ALAJUELA AND THE VOLCANO POAS 353 



were glad to put on all our extra coats. Beyond this point 

 the road grew narrower and in places it occupied the bottom 

 of a deep straight-sided gully which grows deeper with each 

 rain. In the course of time such a road is so completely 

 washed out that it becomes impassable and the carts then 

 hunt a new path and wear a road there. The upper part of 

 this road ran through woods and picturesque it was in the 

 moonlight. It was remarkable to see such tropical plants 

 as palms and plantains apparently powdered with snow, 

 for in the moonlight the resemblance of the ash to a light 

 fall of snow was most striking. Among the mountains 

 it was quite clear and even in the valleys there was not 

 enough mist to obscure the view. Here and there were the 

 lights of the towns — San Jose, the brightest, to the east, 

 and Heredia, Alajuela and Grecia. 



After traversing the woods we came out upon a large 

 cleared potrero where there were a few houses and near the 

 upper edge a lecheria — otherwise an unattractive cabin in 

 bad repair, where lived the family that took care of a herd 

 of cows. It was not a station from which milk was sent off 

 daily like the lecheria on Irazvi, which supplied most of the 

 milk for Cartago. The path through this big clearing was 

 in places quite washed away and new trails had been worn, 

 which were by no means easy to see and follow in the moon- 

 light, bright as it was. We reached the lecheria (21 14 m.) 

 at sunrise of Thursday, January twenty-eighth, and stopped 

 there for half an hour or so, to rest the horses and have some 

 hot coffee which was made for us by the people of the house. 



From the lecheria we rode on up through the big potrero 

 until we came to thick forest — the potrero being enclosed 

 in wire fencing. In the forest the real difficulties began; 

 the trail was steep, winding in and out among the trees, deep 

 in mud and crossed in every direction by roots and fallen 

 trunks. The horses had to step between the roots, their 



