Irazú Volcano

The Irazú Volcano is located in the Cartago province of Costa Rica, close to the city of Cartago and is a part of the Cordillera Central. During this excursion I was able to walk through the Diego de la Haya crater. As you may of guessed the crater was covered with volcanic rocks and ash but you may not know the crater contains a sulfur lake that is green in color.  Atmospheric changes at Irazú can change the shade of green of the sulfur lake. Besides spending time in the crater, I hiked to the top of Irazú. At the top of the volcano it was very cloudy, however this did not take away from the beautiful view. The most surprising thing about this excursion was the flora and fauna as well as the insect life. The flora and fauna did not have much variation but the plants at the top of the volcano had larger leaves and were close to the ground, mostly brush. As for the insects, I genuinely did not expect that they could survive at the top of an active volcano. Also, the effect of elevation on the human body surprised me. Generally I do not spend much time in high elevations so climbing to the top of an 11000 ft. volcano was a real work out. Overall, climbing to the top of Irazú definitely got my endorphins going, the experience was very thrilling and afterwards I felt very accomplished. The Irazú excursion illustrated how Costa Ricans adapt to living with the land. On the bus ride to Irazú I saw a large population of people living on the volcano. The volcanic ash makes the surrounding soil very fertile and therefore it is valuable to the agriculture of Costa Rica and means lots people live there to use the soil. Considering Irazú is an active volcano the possibility of it erupting is real. The fact that these Costa Ricans live there despite this is truly different. I understand Americans do this, a prime example being people living on the beach having to deal with hurricanes and so forth, but seeing it on a volcano really put it into perspective for me. I believe the fact that this excursion demonstrates people living with the land, and showing the value of the land is the reason why the Irazú Volcano was an excursion on this study abroad.