A weekend in San Carlos :)

The last few weeks I've been travelling a lot around, so I haven't had time to update my blog. Earlier in october I went with Maja, Jorge and Troels for a weekend in San Carlos! We left early on a Friday morning to get away from morning traffic. On our way we had a nice stop in Zarcero where they have a nice church with an unbelievable park in front. The trees were cut out in many different figures and shapes :)

The drive was really nice and we could see so much beautiful nature, but with sharp eyes we also got to see a sloth in a tree close to the road. Sloths are normally just hanging still and difficult to get an eye on, but this guy was streching out to eat some leaves ;)

After about 2-3 hours we got to La Fortuna, the first plan was to go se the waterfall "Catarata La Fortuna". Driving up to the waterfall we got really lucky, the clouds around Volcán Arenal opened up so we got to see the top of the vulcano :D We heard that this was not so common for this season.

The waterfall was just amazing! Standing right next to it we could feel the power of the water falling 75m!

We also went for a swim below the waterfall. The water was pretty cold compared to the oceans I've tried. Troels and I even tried to swim into the waterfall, but the powers pushed us back. 

After cooling down in the waterfall we moved on to check in where we would stay for the weekend. We dropped off our luggage and moved on to relax in some natural hot springs heated by the vulcano. Unfortunately I left my camera, so I have no pictures to share from this great experience. We just parked the car by the road and walked down into the forest and found the hot running water :) It was so nice and relaxing! Getting back to La Fortuna we went for dinner and planned our next day going to Rio Celeste. On our way to Rio Celeste the next morning we made a short stop to see a huge tree, Arbol de la Paz!! 

When we got to the national park we parked our car and started our walk to se the light blue river. Walking through the rainforest we saw many different animals.

Rio Celeste also has a waterfall, but because of an accident 3 years ago which lead to one person dying it's not allowed to swim there anymore.

I have so many pictures from this hike, but I really like this picture that shows where 2 separate rivers connect and become one light blue river. The light blue color is from a chemical reaction between sulfur and calcium carbonate which each of the 2 rivers contain seperately.

Rio Celeste runs through the Tenerio Volcano National Park so we also hiked up to a viewpoint and got a great view to the volcano as well.

After a long day of hiking we had decided we wanted some luxury, so we went to Baldi Hot Springs Spa! They have 25 different pools with 12 different temperatures. It was nice and relaxing, and a dinner and dessert buffet was included :)

Our last day in La Fortuna was spent relaxing at the pool in the nice weather, and when we packed our bags and were about to leave the clouds lifted once more from the vulcano!

It was one more unforgetable weekend in new parts of Costa Rica!!
¡Pura vida!

Volcán Irazú!

This Monday one of the German volutneeres, Jana, had free from work and wanted to go somewhere outside of San Jóse. It was a perfect timing to try out my motorcycle for a first road trip, and seeing my second volcano. So I asked if she wanted to go see Volcán Irazú with me. She is a positive girl, and I promised to drive nice and safely, so she joined me!

It was a loooong drive getting up the highest volcano in Costa Rica, but we made it!

We can not complain about the weather or view, but unfortunately there hasn't been too much rain there lately so we were informed that there was no "lake" in the volcano.

It was rather dry, but it also gave a nice view of the crater.

We got some nice views around the top of the mountain before the clouds came with some rain.

On our way down I drove really slow and careful because the road was getting wet. I thought the roads were so warm from the great weather earlier that the rain vaporised immediately, but I later heard form my friend, Ale, that it's a chemical reaction because of some particles from the volcano that causes the vaporisation.

On our way back my motorcycle just stopped when we got in to Cartago. It just wouldn't start again. We had no idea what happened, or what to do. Luckily it happend when we got in to the city and we could ask people where the closest moto shop or garage was. There was one just a few hundred meters away, and we met a guy with the exact same motorcycle. At first he couldn't get it starting, but somehow it started after a few tries. He went for a test drive and figured out that everything was in good condition, so I could safely drive back to San Jóse. First we stopped for lunch in Cartago. The drive back to San Jóse went almost perfectly, until we got to Guadalupe where my motorcycle stopped again. Also this time it took a few tries before I got it running again. All in all we had a great trip with some funny experiences, but I will get someone to check my motorcycle so this problem doesn't happen again.

¡Muchas gracias por un gran viaje! Vielen Dank für eine große Fahrt!

Dinner at Fiorella's :)

A couple I met at the Servas meeting suggested I got in contact with their daughter. So last week I got in contact with Fiorella. We met up on Monday and spent the whole day talking, and I also got to practice my spanish! Last year Fiorella was a volunteere in Germany, and now a lot of German volutneeres just arrived in Costa Rica. On Friday she invited some of these German friends over to make a German dinner, and I was invited too!

The Gremans were doing a good job in the kitchen preparing a traditional southern dish. One of the girls is also staying with Fiorella and her family for one year as a volunteere.

We had a great dinner, and we agreed on getting back together for a Norwegian dish!

  

Fiorella would of course speak perfect German with her visitors ;)

Vielen Dank für das Essen, or in Spanish ¡Gracias por la comida!