Costa Rica: San Jose to Arenal

San Jose is the capital of Costa Rica and lies in a valley in the center of the country. It took us about an hour to go through immigration and meet our driver. He drove us up the mountain of the Poas Volcano. That area featured numerous coffee farms including a coffee farm owned by Starbucks. We also passed La Paz Waterfalls and Gardens, a popular tourist attraction. We drove back down the other side of the mountain into another valley. The drive to La Fortuna, the small town located near the Arenal Volcano took about four hours. 

Because Costa Rica is closer to the equator, its hours of daylight don’t fluctuate as much as most of the United States. For example during our trip in June sunrise was a little after 5 a.m., and the sun set by 6 p.m. There is a two-hour time difference from eastern daylight time, so when we arrived around 6 o’clock in Costa Rica it felt like 8 p.m. our time.