San Jose, Costa Rica

We said goodbye to Bejuco, Sam and Jim bright and early today as we needed to get Heidi back to the airport in San Jose. After dropping her off we decided we would spend the day exploring the area around San Jose. First up-tracking down some breakfast and then heading up to Volcan Poas.

It was a gorgeous climb into the mountains above San Jose, passing croplands and coffee plantations along the way. Once at the park, it was just a short hike to the crater, which was surprisingly fairly active. A bubbling lake of water lay below us, with steam continuously pumping out of one side. As we got to the crater rim, we were immediately overtaken by a pungent sulfur smell. Some of the steam even burned our eyes from the potent chemicals spilling out of the vent hole.

On the way back down we stopped at a coffee plantation called <a href='http://www.dokaestate.com/'>Tres Generaciones</a>, and enjoyed $1 lattes. This place beat Starbuck’s by a mile. It was definitely the best coffee that I’ve ever had. Enough so that we ended up enjoying a couple, and lazily sat on the back porch overlooking the coffee fields, watching the clouds rise and fall into the mountain valleys surrounding us