Visiting a Volcano
Today we went to the visit the Irazu Volcano in Costa Rica! There are three different craters, two of which are safe to walk on, while the other one is still dormant. We got a bunch of pictures with the amazing view! We hiked up the hill to the highest point, which overlooked all three craters. We were so high up that the clouds were below us. Technically it’s the rainy season in Costa Rica, but luckily the weather was beautiful and sunny the entire day.
After the volcano, we enjoyed lunch at a restaurant in the mountains at a place called Sanchiri that also had a spectacular view. The food was pretty good too! Then we visited two churches. The first church was located in San Jose and is the oldest church that is still has services. They also had a small museum attached with items from the church over the years. The second church we went to was much bigger than the first and amazing. It also has an interesting story to it of why it was built. The story is that a little girl found a statue-like doll in the woods one day. She brought it home and the next day while wondering she found another, but when she returned home she discovered the first one was missing. On the third day, she found the doll again in the woods and the second one was then missing. She was confused so she went to the priest’s house and showed him the doll. He didn’t think much of it at first, and left the doll in the tabernacle while he went to mass. He brought some priests to the place in the woods where the doll had been found each time. The doll was there and they understood it as the Holy Virgin wanting a church to be built where the doll was, so they built it.
Afterwards we returned home and ate dinner soon after. Our host parents went out for the night, but while we were eating dinner, a huge spider the size of my fist crawled across the floor! The other two girls I live with and I jumped up in our seats. One girl, Loni, grabbed a can of Raid and we got rid of it with that. Still though, that was the biggest bug I’ve probably ever seen in my life! Tomorrow we’re going zip lining in a canopy tour, which should be lots of fun!
The view from the volcano:
The first church we visited, in San Jose:
The second church we visited, in Los Ángeles:
And the HUGE spider from dinner!
ALBRIGHT ELCDC 