Poas volcano, coffee plantation, and La paz waterfalls!

So it is monday the 1st of August but I never got around to sharing about last monday so I thought I should get around to that. :) Darn school, finals, and paper. Not to mention spotty internet. It messed up my blog schedule.

Sigh

Anyway, last Monday was a school holiday. I have absolutely no idea why we didn't have school but I'm glad we didn't because I had an awesome day. I signed up for this three in one tour and toured a coffee plantation, saw the crater of a volcano and walked through five waterfalls.

The worst part of the day was waking up at five so I could be picked up at the Holiday Inn hotel at 6 in the morning. Ugh! Luckily they were nice enough to start the day off with breakfast at the coffee plantation where I got to drink enough coffee to make it through the day. Whew!

After breakfast we had the tour that conveniently ended in the souvenir shop. I ended up spending way too much money but hey, some of you are going to love your CR gifts! ^_^

Coffee Trees

Then it was back to the bus for the trip to the volcano. In our group were 12 of us from the U.S. Two from Spain, one from Brazil and one or two from Mexico. So our tour guide would say everything in spanish and then repeat it in english. I had a great time trying to figure out what she was saying before she switched to english. I could follow about 20 percent of what she said.

By the time we got up the mountain, the sun and heat had turned to cloudy and rainy. When we hiked up to the crater of the volcano all we could see was pure white. It was actually pretty funny. There were about 50 tourists, all with camera's out, looking at nothing but a block of white. No matter which way you looked you could only see two feet in front of you.  

Finally, the fog lifted and we could see in the crater. It was amazingly cool and beautiful. There is a lake in the middle that is supposed extremely hot and acidic.

Inside the crater

After a while the clouds came back so we left. We headed back down the mountain and went to the La Paz waterfalls and animal sanctuary.
There were so many animals!! It was crazy. At one point I was trying to talk this Tuscan into crawling onto my hand but he was being stubborn. He ended up chewing on my fingers for a couple minutes and then flew off. :(

It tickled

What are you looking at?

After the birds we went to the butterfly farm and there were so many! Thousands! I had like half a dozen land on me.

The next stop was my favorite . . . . . . MONKEYS!!!!! I was talking to one and it all came up and was like Hello, who are you, why are you here, what are you looking at, do your clothes taste good, can I try them? It was adorable!

Moooom, Can I keep them???

After the monkeys I went to the Snake house. For some crazy reason there was no one else there but it was pretty cool.

Everybody liked me here

One last stop before we left for the waterfalls.


Big cats!! There were two cougars!!! Woot! Woot! Go COUGS!!!!!

There were quite a few different types!

Then it was on to the waterfalls. There was a whole row of them, one after another. So cool.

All in all, it was a freakin great day!!!