Day 9: Poas Cloud Forest, Costa Rica

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Pretty rainy today! And, up in the Cloud Forest of Poas Volcano Crater, it was VERY, VERY rainy! We enjoyed the two hour drive through Costa Rica from the lowlands near the ship up into the mountains that run down the center of the country. Our guide was excellent and we learned lots about Costa Rica. The army was abolished in 1948, and Costa Rica is a member of NATO - so if anything happens, NATO will help them. In the meantime, all the money that doesn't have to be spent on an army can be spent on social inftrastructure, so that's what they do! 'Pure Vida' is the motto that is commonly said by everyone. It means 'Pure Life' but the real meaning is closer to "plenty of life", "full of life", "this is living!", "going great", "real living", or "cool". Costa Ricans use the phrase to express a philosophy of strong community, perseverance, resilience in overcoming difficulties with good spirits, enjoying life and celebrating good fortune of magnitudes small and large alike.

But I digress. They had a video at the Poa Volcano, which showed how the crater would look if one could actually see it - our guide says he has been many many times, and he only sees it about 30% of the time. Good thing they had a video to show us! On the return journey to the ship, we stopped in Grecia to see a metal church - it is made of prefabricated steel plates painted red. It was shipped over here from Europe. The priest of the time - (1800's) - wanted to build a church that would stand up to earthquakes. I think he succeeded - it's in great shape! This is quite a large church and amazingly the sections of the church were carried from the east coast to Grecia by ox cart, the largest section requiring six teams of oxen. Coincidentally, our final stop was at a workshop where they paint oxcarts - I think it staffed by people with some disabilities. Oxcarts are still widely used in Costa Rica, because the farms are very small, so machines would be impractical and too expensive. We did see two oxen and a beautifully painted oxcart in use as we drove along.

Our guide, and the assistant guide, were wonderful singers! The assistant guide had brought along a guitar and we were treated to a great concert as we drove along. We really enjoyed that! Also, we saw a beautiful rainbow and sunset, just before arriving back at the ship.

Dinner was again on Deck 7 - our 'party' deck. We were celebrating 'Cinqo de Mayo' - a day celebrating Mexican Heritage and Pride. A local Costa Rican band came on board to play Latin music for us. The final highlight of our day was a great sheet lightening show in the night sky, off to the south. It went on at regular intervals for a very long time. Talk about going all out to provide entertainment for us!

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