We moved hotels to the much nicer Hotel Don Carlos. We flagged down a cab, these little red taxis are everywhere in San Jose. It cost a “red one” or 1000 colones ($US2) and it was a bargain. After dropping off our bags we caught our mini-van. After picking a number of people from different hotels and driving all over San Jose, I asked if “This was the San Jose city tour?” Compared to the rain of yesterday, today was a clear sunny day with a few patches of cloud.
We drove to Volcano Poas, stopping off at Tres Generacions coffee plantation. The plantation has been in the family for three generations and had lovely views of the Central valley. We had to sample the coffee on the verandah! Outside a fellow had the traditional ox cart, used significantly on the trade routes through Costa Rica 100 years ago.
Being a Sunday and a wonderful day everybody wanted to go to the Volcano. The queue of tour buses was long but most them weren’t full. We did the 10 minute walk to the crater through low lying shrunken cloud forest. Volcano Poas has a large cloudy blue crater lake with steam rising from the surface. The crater is 1,320 mteres wide and 300m deep and sits at an altitude of 2,574m above sea level. The water temperature in the small highly acidic rain filled lake is 40 degrees and the pH approaches zero! Small fumaroles were billowing the acrid smell of sulphur.
Either side of the volcano in the valleys, one towards the Caribbean coast were filled with cloud which was quickly rising up the valley. The look out was somewhat crowded and after Max’s (our tour guide) poor speech on the volcano, we bailed. We took the windy trek up to the Lagoon Botos, another crater filled with rain water. On the walk we saw some squirrels, adding to our fascination for these furry little creatures. The surrounding cloud forest formed a canopy over head. 
There was one plant, called the poor mans umbrella with large leaves. Tan protected herself from the sun for a while.
We had a traditional lunch which in Costa Rica includes rice and beans. These are staples for this area. Grecia is a town along the way and here after the first church burnt down and the second was demolished from an earthquake, some Germans come to the rescue and supplied the town with steel frames to build the church. The steel sat in the park outside the demolished church until one of the German team come back to show the Ticos (Costa Ricans) how to construct it.
In the park we played under this dome that had great acoustics.
We had some great talks with Sheila was a nice girl from Washington DC, who had just about finished her trip around Costa Rica. We got some tips and decided we should go surfing (or learn to) at Manuel Antonio on the Pacific Coast.
In Sarchi, we visited the Worlds Biggest Ox Cart! The ox cart is a symbol of Costa Rica and this one is in the Guinness Book of World Records. It was brightly coloured and was of a decent size.
The reason for visiting Sarchi was to go to the ox cart factory. It was Sunday so it was all closed up. No problems, our guide showed us through. Imagine going to the factory and turning the power on (in this case it was through the use of diverting water into a water wheel which rotated all the belts and pulleys) to show some tourists? Well Max did and it was great. The belts run saws, lathes, planes and rotated some of the wheels. 
The factory was awesome. No electricity and rustic with rusty corrugated iron, over grown with grass and aromatic wood shavings. The ox carts are no longer in agricultural use but are used for decorative and festive purposes. It’s good this long running traditional factory continues as the ox carts they produce are unique and brightly coloured and we appreciated the work that goes in to making them.
Next stop was the co-op, a huge souvenir shop, with some ultra-tacky stuff. The wooden toucans and tea candle volcano were highlights. To be fair, the co-op had some really good stuff but we weren’t too keen on getting anything as it was the start of our trip here. The co-op had a huge ox cart wheel, but no record books for this one. Tan still hasn’t let me buy anything tacky (or has she???) 
Back at the hotel, Tan hung out on the spacious balcony before going to meet our group for dinner.
We drove to Volcano Poas, stopping off at Tres Generacions coffee plantation. The plantation has been in the family for three generations and had lovely views of the Central valley. We had to sample the coffee on the verandah! Outside a fellow had the traditional ox cart, used significantly on the trade routes through Costa Rica 100 years ago.
Being a Sunday and a wonderful day everybody wanted to go to the Volcano. The queue of tour buses was long but most them weren’t full. We did the 10 minute walk to the crater through low lying shrunken cloud forest. Volcano Poas has a large cloudy blue crater lake with steam rising from the surface. The crater is 1,320 mteres wide and 300m deep and sits at an altitude of 2,574m above sea level. The water temperature in the small highly acidic rain filled lake is 40 degrees and the pH approaches zero! Small fumaroles were billowing the acrid smell of sulphur.Either side of the volcano in the valleys, one towards the Caribbean coast were filled with cloud which was quickly rising up the valley. The look out was somewhat crowded and after Max’s (our tour guide) poor speech on the volcano, we bailed. We took the windy trek up to the Lagoon Botos, another crater filled with rain water. On the walk we saw some squirrels, adding to our fascination for these furry little creatures. The surrounding cloud forest formed a canopy over head. There was one plant, called the poor mans umbrella with large leaves. Tan protected herself from the sun for a while.We had a traditional lunch which in Costa Rica includes rice and beans. These are staples for this area. Grecia is a town along the way and here after the first church burnt down and the second was demolished from an earthquake, some Germans come to the rescue and supplied the town with steel frames to build the church. The steel sat in the park outside the demolished church until one of the German team come back to show the Ticos (Costa Ricans) how to construct it.In the park we played under this dome that had great acoustics.We had some great talks with Sheila was a nice girl from Washington DC, who had just about finished her trip around Costa Rica. We got some tips and decided we should go surfing (or learn to) at Manuel Antonio on the Pacific Coast.In Sarchi, we visited the Worlds Biggest Ox Cart! The ox cart is a symbol of Costa Rica and this one is in the Guinness Book of World Records. It was brightly coloured and was of a decent size.
The reason for visiting Sarchi was to go to the ox cart factory. It was Sunday so it was all closed up. No problems, our guide showed us through. Imagine going to the factory and turning the power on (in this case it was through the use of diverting water into a water wheel which rotated all the belts and pulleys) to show some tourists? Well Max did and it was great. The belts run saws, lathes, planes and rotated some of the wheels. The factory was awesome. No electricity and rustic with rusty corrugated iron, over grown with grass and aromatic wood shavings. The ox carts are no longer in agricultural use but are used for decorative and festive purposes. It’s good this long running traditional factory continues as the ox carts they produce are unique and brightly coloured and we appreciated the work that goes in to making them.Next stop was the co-op, a huge souvenir shop, with some ultra-tacky stuff. The wooden toucans and tea candle volcano were highlights. To be fair, the co-op had some really good stuff but we weren’t too keen on getting anything as it was the start of our trip here. The co-op had a huge ox cart wheel, but no record books for this one. Tan still hasn’t let me buy anything tacky (or has she???) Back at the hotel, Tan hung out on the spacious balcony before going to meet our group for dinner.
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