Hola todos...I am officially back home now!  I took pictures with the kids and got some really cute ones :)  I'll miss them, they were great.  Friday night, my last night, a group of us went out...we got to meet up with the guys we met in Tamarindo too, so that was really fun.  I'll miss all the friends I met during my time there lots...it's too bad everyone lives so far away!  Saturday I packed up and waited to go to the airport.  My first flight left 30-40 minutes late, so I had less than an hour to get through immigration and customs, re-check my bag, and get through security again!  I got to my second flight with about 20 minutes to spare.  My luggage didn't make the trip though...but it arrived today so not too bad!  Good to see everyone again.

Also I'm already experiencing a bit of reverse culture shock...when I go to the bathroom I still feel like I'm doing something wrong when I throw the toilet paper in the toilet haha...and it's great to eat some different kinds of food too! 

All in all, a successful experience I'd say...adios Costa Rica, y pura vida!

Hola todos!  Yesterday with the kiddos we made little paper dolls where they could decorate them with clothes, eyes, hair, etc. and they turned out really good.  After that we played with balloons again (back by popular demand) and also had some small board games to play with them like tic tac toe and chutes and ladders, but miniature.  I felt bad when we left cause one of the little kids didn't want us to leave and he was crying as he was waving good-bye.  Poor little guy!  On the bus on the way back we saw a ton of people coming out of a church, and then figured out it was a funeral procession when we saw the hearse, and lots of people walking along behind it through the streets.  Que triste.  :( 

Today the daycare was closed because they had an annual conference to attend in San Jose.  So I slept in a little bit, went to the gym, and did most of my shopping for all of you guys!  I think you will like all your presents...!  I gave some food and money to a few homeless people too, because I would always pass them every day on my way to work and I feel like I know them now...a small difference, but still something.

I'm going to miss speaking Spanish haha...I just don't want to lose what I've gained here!
Tomorrow will be the last day with the kids and I'm going to try to take pictures with them too.  Going home is bittersweet!
Hasta el sabado...Mama y Brian, les vere en el aeropuerto!

Hola todos!  I’m officially done teaching at Carmelo now that the school is on vacation during my last week here.  The goodbye was uneventful, but I got my teacher’s e-mail so we can all keep in touch.  The kids were really sweet and said, “we’ll miss you!”  but I’m sure now they’re enjoying their break too. 

Friday we headed out to Tamarindo, it’s a beach on the far side of the northern peninsula—so pretty far, the bus took about 6 hours.  When we arrived, we started walking around to find a hostel and ran into some Maximo people that had come a day before us, and so we stayed the same place as them and it was really nice.  We had our own Maximo group, plus a girl the other Maximo people had met and introduced to us, plus 3 people from our bus that decided to stay with us too, so we had a nice little group to hang out with.  Tamarindo is kind of like Jaco in that it’s a little more developed and has more of a nightlife, like a little more touristy than other places.  Friday night we all went out…it’s really nice cause there’s always a bar that has some kind of deal for the girls (aka free drinks) so it works out really well when we don’t have to spend lots of money!  Afterwards on the way home we ran out on the beach but sadly no one wanted to go swimming…hehe.

Saturday we headed out to the beach.  It was SO pretty…the beach was really big and wide and not very crowded, and the water was shallow really far out and soft sand and everything.  And, the water was the calmest I’ve experienced yet in an ocean—smaller waves and not very strong.  It was so nice cause it was super hot so the water was great.  After a while a few of us joined a game of frisbee on the beach…I was in heaven.  I think at that moment, I might have been the happiest person on earth.  (Sidenote to Brian and anyone else who’s interested: I wanna play frisbee when I get back…ahh I miss it!)  Sadly we had to leave the game to go eat lunch (silly food gettin in the way of my activities).  After food we looked around the shops on the way home and headed back to the hostel.  At night we went out again to a different place and danced and got into all kinds of shenanigans…haha. 

On the way back to the hostel we passed by a really nice hotel (definitely far out of our price range), which we noticed had a lovely pool with fountains and everything…it looked rather inviting, so we strolled in and helped ourselves…hehe.  It felt awesome, and no one questioned us—probably the only time looking like rich Americans worked in our favor.  All was lovely until we noticed everyone else was wearing wristbands, then I felt really self conscious haha.  But I didn’t feel that bad, cause it was a little bit of luxury for us after all the rest of our time here being…well, less than luxury.  So for one afternoon I experienced the rich people tourist side of Costa Rica!  It was really pretty and we had a great time.

