Day 2

Hey!  What time is it anyway?? 
This morning our smart phone alarms woke us up at 6:30 am so we could meet our driver at 8:30 am.  We walked out at 8:30 am and did not see our driver.  We noticed that the hotel and the street seemed very quiet, but did not think much of it.  When the driver did not show up we asked the bellhop the time, and he informed us that it was 6:30 am!!!!! He said he wished he had a video of our faces when we learned we were two hours early!  Our 'smart' phones showed 8:30, Mrs. Ogle's watch showed 7:30, and the clock in our hotel room showed 6:30, but, of course, we trusted our smart phone technology over a hotel wall clock.  Silly teachers.  Remember when we taught you about time zones?  Well, WE failed that test today!

  
We are leaving now to travel to see Poas Volcano and the La Paz waterfalls, which should be amazing! We will see coffee and sugar plantations, as well as a butterfly sanctuary on our three hour drive. Maybe we can catch up on our lost sleep on the ride. haha! We will end our journey today at the Arenal Volcano, which is Costa Rica's most famous volcano. More to come tonight!

Coffee Plantation on the side of the Poas Volcano.  Our guide told us that Starbucks buys most of the coffee beans from this plantation.

 Coffee plants grow best at an altitude of 3,000-5,000 feet.

As we continued to drive up Poas we could see that we were higher than the clouds.  The forests in the high altitude are called "Cloud Forests".  

We are at the top of Poas Volcano. This plant is nicknamed Poor Man's Umbrella.  You can probably figure out why.

We are at the summit! Only, it blew up in 1953 and left this huge crater lake.  You can see the steam coming up because the crater's water is over 40 degrees Celsius - very HOT!  This huge crater is unbelievable.  It takes volcanologists 5 hours to walk down to the water.

Here is a video of Poas' crater.

Mrs. Langford and Mrs. Ogle walking through the cloud forest.  Look how thick it is.  It is also very cool this high up - 6,000 ft.

Mrs. Langford sitting on volcanic rock.  This igneous rock has a lot of iron in it.

Mrs. Ogle petting a real, live Toucan. He just sat there and enjoyed it.  Smart bird!

The highlight of the afternoon was seeing the La Paz waterfalls.  Amazing!  

     

We drove to our next destination, the Arenal Volcano.  We drove through rural countryside and saw a lot of farmland.  We passed tapioca fields, coconut field, papaya farm, banana trees, and a pineapple field.  We were surprised at how many people were walking on the roads.  When a car came they did not even get over on the side or even look. Our driver pulled over and the guide told us to look in a tree that was hanging over the river.  There were a dozen large iguanas in the tree.  If they iguanas became frightened, they fall off into the water below.  

                        There were 12 iguanas in one tree!  

Next stop is the Arenal Volcano!  

Day 1 San Jose to Poas Volcano

Day 1 of Costa Rica

WE MADE IT!  This was our first view of Costa Rica from the window of our plane!  Just a short clip for you to get an idea of the green lush forests and tall mountains.  There was a good bit of turbulence as we passed through many clouds to land.  We are spending our first day and night in the capital of Costa Rica, San Jose.  

Here is a pic of Mrs. Langford standing in the rain on a busy street in San Jose.  The streets do not have lanes and drivers love to use their horns.  Pedestrians have to be careful because they don't have the 'right of way' like we do in Alabama.  All the small red cars are taxis.   We did pass a hospital and it does not look like our hospitals so we are really hoping we don't get sick here! We walked for about two miles looking for the National Theater but never found it. It's hard to ask for directions when no one speaks English!  We are the foreigners and it feels really strange!  The best four dollars we spent was on a taxi ride back to our hotel!! :-)  

This 'Gi-norous' plant in in the courtyard of our hotel.  It is huge!! 

Tomorrow morning we will travel for about three hours to hike the Poas Volcano!  We are exploding with excitement!  (get it??)  

INTRO

Join our exciting trip to Costa Rica as we (Susan Ogle and Dana Langford) will explore the rainforests, ocean,  and volcanoes this fascinating Central American country has to offer!  How did we get this lucky??   This past year we were fortunate to receive a grant funded by Fund for Teachers to explore and learn more so that we can share this incredible experience with our students!   We hope you will follow our blog as we travel this summer so we can share this experience together with you!  We would love for you to ask any questions about what we do each day or just let us know you are reading it would be great!  We will fly from Atlanta on July 27 and return August 3.    WE CANNOT WAIT!!!  (just imagine a million exclamation points and then you'll get the idea of how excited we are to have this trip of a lifetime for two 6th grade Science teachers! )

Costa Rica is located in the Southern part of Central America

dlangford@hoover.k12.al.us