Volcán Irazú

The Pacific Ring of Fire (or sometimes just the Ring of Fire) is an area where large numbers of earthquakes and volcanic eruptions occur in the basin of the Pacific Ocean. In a 40,000 km (25,000 mi) horseshoe shape, it is associated with a nearly continuous series of oceanic trenches, volcanic arcs, and volcanic belts and/or plate movements. The Ring of Fire has 452 volcanoes and is home to over 75% of the world's active and dormant volcanoes.

Wikipedia

The Ring of Fire passes right beneath our house in Victoria, British Columbia and our current home in Costa Rica. In Atenas, we are very close to a few of the most active volcanoes in the country.

Two weekends ago, we visited Volcán Irazú.

The Irazú Volcano (Spanish: Volcán Irazú) is an active volcano in Costa Rica, situated in the Cordillera Central close to the city of Cartago. Its name could come from either the combination of "ara" (point) and "tzu" (Thunder) or a corruption of Iztarú, which was the name of an indigenous village on the flanks of the volcano. In Costa Rica it is known by the name of "El Coloso" (The Colossus) due to the catastrophes that it has provoked in the past.

Wikipedia

Irazú is next to Volcán Turrialba, a volcano that has been in the press in the last few months due to its increased activity. As we approached Irazú, we were able to see the huge plumes of smoke coming from Turrialba.

On a clear day, it is possible to see both the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans from the top of Irazú but we had some clouds that added an ominous effect to the craters.

 

The children especially enjoyed playing in one of the extinct craters.

  

It is not often that you see someone trying to make a snow angel in volcanic ash.

Orosi

This weekend, we headed to the Orosi Valley which is famous for its scenic mountain views.

The park/overlook, Mirador Orosi, offers great views of the lush river valley below. For one of the first times in awhile, I was able to snap pictures of the 3 kids without one of them striking a pose.

On Saturday night, we were lucky that there happened to be a big fiesta in town. We let the kids go on the creaky, old rides that date back to around The Kennedy Era.

It was quite the fiesta… just ask this clown that was passed out in the field when it was still daylight.

Will you have fries or gallo pinto with that?

Nearly a year of Costa Rican cuisine has allowed us to appreciate really good casados – the typical Costa Rican meal.

It has even become normal for us to see McPinto on the menu at McDonald’s.

However, after having eaten Costa Rican food for all of this time, “exotic” for the kids is having a hamburger at Burger King (which they refer to as “Blue Burger” (long story)).

Mariposa

We went to see butterflies while we were at Arenal. Soon after we entered the netted area, the butterflies started to land on Léah. I immediately thought of the scene in the movie Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs when the forest animals gather around Snow White.

Léah provided some tips to Naimah on how to stay still enough so that she too could play Snow White.

The Blue Morpho Butterflies seemed to favour Léah while the Great Owl Butterflies (pictured below) seemed to prefer Naimah.

Emerald Basilisk

This emerald basilisk crossed our path when we were at Arenal. He can run on water too just like his cousin that we saw on the coast at Manuel Antonio.

Blue Jeans Poison Dart Frog

The poison dart frog’s stunning colors are a warning to possible predators that they are toxic. Their skin is poisonous, not because of any poison cells in the skin layers, but because of the toxins in the ants and mites that they eat.

The frog below is really tiny but Gabriel still spotted it relaxing in the leaves.

Beetlemania

It appears to be beetle season here. There are beetles everywhere both inside and outside the house. The kids collected this quantity of beetles from the pool.