My mom's visit

After the trip to Belize, we returned to Costa Rica, as Joe flew from Colorado to San Diego to a conference. My mom, Joan, came down to visit for 10 days. It was wonderful to have her there, although much to her dismay, it was quite rainy and cold. Mom hung out, met our friends, saw the school and practiced her Spanish. It was so cool to see what she remembered. One day, while the kids were in school, we decided to go to the Poas Volcano, with our friends Marco and Elbia. We had a wonderful time. It is about a 2 hour drive from San Rafael, and Marco and Elbia don't speak English, so it was fantastic time to practice our Spanish.This is one of the millions of waterfalls that we see everywhere in Costa Rica.

The Poas Volcano is one of the 7 active volcanoes in Costa Rica. It is often covered by clouds, which makes it super special to be able to actually
see it.This is Elbia, Joan and Marco at the beginning of our walk. We hiked up the road behind them hoping to see the volcano. They are our neighbors, and are such great friends.


Elbia and Lori posing next to a leaf called Sombrillo, which means umbrella. Often times, in the vegetation, I feel like I am in the land of the lost, or something like that, where plants that I have seen before, seem to be 10 times larger.






We walked up to the Mirador, or overlook, and although it was cloudy, we could see a bit of the volcano. Then seconds later, it was totally covered by clouds.











We hung out, waiting to see if we would see it again.
This sign explains the different parts of the volcano. It was so cool to be above a volcano looking down, hoping to see into it. Unreal.

















Then, just as quickly as it had disappeared, the volcano reappeared .We could see the crater and the smoke.



And then it got even clearer. It was so great! I think that if you could walk up there and see it everytime and leave, it would be super cool. And because you only can see it some of the time, it is even more cool when you can! One funny story, as we were driving there, Marco, who is really funny, told us that it costs around $10. per person to get into the park if you are a gringo, and about $1.00 if you are Tico ( Costa Rican). So he told me to cover my hair with a hat, because everyone thinks I am blond here, go figure. And to use tico slang and call him mae, which means man. Then he looked at my mom, and told her not to talk at all. We all laughed a lot! It was a great day!