On Friday morning Nick and I walked through the hotel’s fantastic gardens before breakfast. Take a look at some of the beautiful flowers we saw.
Our breakfast was much better than our dinner the night before! There were many choices of foods including omelets that were made to order. My favorite fruit is pineapple. I feasted on the juiciest, ripest pineapple slices every morning from Friday on.
Our first stop of the day was a trip to Poás Volcano. We had a choice of going to the crater first and then hiking through the Escalonia Cloud Forest, or vice versa. (We learned that a cloud forest is like a rain forest with less rain and more humidity.) Nick and I chose to go to crater first. We were very fortunate! The probability of seeing the volcano is only 30%, but we were able to see it with very little cloud cover. I was so sorry for Dawn and David, who chose the hike first. When they got back to the crater, the cloud cover had intensified greatly
Our next stop was a visit to a coffee plantation, where we also had lunch. Samples of coffee were available, but as Nick and I are not coffee drinkers, we didn’t try them. We did try the guava juice and enjoyed it often on subsequent days. The coffee plantation had its own butterfly garden. We loved seeing the many varieties of butterflies including the famous blue morpho. Recently at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, I asked what the difference was between a cocoon and a chrysalis. I was surprised to learn that only moths make cocoons.
I was grateful that my friend Lisa had recommended Keen hiking sandals, because they were perfect. According to my Fitbit and Nick’s pedometer, we took more than 10,000 steps that day.
Glad I contributed to your steps on this day. Lucky you were able to see the volcano. We never say Arenal since it was cloudy and rainy. We did get to bathe in the hot springs, which was wonderful.
I can’t wait to hear about the rest of the trip.
Barb,
It looks amazing !!!!!
Again I love reading your blog…….. 🙂
Terry