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!

Día de la independencia!

So today was the independence day of Costa Rica! Yesterday they had some entertainment and speeches in the park. A tradition for the day before the independence day is to make a farol, which is a box with a light in it.

There were many different farols, and they gave out prices for the best and most creative ones. 

Today it was possible to see the Costa Rican flag everywhere (they have actually been around for the whole month).

It is a tradition that all the schools participate in parades around the local churches and their parks.

There were many different outfits to see in the parades, but this is the most traditional outfit of Costa Rica.

One thing the parades are well known for are the marching bands! They have been practicing since school started in February, and I have been hearing them practicing the last few weeks. The most common instruments in the bands are drums and liras.

A lot of the bands also had some other instruments. I really don't know the name of this instrument, but it was cool ;)

Here is a video of the most popular performance in the parade.

And here is an example of the loud noise they can make with their drums!

After the parade in Moravia was finished I moved on to Coronado, known for its old gothic church. The parade was pretty much longer, and there were much more people than in Moravia.

Here is another traditional outfit used for Costa Rican dancing.

There were a lot of nice and different traditional Costa Rican dances to see today.

Some of the bands also had brass instruments.

And some of the musicians played on several drums ;)

 In addition to music and dancing there were some cheerleading teams that would have short performances :)

In front of the bands there would be more students dancing to the music. This was the last school in the parade in Coronado.

 I had a great day with a lot to hear and see! The sun was also shining, so I got a little sunburnt :P

¡Viva Costa Rica!

Surfing in Jacó!

The first few days were spent in Jacó. Here we met up with Jorge and Maja, who Mette and I will work for. In Jacó we had some lazy time in the sun and we also went surfing. Unfortunatly we didn't take any pictures while surfing, but we will definitly go surfing again, and then we'll try to take some pictures.

We had to get the Danish gymnastics team Bernsholdet back to the airport, and Jorge and Maja had to get ready for their vacation so we headed back to San José.

On our way we stopped to see some crocodiles ;)

We also ran into some bad rain which reminded us that it is rain season in Costa Rica!