Tropical Forests and Costa Rican Coffee

This past weekend was definitely a beautiful one!! Saturday was our trip to the Volcano Poas and La Paz Waterfall. We had to leave at the crack of dawn, but it was totally worth it. We stopped at a coffee shop for some coffee and to check out one of many the coffee plantations in Costa Rica.  Then we headed up to the mountain, where it slowly got colder and colder. Little did we know it was going to be rainy and cold up at the top.. I was a bit unprepared without a rain jacket, but I made do. Fortunately, there is a certain plant called "Poor Man's Umbrella". I'm sure you can guess why? It has the biggest leaves I've ever seen!!! 

"Poor Man's Umbrella" putting it to good use!

The walk up to the crater was wet and when we finally reached it, it was too cloudy to see anything of the crater! Sad day.. :( Next, we adventured to La Paz Waterfall. By this time, it was about noon and all of us were STARVING! We were definitely looking forward to the buffet at La Paz and absolutely chowed down. My stomach was hurting so bad from the sudden large input of food and coffee. When I felt like I could finally walk again, Nikki, Lexi, Alexis, and I went exploring around the animal exhibits.  They had so many wildcats I was in love!! The only huge bummer was that my camera decided to die right as we start exploring. I mean, I suppose it was my fault for not charging it ahead of time. Que mal! We saw tons of ocelots, baby and adults, and a HUGE jaguar. He was such beauty! I cross my fingers in hopes of seeing one of these guys on our field trips, sadly there is almost no chance of seeing one because of how shy they can be.   

The descent down to the waterfall was quite the climb down! I should've counted how many stairs we had to go down, but I  know it was tons!! Completely worth it though, because we were surrounded by serene rain forest. La Paz was an incredible sight just like every waterfall is. Energetic yet calming, I had such a great time there.  Slowly being covered in a mist of water didn't bother me much compared to the beauty I watched in exchange. After spending a good amount of time at the store at the bottom- internally struggling whether or not to buy everything in the store- we headed back home.    

Sunday, we went to the coffee plantation of Cafe Britt. We took a tour of the plantation and the process of making coffee beans in their factory. It was an interesting tour, but I was anxious to check out the shop!! It was full of all kinds of different coffee they make right there at Cafe Britt.  I took quite some time deciding which two (my self limit) coffee types I wanted. Then I spent some more time checking out all the different kinds of coffee!! Guava chocolate, passion fruit chocolate, macadamia nut chocolate were just a few.  I spent some well deserved colones there, and I don't regret it. :)

 "You have to leave the city of your comfort and go into the wilderness of your intuition. What you'll discover will be wonderful. What you'll discover is yourself."