Volcanes, Churches, and Ox-Carts: Oh my!

We had a new work group here last week from Texas. They were really fun, and taught me an awesome game you play with dominoes called chickenfoot. It was especially awesome because my first time playing I cleaned their clocks. They elected to do two day trips. One was the trip I'd been on already, to Sarapiqui, but the other was to Volcan Poas, Grecia (a small town), and Sarchi (another small town). Ken, who is the tour guide the UBL works with, and his wife Delia joined the group, which was lovely for two reasons: Ken is a birder, and could identify birds, and Dely is Costa Rican, so there was someone I could speak Spanish with.

Stunted Forest: this is what we hiked through

We drove up to Poas through fields of coffee and ornamental plants - which are apparently Costa Rica's fourth largest agricultural export. (You learn a lot when you travel with a tour guide). The road was lined with the houses of the farm workers. Because of the relative stability of the climate, Costa Rica doesn't have a lot of migrant farm workers. Rather, they work in the same place year round, since there is always something to do.

Volcan Poas: the main crater

Poas is one of the most visited national parks in Costa Rica, partly because it is an easy drive from San Jose - and there is a public bus that runs from downtown to the park and back. It is one of the five tallest volcanoes in Costa Rica. It doesn't really have a peak, though. It has three craters, two of which are visible to the public. Both are lakes, though one is a sulfuric lake that's about 50 C, and the other is a fresh water lake that's very cold. Both are really beautiful, but in very different ways.

You can see the sulfuric lake. The smoke is rising from the fumaroles.

The crater principal has several fumaroles that smoke constantly, so that the lake is never clear. That smoke can get caught in the crater, and then blown up to the viewing point - which is really gross, because it smells like sulfur. While we were up there, that happened twice, and the sulfur smell is so strong it made my throat hurt. The crater itself is very wide, and the lake is in a secondary crater inside it. The whole crater is just rock and dirt; there are practically no plants. There is a road that runs along the crater, which is for vulcanologists and other researchers.

See that pale line along the ridge? That's the road.

The second crater, about a 30 minute hike from the crater principal, is completely different. It looks more like a glacial lake (except for the fact that the foliage is all rainforest plants) than a volcanic lake. (I don't know what I thought a volcanic lake looked like. This lake wasn't it.) The water is very blue, and looks super inviting. According to legends, the lake was used as a sacrificial altar, with people/things being sacrificed to appease the gods so the volcano didn't erupt. I don't know if this is true; I didn't see anything about it in the museum.

The Lake

We hiked to the crater principal while it was covered in sulfur smog, and then got to watch it all blow off, which was really amazing, because the whole crater cleared up and became visible. Then the men in the group, Ken, Dely, and I hiked to the lake, and then back down the mountain to the park entrance. We saw a ton of birds, including the volcano hummingbird, which is endemic to Poas.

Volcano Hummingbird

From Poas, we went to Grecia. We ate at a trapichero, or a sugar cane mill. We got to try raw sugar cane (yum!) and the final taffy (also yum!). We had cane juice at lunch (kinda yum. also tasted green.).

The group in front of the trapiche and water wheel.

Grecia is famous for its church. The church is all metal, and was shipped from Belgium to Costa Rica in the mid 1800s, and carried over the mountains by ox-cart from the port (no one knew if it was Puntarenas or Limon, but either way, there are mountains). The town was hoping that a metal church would be more stable during earthquakes - as it is still standing, I would assume that it is. Costa Rica as a whole has very few historic buildings because earthquakes demolished the vast majority of the colonial buildings.

The metal church. Looks pretty normal, doesn't it?

From Grecia we went to Sarchi, which is mostly famous for the ox-carts that are produced and painted there. I didn't really take any pictures, but the ox-carts are very colorful and pretty. Mostly we shopped in Sarchi, but its mostly grown-up stuff (aka not cheap. at all.)

Dad, I took this photo for you.