Volcan Barva

Dennis and I had been planning this hiking trip for some time now. This is the Volcan Barva a part of the the Braulio Carrillo National Park. The mountain is dotted with small farms, (fincas) mostly for milk and cheese production. Let me tell you, the air up there is so clean and fresh it is unbelieveable!! It starts getting cooler and cooler, but the sun kept it nice and comfortable all day. In fact, this is a cloud forest with different types of vegetation than a rain forest, however on this day, we had sun all day - lucky us!! The hiking took us about 4.5 hours and was just over 8 miles long. Yep, at least half was uphill. We were tired but in a good way and did I ever sleep good Saturday night. Even the trip back was really neat. We stopped at a local restaurant and enjoyed one of the best meals I have had here and a show of hummingbirds right outside of our window. We stopped and bought homemade cheese a little further down the mountain.
A very nice day.....

Here we are in the town of Barva asking directions. The mountain we are going to is the one in the background.

A view of San Jose from the slopes of Volcan Barva.

Along the trail in the park; most of it was easy and well maintained. However, toward the second crater the trail became more like "hiking" as tree roots and muddy places became more common.

This plant is called the Poor Man's Umbrella, (La Sombrilla de Podre). Can you guess why? And it wasn't even the biggest one we did see.

The pond created by the crater.

Dennis at one of the overlooks. You can see the clouds starting to build.

Too Cool!! Ol' Bessy just standing by the road watching the day go by.

This is where we bought the homemade cheese.