Amphitheater de Villa/Anfiteatro de Villa

Last week, we went to Amphitheater de Villa in Ciudad Colón. This is a fun and interesting place to visit - about a 45 minute drive from where we live - Hacienda el Paseo, Puente de Piedra, Grecia.

It’s an old stone quarry with a natural amphitheater and underground tunnels showcasing replicas of famous sculptures. You can read all about it here, here and here.

It is open at noon on Wednesday through Sunday and the last tour is at 8:00pm. Cost for entry into the tunnels is 5,500 colones for adults. If you just want to walk around outside, there is no charge. Large parking area. There is also a restaurant but we didn’t try it so can’t comment. The views are stunning. Our guide was bilingual and very knowledgeable.

It was cool and humid in the catacombs. A strange feeling knowing you are walking underneath lava that formed eons ago. We didn’t complete the entire tour because we had an appointment elsewhere so left about halfway through. I didn’t do enough research beforehand and thought we could just wander around at will. It would be very easy to get lost in all the tunnels, hence the guide.

The natural amphitheater:

You can see how deep the rock is:

Sorry, blurry. This is the chapel, which can be used for different functions, including weddings:



You can see erosion here on the chest, which is caused by the constantly dripping ceilings:





That circle on the floor near the volcano mural is a vertical tunnel that goes down, down, down .... it is lighted so you can see how deep it is. I couldn’t look at it for very long - vertigo:

Our Backyard at Sunset

I took these photos yesterday at 5:55 pm. The sun sets so fast here it’s like a ball dropping into the ocean. These photos were taken in our backyard.

Vegetation between our property and the lot next door:

Our coconut tree and my hammock:

San Luis de Grecia

Today we decided to explore another of the five ridges running up to Poas volcano. This was San Luis de Grecia, which apparently is the highest ridge of the five.

San Luis is about 13 kms from our house on the usual twisty and climbing, but paved, road - until it ended at a rough looking dirt road. We turned around here and proceeded back down.

At an elevation of 4,800 ft to 5,000 ft (1,463 m/1524 m), the air is quite cool. The views are stunning, with coffee fincas everywhere. The volcanic ash enriched soils are perfect for growing coffee and other crops. When you look down into the valleys, everything is laid out in perfect order - hedgerows, fields, coffee. 

Here are a few photos.

Clouds hang over some areas:


I don’t do selfies but Lance took this photo of me:

Eyes on Costa Rica and Weather Records - December 2018

During December, visits to this blog were received from the following 15 countries:

Next is a summary of the weather for the month:

As can be seen, the dry season is now fully upon us. Although there was at least some rain in some parts of the country, there was absolutely no measurable rain where we live.

The 58°F overnight low temperature was the coldest overnight low that we have experienced in the seven plus years we have lived in Costa Rica. There were actually 4 days in December where the temperature dropped below 60°F. In Vista Atenas where we previously lived for most of our time in Costa Rica, the lowest was 59°F and that was on a single occasion in one year only. But, that is probably because the location in Vista Atenas was at a slightly lower elevation and a bit closer to the Pacific Coast than our current location.