Saturday 9/20/08

What a day, what a day! Today some friends and I decided to visit Volcan Irazu (a volcano where you can stand at the highest point in Costa Rica). All was fine a dandy, a nice bus ride up to the top of volcano full of nice conversations and pretty views. All hell broke loose the minute we stepped off our nice comfy bus. It was as if we had flown to Antarctica. The clouds were so thick you couldn’t see 2 feet in front of you. The wind was blowing so hard we even started to doubt the law of gravity. The rain soaked us from head to toe (jeans+rain=pain in the butt…literally) Unprepared and poorly dressed for the occasion, we toughened up and started to make our way down the trail to the volcano’s main crater. Due to the thick clouds, the view was amazingly….ugh…impossible to see. We were of course bummed that we had spent the $ to see diddley squat, but were also laughing our heads of at how cold we were and that fact that we were stuck at the National Park until the bus returned for us in 3 hours. We wondered as much as possible and after minor lapses of frostbite (minor exaggeration) we made our way to the “lodge” (a small poorly heated building with hot drinks and some snacks). This is one of those days were I actually wished I liked hot drinks (for anyone who knows me well, I hate hot drinks of all sorts). We spent our time in the lodge wishing we had gone with the people from our school that hit the beach for the weekend, but also knew that we would be the one’s laughing at the “priceless” memory of nearly freezing to death. The two women working in the lodge told us that today’s temperatures were historical record lows and in all their time working there, they have never seen such terrible weather. Before the bus returned we made one more trip out to the main crater and for literally less than one minute the clouds moved just the slightest amount so we got a blurred glimpse at the volcano’s crater. What an experience. We anxiously jumped on the warm bus, attempted to warm ourselves and lip synced to the cheesy 80’s music that the bus driver played the whole way back to San Jose. It was for sure a memory we will never forget nor fully recover the feeling in the tips of our toes. We had lunch in San Jose and parted ways (so we could all head home, warm up and change our soaking wet clothes). My family laughed at my pictures and I climbed in my sweatpants and took a nap to recover from the trip to Antartica….I mean Volcan Irazu. After a nap and attempting to call my parents (dearest family of mine, you need to learn how to pick up a phone! Your lovely little daughter has been trying to call you!) I went for a walk with Pamela and our cousin Dayana. We stopped at the store and bought some popcorn for girl’s movie night (these two little ten year olds get so excited when I let them come in my room, watch movies, eat popcorn and call it girl’s night…easy to please eh?) Before dinner we danced like locas and sweated like crazy (I froze all morning and sweated all night…living in a tropical country is so much different than the Pacific Northwest). After dinner we had our girl’s night and the girls got so excited when I let them put their mattress on my floor and have our first official sleepover. At least I can say I’ve been to the highest point in Costa Rica.