This weekend I went to visit Volcan Irazu which is the highest active volcano in Costa Rica at 11,257 feet (3,431 m). This is just slightly smaller than the Volcan Baru (11,400ft/3477m) I climbed in Panama but this volcano was far easier to climb because there is a paved road that goes almost to the summit.

I went to San Jose on Saturday. I intended to go earlier in the day, but at 11 am I learned there were no buses between 10 and 2pm, so I arrived after dark. I explored the downtown area, where there were lots of stores and interesting restaurants. There was one large department store that was already fully into Christmas mode. There was fake snow falling in giant snowglobes and Christmas songs were playing constantly. I bought a Spanish-English dictionary there and the bag they gave me had a big Santa Claus on it.

The next day I caught the bus to the volcano. It was only $5 for the 2 hour trip up to the top of volcano, 2 hours to explore the volcano, and 2 hours to return to San Jose. The bus went through the city of Cartago which was the original capital of Costa Rica until it kept getting destroyed by volcanoes and earthquakes. There were a number of pretty churches, some in ruins. The bus continued up the mountain and the clouds held off at first giving a good view of Cartago and the valley. It was pretty cloudy though by the time we reached the summit at 10 am. There were quite a few Costa Rican families there having picnics and exploring the volcano because it is so accessible. It was very cold at that altitude and some people were wearing parkas and scarves. I guess they must have been looking for a good reason to use them in Costa Rica.

There was a trail that went along the craters edge. There were two craters, and the main one had a green lake in it. The last time the volcano erupted was in the early 60's when JFK was visiting Costa Rica. The ash released by the volcano covered a number of cities including San Jose and disrupted agriculture in the area. However, now coffee farms and other types cover much of the slopes of the volcano. The clouds would clear at times and would give a quick view of the craters. There was another trail about a kilometer that led to the summit of the volcano. Fortunately there was a big break in the clouds when I was on the summit and I got a fairly clear view of the entire volcano. Apparently, when it is completely clear, this is another place where both the Atlantic and the Pacific can be seen at the same time but I needed to arrive earlier in the morning. There was a restaurant back at the parking lot and by this time I was ready for a nice cup of hot chocolate.

Upon returning to San Jose I had a little bit of time before my bus left so I decided to take a trip to the nearby city of Alajuela. This city is the home of La Liga which is one of the two most popular soccer teams in the country( The other is Saprissa in San Jose). It also the home of Juan Santamaria, who was a hero in Costa Rica independence. There is a statue of him, a holiday for him and the airport is named after him.

The bus back to Bagaces was very relaxing. There was hardly anybody on it and, because it went directly to Bagaces, I could lie down on the back seats and go to sleep. In Bagaces it has started raining a bit more and they are completely reconstructing the road past my house getting rid of all the potholes.

This week was again spent in Bagaces. On Friday we had two back-to-back games of soccer against two different teams. We won the first game, but lost the second game, partly because we were tired.

On Sunday I went to the nearby waterfalls. They are only about 3km out of Bagaces and they are very stunning ( they have a colour photo of them in my guide book) but I had never been to them before. It is quite a popular swimming spot and I was told that it is good camping there and the falls look especially nice in the moonlight. I went for a swim and had fun, but I have a feeling that the little bit of water I got in my ear led directly to my current cold.

This rainy season has been lacking in rain, and October is no exception. I was told that October would be almost constant rain, but there hasn't been that much. The roads were even dusty early last week. The roads have held up ok with less rain, but this week they are re-grading the road to get all the potholes out. I heard that they are planning to build a paved bicycle path all the way down to the Palo Verde National Park at the end of the road, but I'll believe that when I see it.

I returned to Nicaragua this weekend. This time I travelled to the city of Masaya which is another old Spanish city like Granada. There was some problems with catching the bus in Liberia and I ended up waiting for about 2 hours at the bus station. Luckily the border crossing took no time at all and there was a bus at the border headed to Masaya that was just leaving.

I arrived at Masaya at around 4 pm on Saturday and they were in the last days of a week long festival. There were lots of beer tents set up on the street and this resulted in an unusually large number of drunk people on the street. The funniest was one outdoor table where there were three people sitting and each one of them was out cold in a different sprawl. And this was at 4 in the afternoon. I got a hotel with a TV for about 5 bucks and then went to explore the town at night. I had really good pizza at one restaurant, it seems that I always eat pizza when I go to Nicaragua. There were a couple of local bars I went in and I won 1 Nicaraguan Cordoba(about 5 cents) at a casino. At about 10 pm the lights suddenly went out. The casino had a generator but it took a couple of seconds to get it going, so there were a bunch of security rushing to the card tables in the dark. Apparently the government often turns out the lights at night to save electricity, but I don't think this one was planned or the casino would have been better prepared. The power was out for the entire city so the fan and TV in my room were sort of useless, but it was back on in the morning.

Masaya is well known for its markets and it has two big markets. The first is known as the old market and is surrounds by large stone wall which makes it look like a castle. The market itself was quite different than the crowded market in Granada. It was more like an outdoor mall than anything. It is geared to tourists who come in from Granada, but there were none there in the morning. Each shop was full of beautiful woodcarvings, leatherwork, artwork and different types of pottery. There are a number of small towns nearby and each specializes in one type of artistry. For example, one town specializes in furniture, another in pottery and another in flowers. And all this is sold in Masaya's market.

The other market, known as the new market, is the functional market in town. It was huge and crowded and was full of shops selling every type of thing. I ate some 'boha' in one of the restaurant stalls which was meat, coleslaw and yucca root served on banana leaves. After leaving the market I toured the city. There were three or four beautiful churches and an attractive central plaza. The city is also famous for its hammocks and there were a number of hammock making factories that were selling their wares out front. There was also a lookout over the small lake Masaya as well as the active volcano Masaya. The volcano is quite small but it is one of the most actively venting volcano in Central America.

At the hotel there was a Costa Rican guy who had lived in Virginia for the last 30 years. He owned a house in Costa Rica and also one in Masaya. He said that the real estate market in Costa Rica is getting as expensive as the States especially near the beaches. He bought a car in Nicaragua because he said that the cars were usually a couple of thousand dollars cheaper than in Costa Rica and he drove the car between his houses while he was visiting Central America. I also asked the hotel owner about the upcoming elections and he said he wasn't going to vote. He said the current party is corrupt and should be kicked out, but the alternative is the Sandanista Party, which he believed would cause an economic disaster as all the foreign businesses would pull out. He did have a preferred party but since they had no chance of winning this time he was not going to vote. He hoped that the party would be stronger in the next election.

Masaya was a very pretty city and I was told it is quite safe, especially compared to some of the larger cities in Costa Rica. Surprisingly there are very few tourists. Granada was full of tourists, and since Masaya is so close to Granada I thought there would be more, but I only saw three or four the whole time I was there. The trip back was uneventful, but the bus did pass through some of the different artisan villages which would have been interesting to visit if I had more time.