Sunday, April 13, 2014

We woke up this morning and enjoyed a delicious continental breakfast at the hotel before packing up and heading for a little bit of a day trip to Poas Volcano.  We passed through Alajuela (seeing the soccer stadium) on the way up towards the national park.  It was actually a pretty short trip up the mountain taking only about an hour or so.  After peaking in the Visitors Center, we walked up the short 600 meter trek to see the Crater.  It was really cool (actually warm) because we saw it shooting out steam.  While standing at the observation deck, I could feel the warmth of the steam compared to the crisp morning up in the elevation.  After that, Grandma walked back to the Visitors Center while Grandpa and I hiked the 800 meters to the lagoon.  The lagoon was super cool, too.  It was green in color and surrounded by the green trees and plants that beautifully decorate Costa Rica.  After making the trek back down to the Visitors Center, we caught up with Grandma and checked out the souvenir shop.  I finally found a full-sized Costa Rican flag that I bought (which will be going up in a future classroom or office when I accentuate the fact that I lived in Costa Rica) and they bought something that they told me will be a graduation present.  I wonder what it could be.  Anywho, we drove back down the mountain towards the airport and then past the airport towards Santa Ana.  We stopped at my school and took a picture (from a distance) and continued to on towards a lunch at Wendy’s.  I think the Wendy’s here is better than the Wendy’s in the States, but that could just be me really enjoying a little taste of home that I do not normally get.  We filled up the tank and then were on our way to Manuel Antonio.  The trip was pretty uneventful except for the sights of palm trees, bits and pieces of the ocean, and the little towns along the way.  When we got to the hotel, our room was not quite ready so we moseyed on down to the beach to drink something cold since Manuel Antonio is a little bit warmer than the high reaches of the volcano.  We also went down to a supermarket at the bottom of the hill and picked up a few things like a pineapple, watermelon, and other essentials.  Eventually the room was ready for us, so we got our stuff inside of it and went to dinner at “El Avion” a place that has an airplane’s fuselage acting as the restaurant’s bar.  At dinner, we saw several monkeys playing in the trees.  They were monkeying around, I guess.  At the conclusion of dinner, we drove the car to try to explore the hill between Quepos and Manuel Antonio that all of the hotels and restaurants sit on, but it was a little too dark for us to gain much from it.  So, we returned to the hotel and enjoyed the air-conditioning for the rest of the night.