Sunday we headed back out to the beach aaand…SURFED!  Ahh it was SO much fun.  It was better to learn here because the water was so much calmer.  I’m so glad we did it.  It was a lot easier than I thought it’d be, I think because of all the previous water sport experience (thanks Ozarks!).  Everyone told me I looked like I could be in the movie Blue Crush haha so I guess I looked like I knew what I was doing, even though I ate it a few times pretty good too.  However, the sun was very intense and the surfing kinda did me in…I got a lil crispy.  I’m not red though, but it did hurt for a bit!  I can’t even remember the last time I got burnt enough for it to hurt…oops.  Anyways I felt super cool bein a surfer for a little bit and now I’m sad we don’t have surfing anywhere remotely close to home.  The surfing instructors kind of have a reputation of being creepy but our instructor was awesome and really nice so I had so much fun and didn’t want to leave...probably would’ve stayed out there all day if I could!  (Although my skin is probably glad that didn’t happen).  Sadly we only had about an hour and a half cause we had to catch our bus home.  But it was a great workout and I slept a lot on the bus!  So all in all, a fantastic last weekend trip to end my time here.

When we got back home, we had 4 new roommates.  One girl who’s been here a couple weeks and was moving houses, and 3 older people—a teacher, and a couple from Canada.  I feel smart again because they don’t know much Spanish so I do some translating sometimes too.  I feel really lucky that I’ve had awesome roommates during my time here (and by roommates I mean people who are actually in my room, not just my house).  They’ve all been close in age to me and are good friends now.  And I’ve been lucky to have an amazing host family too!  Good food, good people, good experience.

Happy (belated) 4^th of July to everyone back home!  Save me some fireworks!  I wore red, white and blue during the day to be patriotic and last night a big group of people went out to the bars here to celebrate.  There were actually quite a few people out for a Monday night so it was really fun.  We danced the night away and one of the bars had the movie Independence Day playing…we may have even done a U-S-A chant at some point…(but a little bit discreetly so everyone didn’t hate us).  You meet some interesting characters going out…like the man who, after telling me he was 30 years old, asked for my phone number (no), my e-mail (no), and was so drunk he kept repeating himself over and over until I finally just walked away after trying to escape like 10 times.  It’s funny too cause when you’re out a lot of times guys will say, “hello,” as if that one English word is going to draw you to them or something haha.  Sometimes I wish people (people meaning natives) would just speak in Spanish because I can understand them better than trying to figure out their English accents!

My new volunteer placement is a daycare called Rayito de Luz.  It’s about an hour away, except we have to take more buses and they’re more expensive haha so I’m glad I’m only going for a few days!  The kids are really cute and sweet, but also very active and I’m always exhausted when we leave.  I’m definitely happy I wasn’t doing this the whole time—it’s not too structured so we just play with them, but it’s not too bad cause there’s a big group of volunteers there and not too  many kids.  Most of the kids are like 3-6 years old, with a few older and younger than that.  It’s sad though because when the person from Maximo was showing us around on our first day he said that it’s a poor neighborhood, and most of the kids live with a single mom and lots of siblings, and not the greatest home situations…abuse of all types is common.  I don’t know the kids’ individual stories but they seem just like happy, normal kids.  They’re pretty funny though—one of the girls was teaching me a new word and I guess I wasn’t saying it right because the other girl sitting next to us calmly explained to her, “it’s because she’s from another country so she can’t say it like us” hahaha so they are used to all the volunteers messing up their language and lucky for us, they still talk to us all the time!  So it’s fun—they love it when we spin them around, and I already got a drawing from the first day from one of the kids.  The daycare itself could use some help though…they have a lot of random (probably donated) toys, and the outside area has some play equipment but it’s a little sad looking…most of it is probably too small for the kids, and the swingset simply doesn’t have swings on it.  But today we played with balloons, and sure enough, that entertained them for hours!  So they are really cute and while they wear me out, it’s a little sad I won’t have much time to get to know them and all.

My time is now winding down here…while I am ready to have some comforts of home, I will miss some things about both places!  Besides the people and the places, I think I will really miss speaking Spanish.  It’s so convenient that I am surrounded by people here who understand when I speak but at home it’s just not the same!  While there are places to speak Spanish, I won’t have this good of an environment for it (like where people know that I’m learning and are patient, I get personal instruction, etc.)…I just don’t want to lose what I’ve gained during my time here.  Hasta el sabado…chao!

Some of my 4th graders at Carmelo

The hotel / pool we crashed

Yet another postcard moment...

Basically, I'm a pro.

