"It's really cold up there!"

Is what we kept hearing from everyone. El Vulcan de Poás.  "How cold is it?, we asked. "Really cold. You're gonna need long pants, coat, hat, scarf, gloves..." It seemed the friends were preparing for a hike up Mt. Everest. So the family Mora lovingly tried to fit Erik with a jacket....um...let me just say the dad is probably 5'3", 140 lbs. U can let ur imagination figure it out:)...oh wait, I have a pic

It's an hour away so we were gonna leave at 7am...we left at 8:30. 3 Cars full, climbing up the almost 9,000 ft. It was a beautiful drive (Credence Clearwater Revival playing on the radio of course) you could feel the temp change a bit as we climbed but not enough to warrant Doris' winter parka.

Let me just say, Erik was just fine in a tshirt, wishing he had not been scared into putting on pants...but notice the locals. I think it was about 60 degrees F.

Unfortunately, when we hiked up it was so cloudy we couldn't see anything. But we patiently waited (bc the weather in CR seems to change rapidly) and the clouds parted for a few brief moments to reveal a partial view of what would have been awesome.

There was smoke coming out bc it is still a live volcano. Then we hiked thru a "cloud forest" to a beautiful lagoon.

Stopped for a delicious lunch. We both ate traditional dishes. Erik had "olla de carne" which is a huge bowl of soup with gigantic pieces of root veggies and beef.

I had chicken casado which was chicken breast cooked on the "plancha" (grill), white rice, black beans, potatoes, tortilla y salad. To drink I had horchata (rice and cinnamon). I tried everyone's fresh fruit drinks and lots of food. Everything looked and tasted delicious.

After lunch, they took us to "la Paz" waterfall which was beautiful as well.

When we got back, Doris had planned a surprise party for us with some friends from the congregation. Should've known when we stopped at a costco-like store and they bought a truck load of desserts. The coordinator and his wife who were in pioneer school all week came so that was nice to spend a bit of time with them. They r special pioneers who graduated a little over a year ago and were assigned here. They spent a week up with the last congregation we r gonna visit and showed us some pics. It's really isolated, u can only get there by boat and need to wear those big boots.

Some brothers came from another congregation to play guitar and sing some Costa Rican songs for us like "soy tico". Erik even sang some CCR with them. Doris loves them and we've been listening to them all week in her car.

The first week passed quickly but it seemed to be a good intro to life here. It's a wonderfully hospitable congregation and we've made some great friendships. Even though I doubt we'll settle in Alajuelita, we will always have a home there.