyed the views. It was worth it. And the hotel was another nice hotel that helped us unwind some more before a day of traveling. And that's all Saturday was for us... some brunch, and off to the airport we went.

Costa Rica was absolutely wonderful! Eric and I would love to go back now that we know the lay of the land a bit better. And hopefully we will get to do that one day in the future. Until then, we have many memories and MANY pictures - We took over 1200 pictures!! Well, mainly I took them cause I'm camera happy on trips like this. But it was worth it! You can see some of our handy work on my Fotki page. But even that is just a handful of what was taken!