Hola todos!  I had an AMAZING weekend at Tortuguero.  Saturday morning, before we left, we lost power at home because there was a storm and a tree fell on the transformer or something.  So I was glad I was leaving because that meant no hot water or anything!  We took a bus to Cariari, then switched buses to get to the port where we could take a boat to Tortuguero.  We quickly discovered that our second bus had AIR CONDITIONING, and it suddenly became the most magical, luxurious bus I’ve ever been on (but really, there is no air conditioning most places because everything is open air).  The boat we took was about the size and shape of a school bus, a little boat (very different from the giant ferry we took to Montezuma).  We wound through this river in the jungle…well, everything here looks like jungle…then arrived in Tortuguero, a small little town on the Caribbean coast.  We stayed at a hotel and had our own room (more luxury!) and our own bathroom and shower (by now we felt like royalty) and it was just really nice and cute and the people that owned it were really nice too.  Saturday we mostly just chilled in the hammocks and read our books, walked on the beach (black sand!) and just relaxed.  We tried to save some money by cooking food ourselves in the communal kitchen…it was good but we had to improvise a little bit because it wasn’t fully equipped with everything you might need…how do you strain your spaghetti when you don’t have hot pads or a strainer?  Answer: a towel to hold the pot and a plate to strain the water.  Oh yeah and I don’t trust the fruit from these tiny little grocery stores anymore…I ate an apple and when I got to the center it was rotten and black inside…yummy.  And it’s not the first time it’s happened, either—we bought moldy granola bars in Montezuma…I really think they just don’t have enough business to keep the food moving along, so it just sits there forever until someone buys it.  That’s my theory anyways.

Sunday was a long but adventure-filled day.  We got up early to go on a canoe tour on the river.  It rained all day so it wasn’t ideal beach time.  It was a light rain but after about 3 hours we were very wet/hungry/tired when we got back, but it was pretty cool.  We saw lizards, iguanas, some exotic birds that I don’t know the names of, toucans, and 2 types of monkeys.  It was cool too because we got to weave back into the little rivers that ran through the jungle so it felt like we were pioneers or explorers or something.  During the day we just napped and read in the hammocks again—rough life, I know.  (Sidenote to dad: we must get a hammock, they are the best things ever.  Hang it between the 2 poles of the thing where the hot tub used to be, or the front of the nest). 

Now, Sunday night: this is the part that ranks up in my favorite things.  We went on a turtle tour, because if you visit Tortuguero, you better see some turtles!  The tours are at night because that’s when they come out to build their nests.  Lucky for us, we are in turtle season now.  So our group walked along the beach at night, and it was pitch dark out but SO pretty because of the sky—there were more stars than I’ve ever seen in my life…I couldn’t stop looking up but then I’d trip over something on the beach so it was kinda hard to look and walk at the same time haha.  So anyways it was super dark, except you can see the white of the water and the dark shapes of people around you.  The guides find the turtles and we go watch them build their nests.  We got to see 2 different turtles, both Green turtles and they were HUGE.  Between the two of them, we saw them laying eggs, covering up the hole, camouflaging the nest, and returning to the ocean.  

It’s really cool too because they take steps to make sure we’re disturbing the turtle as little as possible.  We have to be quiet on the beach, you can’t take pictures, and the guides use a red light so show them to us because the red light doesn’t disturb them.  Also, there were people from an organization that works in turtle conservation, and they were measuring and tagging the turtles so they could keep track of them (they are endangered).  It’s sad because we learned that only 1 or 2 turtles of every 1,000 eggs laid will actually survive.  They have lots of predators that eat them or people who collect the eggs to sell them as food.  So they are in danger in the nest (they are in there 2 months before they’re born), on the trip towards the ocean once they’re born, and once they’re in the ocean they have bigger fish waiting for them.  So the moms lay a LOT of eggs because of the low survival rate...I think the guide said almost 200 in one nest.

So they dig a very deep hole in the sand, then drop their eggs in, then cover the hole, then use their flippers to fling the sand around to camouflage the nest.  Then they (slowly) make their way back to the ocean and disappear.  It looked like a lot of work.  It takes about 2 hours to complete the whole process.  Anyways, it was one of the coolest things I’ve seen and I’m so glad we went…definitely one of the highlights of the trip, ranking up there with the waterfall!

Sunday we had a beautiful sunny day, so we had a couple hours of beach time before we headed back.  The ocean there was so strange, the water flowed in every direction…like there were waves going sideways and every direction all the time, like it looked like a boat had just come through and made a bunch of waves, except it was like that all the time.  It was really fun though.  Oh yeah I forgot to say on Saturday when we arrived and were walking on the beach, there were some kids playing and they ran up to us and gave us some shells (interesting because most of the beaches really don’t have shells), and then a little later we were just sitting on the beach and they ran up with a bunch of flowers and put them in our hair and stuff.  They were really cute!

