Volcan Irazu

So after realizing I only have 2 weekends left in Costa Rica, I decided I needed to do something today. Nicole and Kate went on an Ecology field trip so I happily went solo to Volcan Irazu for a day trip. I barely made it to the bus, seeing as I decided where I wanted to go today at around 7:45 am, and the bus left from downtown at 8 am. I was on the bus less than a minute before it took off. Also, the bus fare made me realize how much of a penny pincher this place has made me. The subtotal for transportation both ways all the way up to the Volcano(2 hours each way roughly) was 3,100 colon, which in dollars is around $6. I was very unhappy with this price and felt ripped off and taken advantage of. Then, after about a minute I realized how easy it used to be to drop $10-20 on eating out any time I felt like it in the states. This made me feel rather silly for two reasons. One, exactly how much I did in fact used to spend on stuff in the states, and two, that $6 wasn't in actuality a bad price at all for the trip. I have a feeling that when I go back to work in Fayetteville that it's going to be that first job feeling, to where you could care less how much they payed you, but felt excited to actaully be making money on your own.. At least that's the way I felt. Anyways here is the Volcano I visited today, where I ran into a couple of Peruvian fellows that kept me company the whole time and helped me further my spanish.

Into Irazu's vent. I was lucky to get this photo considering how cloudy it was.
On the bus ride there, due to the clouds the landscape had an interesting mood to it.

Kinda interesting I think. Fence line surrounding part of the volcano.

After a light rain while there.


And then when back in San Jose while walking to my bus stop, I noticed one of my city's "beautiful" rivers running through town. Sadly, this is what almost every one of the water systems going through San Jose looks like.