Orosi

Orosi is the name of a beatiful vally on the central plateau near San José.
The name comes from spanish "oro - sí" (which means "gold - yes") because the first spanish colonists found gold in this vally. Today there is no more gold but a wonderful landscape.

Here you can see some of the coffee plantations:

This is the ruin of the oldest cathlic church in this country. It was built in1580 buy the first missionaries which came to christionize and colonize the "New World".

InBio Parque

 InBio Parque is biological garden with all the different typs of forests that exist in Costa Rica. The park is very big and therefore all sorts of native animals can be found, too.

  I visited it with a few other exchange students.

family party

Here in Costa Rica family is very important and often the families are a bit bigger than in Germany. Today I was invited to a family party of my host family. My host mum, her four sisters and (nearly) all sons, daughters and grandchildren where there.
This year it would have been the 100th birthday of the great-grandfather. Therefore they made a little fotoshow with old black and white fotos of the great-grandparents to remember them. It was great! Everyone tried to figure out who was who on the fotos and which day the foto was taken. All were talking at the same time. I'm sure the great-grandparents would have loved it :-)

Vulcán Poas

This weekend I visited another volcano near to the capital San José: Vulcán Poas

As you can see this volcano still smokes a bit but it's not considered "active" because the last volcanic eruption was very long ago.

Near to the crater is a beautiful lagoon.

Sarchí

Sarchí is a village that is very famouse for it's craftwork.
On the foto is one of the few very nice souvenir shops with souvenirs that are actually made in this region (and not made in China).

On day an artist had the idea of painting one of the ox-carts that the farmers here used a lot. Since then the carretas (painted ox-carts) are the most famous craftworks of this region. And for the tourists they paint them in all possible sizes. The smallest are 2 cm long and this is a foto of the biggest I saw:

Market in Alajuela

Every Saturday a big market takes place in the city Alajuela. All the farmer in the region come to sell their fruits and vegetables. I just loved all the colours and smells.

There are fruits and vegetables you can get in Germany as well like papaya, mangos, watermelon, pineapple, bananas,... (but here they are much sweeter!)

But also there are mountains of things I have never seen before and I have no idea what they are called or how to eat them! The good thing is I still have a few monthes time to try them all :-)

Universidad de Costa Rica

This week uni started. The university here has 45,000 students and a huge campus. It's very easy to get lost on it... I've tested it! It's a very nice campus because there are many tropical plants and animals.

Classes here are a bit like high school in Germany... only more difficult. Everyone has to participate in class, do homework, do group tasks and write unannounced quizes. Unfortunatly it's going to be a lot of work for me.

This is one of the perezosos (sloth/Faultier) I saw at university. Apparently there is a whole family of them living on campus.

Pilgrimage to Cartago

The 2nd of August is the day of the national saint of Costa Rica "La Virgen de los Angeles". Her nickname is "la Negrita" because it's the figure of a little black woman.
This country has 4.5 million inhabitants and 2 millions of these make a pilgrimage to the basilica of Cartago every year at this day.  People come from all over the country and some walk a whole week to get there. This year I was one of them!

During the day it is so hot and the sun so strong that only very few people walk but during the night it was incredible how many people where walking! There was a never-ending stream of people on the street and because of that they closed the main roads for cars. We started walking at 11 pm...

... and 20 km later we reached the basilica at 4 am. And we were not alone. There were people from all ages and everyone had there own personal reason for making the pilgrimage, some for religious reasons, others because of traditions, others because they enjoy walking or just to be part of it.

At 5 am the sun was rising and still more and more people were arriving. Many of them were limping but that didn't stop them from asking "la Negrita" for a favor.