Costa Rican Adventure

In April, I had the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica for work. My company has a few manufacturing sites there, so there was a group of people that met there to share ideas. We also were able to spend one day doing sightseeing. We couldn’t fly all that way to spend ALL of our time inside!

We spent our business time near San Jose, so for our sightseeing day we took a trip to see the Arenal Volcano. Before my trip to Costa Rica I had not known how many volcanoes are there. They have over 100 volcanoes, with 5 of them still being active, in a country about the size of New Hampshire.

The drive to Arenal Volcano was very scenic. We passed by many coffee plantations, went through the rainforest and through much of the Costa Rican countryside and farms. The drive through the rainforest was full of steep hills and sharp declines that left my stomach a little queasy! After some a lunch of rice and beans (they accompanied almost every meal, even breakfast!) I was ready to hike up toward the volcano.

The volcano had a major eruption in 1968 that buried three villages and a lake stands where the villages once were today. The volcano has been inactive since 2010, but is said to be “just sleeping.” Seeing a volcano in person was something fun to check off my list in life!

We also were able to spend some time trekking through the rainforest trying to spot pretty flowers, fruit trees and animals. At the end of the day we spent some time in the hot springs that are fed by the volcano. They had over 25 hot springs, the higher up the volcano you went the hotter it was. I was only able to put a toe into the hottest pools – they were scorching!

The night before heading home our Costa Rican colleagues took us to a traditional dinner at Pueblo Antinguo, which is a replica Costa Rican village showing life as it was at the turn of the century. It was a very entertaining dinner – the kind where they bring up people from the audience to dance and embarrass them! I was called up to dance not once, but twice. Lucky me! I’m hoping the pictures (and video, so I’ve heard) don’t ever surface at work!

The phrase most widely used in Costa Rica is "Pura Vida." It means pure life or good life and the people there are saying it constantly – as a way to say hello or to answer how are you? It is a good reminder from their culture that I took back from my trip there, to always try to live the good life.

I am so grateful that my job offers me the chance to travel to some pretty cool destinations. As always, it was hard to be away from Adam and Wynn for a couple of days, but I knew they’d do just fine without me and appreciate the fun souvenirs and stories of my travels!