Toparies

we started the day touring San Jose. Photos were taken out of a moving bus plus I didn't have the window seat in the morning This is the National Opera House

some sort of peace museum. No military for this country..they are the Switzerland of the Americas

pretty window. If the house isn't surrounded by walls or fences, then the windows have bars on them. Crime is much lower in CR than any other country surrounding it but still there are dicey neighborhoods downtown. Also thefts from parked cars. You have to pay someone to watch your car. We saw these 'car guards' all over

This is in their 'expensive' neighborhood

as is this

liked the stained glass

This is from the rehab center. Owning tropical birds as pets is forbidden in CR. They will take away your parrots. This bird, part scarlet macaw, is a hybrid of two species that rarely interact so it won't be released as no flock will accept it. We did see lots of scarlet macaws in the wild later in the trip. Its other parent, would be an Atlantic coast resident as opposed to the Pacific kind

A female guan which was prettier than its mate

Ruby the always moving albino squirrel. We did find plenty of squirrels in the park the first day. At first I thought they had mange but they don't need to get as fat or as fluffy as the locals raiding my feeders

No shortage of iguanas anywhere Our guide, who grew up poor, walked barefoot to school 2miles away. He would collect iguana eggs for a snack

peacocks are not native but this one was putting on a show

some time that afternoon we crossed the Continental Divide

Mural in the Zancero town square

These topiaries are a one man operation made from cedars. He had no formal training. He has offers from around the world to make topiaries. As he now is quite old, he is training replacements

my friend in an arch

this church was made of metal too

topiaries from the church stairs

inside the church. There was a wedding going on so I couldn't intrude much

back on the road again.

Our hotel in La Fortuna near the Arenal Volcano. Hot springs are all over the place including at our hotel. Fortunately no sulfur gas in this kind. Couldn't see the volcano that day despite it being right outside our window due to clouds. It erupted regularly until 10 years ago spewing hot lava every night putting on a show. Now only steam comes out

A pretty place. Our balcony overlooked the pool Within 5 minutes of us sitting on our balcony with our quickly diminishing Bota box (3 liters of cab), a toucan flew by us.

Fortunately the night before we  had to pack our suitcase, I managed to be able to close it 75% of the way while securely it with my exercise band, Such a relief. The bellboy was going to tape it up but we would have to cut through this tape at every stop. The safety pins I bought to close the suitcase all broke. We were to have the suitcases outside our door quite early for the bellmen to pick up, which worked out fine except for the very last day in which our suitcase was not on their list. I wasn't going to leave without it.  For our 2nd road day, we toured San Jose, which is not particularly pretty. All the colonial buildings it once had were destroyed in a series of earthquakes, about eleven big ones and tremors felt by seismographs at least, daily. We went by Sabana Park, which was an airport long ago that Lindbergh stopped at inn his trip around the world. It is also where our b&b was.

We went to a wildlife rehab center with them hoping to return the injured animals to the wild. Their symbol is Grecia, the Tocan named after the used car town that he was found. Some teenagers broke his beak throwing stones at it. This provoked a national outrage and strengthened their anti-cruelty laws. Grecia has a fake beak now and seems to be happy. We were there several hours and ate lunch . Lots of birds. They did have peccaries and tapirs along with the jungle cats.

On to Zancera across the divide. Very pretty. As the bus was reloading, I ran to a lecheria (love that name, sounds like they cater to lechers) to grab ice cream. I went through all the interesting flavors I had tasted at the soda back in San Jose..no, no, no. no. Finally I just grabbed any flavor as time was running out. Rum Raisin as it turned out. They don't label their flavors. Not as good as the home-made soda stuff but it came from their largest dairy Dos Pinos which would translate as the local Detroit dairy Twin Pines that I grew up on. Didn't you just have lunch? jealous bus riders asked. Didn't have ice cream.

Our hotel, next to the fog encased volcano, was also a short walk from town and the local grocery called Super Christian (actually Cristian) where we replenished our wine. They had bottles of a coconut drink full of coconut pieces, bitters and guaro (their rum like drink) and sweetened condensed milk. That was a hit. All sorts of candies. They don't have to label their contents, which was frustrating. I got higos rellenos, stuffed figs with sweetened condensed milk fudge. That was my snack on the bus and later on our snackless Spirit ride home.

After dinner, we spent time in the hot tubs.