Volcán Irazú

 

Yesterday was a public holiday here, so we decided to visit the nearest national park with the volcano Irazú. It's only 50 km from San José and with an altitude of 3400 m above sea level it's the highest mountain in Costa Rica. When we arrived it was very cloudy and we couldn't see anything of the crater...

... but then it cleared up and was very impressive! In the middle of the crater is a turquoise lake.

On our way back we met a farmer on his way home. He was very helpful and explained us a lot about the region and its history. His Spanish was hard to understand but he didn't mind explaining everything three times for us.

Porto Viejo

San José is in the center of the country but the two coast are not far away.
My first weekend in Costa Rica I spent at this beach in Porto Viejo at the Caribbean Sea. It's very humid but also very, very beatiful. The rainforest goes right up to the beach.

With a few other exchange students and "ticos" (that's what the people from Costa Rica call themselves) we stayed in a small hostel. The hostel owner said to us that would we get dinner for free, if we sang some karaoke in his bar... this is what we got! It's fresh fish with hot banana chips - something very Caribbean and very tasty.

Because it is so humid, it normally rains a lot here, but we were lucky and had a lot of sunshine.

This is one of the dogs that live on the beach. Because it is so hot they dig holes to lay on cooler sand.

Arrival in Costa Rica

After 13 hours on the plane I finally arrived in San José - the capital of Costa Rica. Form the airport I took a taxi to my hostfamily. The "señora" and her grandchild (who is just a few years younger than me) welcomed me very warmly with my first Costa Rican breakfast: tortillas con eggs and tomato.