The Perfect Day

So by Tuesday most of us were starting to feel ready to return back to our lovely USA. My greatest prayer for today was that I did not spend the whole day wishing it would pass quickly, and the Lord surely answered my prayer! Our first stop was the Doka Coffee Plantation. We had breakfast and then got a tour of the estate. I actually learned a whole heck of a lot about coffee. For example, it takes four years for coffee to grow even enough to be harvested! Then it goes through an incredibly long, 5 step sorting/drying/roasting process. The strongest coffees are roasted for only 20 minutes. AND all types of coffee have the same amount of caffeine (except decaf obviously...). See Mom and Dad, this trip was a learning experience!  

 

Coffee pickers fill about 7-25  of these baskets a day!

Bags and Bags of coffee beans!

After the awesome coffee experience (which of course included taste testing all the coffee flavors)  we got back in the bus and headed off to Volcan Poas. Poas is the second largest volcano and one of three volcanoes in the whole world that you can actually climb above and look down onto the crater. However, we were warned numerous times that most of the time it is really hard to see the volcano because it is at a pretty high altitude and therefore typically surrounded by clouds. And since when we woke up this morning is was really dark and cloudy we did not have high hopes. However after we climbed to the top, this is the sight God blessed us with:

Us with Roberto, our guide (in the middle with white hat)

How amazing right? We got a bunch of pictures there and while we were getting our group shot taken David heard something behind him, we all turned around to see a small geyser spewing up out of the volcano! Come to find out, that usually happens about once or twice a YEAR! God is SO good.

If that was not enough, we soon arrived at La Paz hotel/waterfall. This was quite an ideal honeymoon spot because everything was beautiful and romantic! We ate a wonderful buffet full of American classics such as hotdogs and pizza :) then we visited the awesome bird, butterfly, snake and wild cat exhibits before heading towards the waterfalls.

The bathroom sinks were mini-waterfalls!

Look! It's a toucan!

Quinn talking to the parrot ;)

More monkeys mom!

He's posing for the paparazzi

Me with the monkeys

Jack with the jaguar

Unfortunately, La Paz was right in the heat of where the earthquake hit a few years ago which destroyed a lot of houses, churches, and forests in the area. I did not notice much destruction except for a path to one of the waterfalls that had been pretty well covered by rocks. But anyways, my mom and Roberto also both insisted that La Paz was more beautiful before the earthquake but I could not find fault...can you?

I really like this picture of JM

Best Friends :)

Leslie, Brittany, Anna and I in front of waterfall #2

Me and Jack are those pink and black ants down there! The other two are random dudes who wanted to be in our picture too apparently...

After that full day I got to come back and relax with my host family for one more night. As a special treat they took me out to eat some fried chicken! (Needless to say, after my lunch and this dinner I had some heartburn...)

All in all, an amazing ending to an amazing trip. I feel so incredibly blessed to have had this experience and that I get to go back to a country adjourned with luxuries such as air conditioning, multiple cars per family, street addresses and good ole sweet tea (even though I know you'll disagree with me Aunt Sharon)!