A spontaneous trip to a volcano

Current location: 10°08’06’’N, 84°06’00’’W, Barva volcano, Heredia, Costa Rica

“Oh, can I come then?” I heard myself blurt out. My friend’s brother was telling us that he was off to the Barva volcano in the morning, and I was eager to join. Visiting a volcano was on my list of things that I wanted to do before I left Costa Rica, but for various reasons it just hadn’t happened yet. The primary reason I suppose is that I have spent most of my free days surfing (or trying to surf) in Jacó, but another reason is that I have felt a little discouraged to visit national parks here when they are charging tourists like our pockets were filled with gold. I didn’t know which mountain we were supposed to climb, nor did I know that it was a national park, and thus that I needed to bring money with me. All I brought was an apple and some peanuts for lunch. I doubt that would have covered my entrance fee – after all, I was a “tourist”. We decided that I would pretend to be Tica. The other somewhat blond guy would pose as my brother, and my friend would be my husband. “Shit, I never thought I’d get married this young!” he laughed as I told him he was my new hubby. It was a family trip – clearly. They gave me sunglasses to cover up my eyes (blue), and I put my hair up underneath a bandana. When they stood in line to pay the ticket, I sat down in the grass and focused on tying and untying my shoelaces, I just didn’t seem to get it right, all so that the guards wouldn’t see how much taller I was in comparison to my “brother”. Our plan worked like a charm. The volcán Barva, with its two lagoons is at an elevation of 2906 meters, and hasn’t erupted in some thousand years, luckily for us. It is 22 km from San Jose and the top is a cloud rainforest. The funny thing about rainforests, is that taking pictures of them doesn’t do them justice. The immense volume of greenness that just engulfs you, in combination with the details of thousands of plant species, just cannot fit in a picture. But, a “tourist” pretending to be a Tica gets caught on picture sometimes. Pura Vida!