Back in San Jose

Enough already

Yesterday, we drove from Manuel Antonio back to San Jose. Unfortunately (though I'm looking forward to seeing my family), we have reached the final leg of our trip. In anticipation of our Tuesday night viewing of the new Harry Potter film, we picked up the HP 6 and HP 7 Part I to prepare for the epic final movie. In the afternoon, Gabe invited his friend Daniel to the house. Daniel has been in Israel for the past 5 months in a Kibbutz and returned to Costa Rica less than a week ago. He's absolutely hilarious. For dinner, we had lasagna, a welcome relief from excessive amounts of rice and beans.

This morning, we woke and traveled, with Daniel and company, to Poas, an active volcano in Costa Rica. Though we got there in the morning, the entire Poas crater was filled with clouds. We had to wait for about a half hour before the clouds temporarily cleared up and we snagged a view of the crater. We then hiked briefly to Lake Botos, an inactive crater that had filled with rain water and became a lagoon: as with everything in Costa Rica, it's was natural and beautiful. We took a quick ride to see a waterfall. Though we intended to hike down the rocks, a newly married couple was taking staged photos, and we voluntarily avoided the awkward situation. For lunch, SURPRISE, we had rice and beans ... Gabe's parents are consciously trying to expose us to the culture of Costa Rica, which I appreciate. But sensing all of our exhaustion with comido tipico, they have cooked international dishes for dinner, including a delicious steak au poivre tonight.