Submitted by Janelle Skaden on the 2017 winter session program in Costa Rica sponsored by the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures…
Visiting the Irazú Volcano is not an experience that I am soon going to forget, even though the day was cloudy and we were not able to see much, it was still amazing. The entire day is one of my favorite days here so far. The day was spent in the Cartago Province. We drove up to the Irazú Volcano in the morning and had a chance to walk to see the two craters. It was very very cloudy while we were there, but the clouds moved enough that we could see both craters for a brief moment. It was very impressive to see! After seeing the craters, we had a chance to walk around the large area that our tour guide told us was actually a crater formed from old eruptions. Once we returned to the area with the bus, Mario took a few of us to walk to the very “tippy top” of the volcano. It was definitely not an easy walk, but was worth it in the end. The clouds covered being able to see down onto the area we had been walking around in the entire time we were at the top except for about 30 seconds, and it was an absolutely amazing view!
The Irazú Volcano is important to Costa Rica because it is the highest volcano in Costa Rica, it is still active and has major eruptions every 40 to 60 years making it something that Ticos (Costa Ricans) have to be aware of and cautious of. I was surprised by the sheer size of the volcano and even more surprised by the fact that we were technically walking around on a crater of the volcano that was formed years ago. It is an experience I am not going to forget and makes me even more excited to visit the Poas volcano later in the program.
