We packed all of our gear onto the bus and left the city, heading up to the summit of Irazú Volcano. Irazú’s summit has a Páramo Forest near the top above the denser cloud forest. The summit elevation is 3400 m (or 11,150’).  The 1963-65 crater has a green-yellow acid lake and walls covered with condensate minerals. The older (1860’s) crater was mostly filled by the 1963-65 eruption.  Playa Linda is a bench, which is probably the floor of an older, larger crater through which the other two erupted.  After an empanada at the snack bar, we headed down the mountain. 
 

The eerie green acidic lake in the crater of Volcán Irazú is larger than it looks in this photo. For scale, several people are standing along the fence  line in the lower right of the photo. It's likely that they are gasping in the thin, slightly sulfurous air. The flat area in the lower right is an older  crater floor.

We drove back down the mountain to the Pan American highway and headed counter clockwise around the base of Irazú to the town of Turrialba. From there we headed up the pass between Irazú and Turrialba volcanoes.  Although the road is paved, it is steep and windy.  Keilor is an excellent driver.  The last 4-5 km to the Hotel Volcán Turrialba are a good dirt road.
 
 

Almost every seat on the bus was taken. In spite of our close  proximity to each other, everyone got along extremely well.

The hotel is beautiful, sitting facing Turrialba, just below the cloud forest limit.  We had a delicious lunch of meat, veggies, lentils, rice and salad.  I drank the water, ate cheese and fresh vegetables.  So far – no problems.  This is a far cry from my days in Guatemala where I would get sick just looking at pictures of water! After lunch, the students played soccer while  I watched.  A few were enthralled by the local canines who seemed to understand the affection in English as well as Spanish. The students decided to go for a walk with Dani.  I took a nap.

The walls in the hotel are paper thin. I awoke a couple hours later when I heard my name mentioned downstairs.  Margaret and the 3 students had arrived.  I arranged a late lunch for them and they gobbled it down. 

Darkness fell a little after 6:00 and our walkers still had not returned.  The first ones showed at 6:25 and all were back by 6:35.  Most retired to the bar to down a beer or two before dinner.  Dinner was spaghetti, which followed a squash soup.  Everyone was pretty beat so by 9:00 almost all had turned in.