Thursday, December 26, 2013

Day 21: Bumpy Rides and Smoking Volcano

Days like these are ones that make you feel extremely lucky and fortunate.
What an awesome day today was, one of the best days yet.
Yesterday I had been told that we were off to an active volcano today called Turialba. This volcano can be seen smoking away during the day from Heredia, and it quite a cool sight, and we were off to see it.
At 7:30 in the morning, 4 of us, Jose, Jorge, Rodolfo and I, headed off. Turialba is on the other side of San Jose, through a city called Cartago and was like a 1hr 30min drive.
Driving here, while interesting outside the vehicle, it is also interesting inside the vehicle for me too. The family have a van that can seat 12, and I always sit in the back row where I can stretch out my legs. However, sitting at the back there, I can't sit up straight because my head hits the roof. Also, in Costa Rica in the town streets there are so many speed bumps. Like if you think we have a lot in New Zealand, you haven't seen Costa Rica. In a stretch of 400 metres, there can be 5. They aren't just small ones either, these are ones that every time we go over them, you get lifted off your seat, it is important to be ready for them, so you are in a comfortable position.
When we first arrived at the base of the volcano, it didn't look that high, and we first went to a little cultural tourist place, called Monumento Nacional Guayabo, which had relics of an old Costa Rican village. Something that was interesting about the place was the prices. For Costa Ricans, it only costs 1000 col, but for foreigners it is a whopping 6000 col. I thought that seemed a bit crazy.
The place was quite a nice little walk, seeing some rock carvings, the old type of grave site, and stone remains of an uncovered village. Also, while at the place, there was another little walk that we did. This took us just through some of the bush in the surrounding area. We saw lots of little ants carrying leaves, dragonflies, awesome little frogs that were amazingly well camouflaged, I had no idea how Jorge could actually spot them, but the best thing of all was that we spotted a wild toucan high up in the canopy. It was an amazing sight, from seeing one in a cage yesterday to now seeing one out in the wild. All the while we were here Jorge seemed to be on his phone. I soon found out why, I think.
We left this place, after Jorge gave the mostly blind person who was in control of helping park the cars 2 oranges, and headed back up the gravel road we had come from.
We stopped in this little village place, and a few seconds later a blue Toyota Hilux pulled up beside us and a man jumped out. Very soon, this man was going to show himself to be quite the person.
Turns out he was one of the best friends of Jorge and he lived in the nearby area. We went to a little restaurant on the side of the road, which, Memo, the friend of Jorge, knew the owners of. He seemed to know everyone in this little village, as he said 'hello' to everyone who walked into the restaurant or simply passed by. We had an amazing lunch of rice and beans, this is not sarcasm, it was really good, accompanied with iced tea. After that we followed Memo up the road and parked the van.
Really I had no idea what we were doing, I never get told anything.
Before I knew it, the four of us were jumping in the back seat of Memo's Hilux, holding the cakes that were on the seats, and heading up the road towards the volcano.
Memo seemed very interested to know more about the land in New Zealand, and I soon found out why. After stopping at nearly every farm on the way up for Memo to give presents to children and a cake to each family, we arrived at his farm, about a third of the way up the volcano.
At this time I should probably let you know that the volcanoes here are not like the ones in New Zealand, they do not get snow, and nor are they all just rock. They have grass and trees and life.
First we pulled up at Memo's house, which I found out he built himself. It was perched on the side of the hill with amazing views out to towns below and on a cloudless day you are supposedly able to see the sea. The view was spectacular.
We then took a walk to some of the farm sheds to have a look at how things were done here. I was so surprise to see that there was equipment with a 'Waikato' label on it. Explains why he was so interested in the land of New Zealand.
We then saw how he had nice little barn stalls for the little calves, they were all quite timid, but one then started licking my hand. I think it must have been because it could smell the cake I had been holding.
The next thing I knew, the three young ones of us, were jumping in the back of the ute, not just the back seat, but the actual back, and heading up the volcano.
We picked up someone from one of the farms along the way, and continued on up. Very shortly after we set off, the road changed from relatively smooth gravely to rocks. While my bottom was fine because I was sitting on a big container that was in the back with us, Jose's and Rodolfo's were taking a beating from all the bumps. Because the volcano is active right now, it is actually close to the public. But because we were lucky enough to be with Memo, he had keys to get us through the big gates that keep out everyone else. The highest point of the volcano is 3440m above sea level, and the climb up to the top we very steep at times. There were two times when we Memo stopped the car to make some adjustments to how it was set up, and before we started going up again, we would roll back down a bit. I have to say that was quite freaky. But it was so much fun riding on the back and I had faith in the Japanese Toyota construction. We made it to the top, and
what a sight it was. On one side there was the fuming volcano and on the other, towns and cities far far below. It was amazing.
Up there it was quite windy and soon it was getting cold as the day was drawing on. We spent about 1hr at the top, exploring all the different parts, seeing all the different views we could and saying all the 'ooohs' and 'aaaahs' that we could. It was honestly incredible.
It was about 4:30 by the time we started to head down, and yes, we did go back down on the back of the ute. This time Jose and Rodolfo joined me on top of the container for a slightly more comfortable ride. The cold of the altitude coupled with the wind from the moving made us chilled to the bone, which didn't help us keep our grip on whatever we could hold on to.
We arrived back at Memo's house after dropping of the farmer guy, and by this time all my hands were absolutely numb, and we tried to get as much of the fading sun as we could. It was at this point that Jose took to mocking me for wearing shorts while they all wore longs. This is because earlier in the day it was so hot, and I had been exclaiming how I couldn't believe how anyone could wear long pants with the heat. I was now getting it all back on me.
The colours of the sky as the sun set were incredible as we sat down and feasted on cheese toast with cake and fizzy drink, it was very appreciated.
The evening was incredibly cold, and we began our descent about 40 minutes after sundown. That was after waiting about 20 minutes in the freezing car for Memo to stop talking to some other people.
We got down from the volcano, said goodbye and many thanks to Memo and headed home.
It was an incredible day.
Up the top of the volcano

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