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Published: June 26th 2008
Volcan Poas
A beautiful spot and apparently one of the biggest active craters in the world.The reason for deciding on Costa Rica as a destination to spend a year (minimum) living and working was that it had both mountains and beaches. True, many other countries around the world have mountains and beaches too. In fact, probably all of them. Except Holland.
Costa Rica is a little country but it has an unfair wealth of natural wonders. Again I’m struggling to think of a country that doesn’t but such comparisons are not the point of these particular ambling scribblings.
Fortunately, Heredia, where I live, is just outside San Jose, right in the centre of the country so getting to one of Costa Rica's many beautiful destinations is pretty straight forward. In fact a complaint regularly heard from tourists travelling around this place is that they constantly have to pass through San Jose. Very few buses go from A to B, you always have to change, and usually spend the night, in SJ.
Despite the saintly name and giddy song, if you do know the way to San Jose I suggest that you discard that particular cartographical knowledge and learn the way to Dubrovnik or somewhere like that instead. San Jose has the architectural swagger
Volcan Arenal from La Fortuna
The third most active volcano in the world and my favourite place in Costa Rica until I went to Chirripo the following week. of Wolverhampton and the charm of Basra. After six months it has grown on me. In the way that mildew might grow on a soggy tent packed in its bag and put in the garage before it had sufficiently dried. Even Tico’s (that’s Costa Ricans) will tell you it is dirty and dangerous. To be honest it is nowhere near as bad as the rumours. I quite like it.
Because the school where I teach is closed on Fridays, for half of the year I get a three day weekend. Only half of the year because we have to work five Saturdays on then we get five off. You cannot travel for more than seven hours in Costa Rica without being in a different country or being very wet so pretty much all of the country is accessible for a long weekend break. Even when working Saturdays there are plenty of daytrips to be made from Heredia. Thus despite feeling like I am settled here, my travelling urges are still being satisfied.
A common facebook status I have, much to the chagrin of friends at home, is:
David cannot decide whether to go to the Caribbean or the Sunset at Tortuguero
There has to be at least one sunset shot on each blog. Pacific this weekend. An unexpected dilemma for which few feel pity. But after visiting many beaches on both coasts, I have decided that I prefer the mountains.
As soon as I visited Volcan Arenal it became my favourite place in the country. It is the world’s third most active volcano, after Kilaeau and Mt Etna. Ask a kid in a school anywhere in the world to draw a volcano and the fire spitting, smoking, perfect cone that you will get exactly resembles Arenal. The monkeys and brightly coloured birds they will draw around it are accurate too. But you can erase the elephants, aliens and submarines.
The following weekend Parque Nacional Chirripó, home of Costa Rica’s tallest peak, became my favourite place. And a couple of months later, it still is. Please peruse a later blog for details of that jaunt.
I’m not going to write about every place I have been because I will get bored almost as quickly as you. So the point of this blog is just to post a few snaps and to inspire me to keep making the most of my weekends. There are still a lot of places that I haven’t
Sunset at Tortuguero
Make that two sunset photos per blog. reached yet, but I do have another six months.
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corrijene
non-member comment
costa rica
hey there, i just came back from costa rica and am revisiting it through your photos. thank you for sharing! i'm jealous that you saw the volcano arenal. when we were there it was raining and cloudy so we never had the view you did. happy traveling!