And to top off a perfect weekend, on the boat ride home we saw a crocodile!  I was so excited cause I was hoping to see one but hadn’t yet, then I got to see one right as we were leaving.  It was just laying on the bank, didn’t appear to be too interested in our boat…good thing, because we were really low in the water and he would’ve had no problem hopping in!

So all in all, we had an awesome weekend!  I only have a few days left of teaching at my school, then the kids go on vacation so I imagine I’ll be doing something else for a few days before I head home.  I’ll miss them, they’re pretty cute!  I’m gonna try and take pictures with them tomorrow.  Nos vemos todos pronto!   

The river boats to Tortuguero

Navigating the river in a canoe--front row seat!

My artistic beach footprint shot

Part of my beach photoshoot...sometimes I am easily entertained

The CROC

Hola todos!  Just a quick update before I leave for the weekend...

Teaching at school is still good, although sometimes frustrating.  Now that my time here is nearing an end, I'm starting to get sad when I think about the things and people that I'll miss when I leave!  So I'll try to soak everything in while I can with the time I have left.

Wednesday at school was really fun because they had a soccer tournament.  We all walked over to a gym a couple blocks away, and they played several games, like 1st grade vs. 2nd grade, 3rd grade vs. 4th grade, etc.  It was fun to watch because I knew the kids playing and it was cute seeing how excited they were.

Thursday they had a concert at the school.  There were 2 guys playing trumpets and I think some students played music too but I didn't get to see all of it cause I had to leave.  But I heard the students practicing before the concert and they played "Wake Me Up When September Ends" by Green Day...it was actually pretty good haha but they played it for the longest time...it was like an hour long song, but not too bad!

We're leaving tomorrow (Saturday) for Tortuguero, and will probably stay til Monday.  Hopefully we'll see some turtles!  I'll let you all know how it goes next week...

See you all in exactly 2 weeks from tomorrow!
Pura vida :)

Hola todos!  This past weekend one other girl and I went to Jaco.  It's the closest beach to San Jose.  My travel group is shrinking a lot because all my friends have gone home and the new people go to the same places we've already been.  But oh well.  Several people told me before we went that Jaco wasn't that great, that it was dirty and just not nice.  And after being there, I say: I disagree 100%!

So I went with low expectations, but instead I was pleasantly surprised.  It's a small little town with lots of shops, and apparently a tourist destination because we saw a lot of (white) families and kids and stuff.  The hostel we stayed in wasn't that great, but it was right down the street from the beach.  When we went Friday it was in the afternoon so the waves were really big and it was kinda cloudy.  Oh yeah -- there was this guy who worked on the beach selling surf lessons, and after I told him I didn't want to surf like 10 times, he proceeded to follow us to where we were sitting, talk to us for awhile, then when we had nothing left to say (aka I was ignoring him) he continued to just sit right next to us, for about 5 full minutes...not talking...just sitting...it was suuuper awkward and I just wanted to be like, "ok, you can go now..." So he finally left, but found us again the next day and I pretended to be asleep so I didn't have to talk to him.  So creepy and annoying.

Besides that, the beach was great.  It had soft sand even in the water, and the water wasn't as strong as other places so we could actually swim without being knocked over, so that was lots of fun.  We went in the morning on Saturday so it was quieter and calmer.  We had great weather Saturday morning (it usually rains in the afternoons) so we got lots of sun.  Friday we went to town and shopped...I found a tank top that I'd been looking for so I was happy, and then we got ice cream and contemplated goin out but we're pretty much senior citizens when it comes to bedtimes now, cause we're tired at like 8:30!  Probably because we're all used to the sleep schedule now, go to bed early and get up early!  So anyways, we were boring and just went to bed.

Saturday we headed back because Maximo was having their monthly international party.  It was really fun and I made lots of tico friends because most of them were the English students at Maximo, and their teachers.  After the Maximo party ended we all went out to the bars and it was super fun.  And, as it turns out, when you add alcohol, everyone's second language abilities improve haha!  So it was a crazy night and pretty entertaining. 

Sunday was really boring because I stayed home and all my roommates were gone because they were still on their weekend trips.  So I slept in, and was going to go to the pool in the afternoon (apparently there's a pool here, I haven't found it yet) but it started raining so that plan failed.  Anyways it was lonely!  I had been planning to stay home my last weekend to explore downtown and do my shopping, but after stayin home one day I don't want to do that anymore, and besides I'll have time to do all that before I go in like one day.

I have my last week here free because my school goes on break, so there's no classes.  I wanted to travel a little further but don't know if that's gonna happen cause it's hard to find someone to go with because they all still have their volunteer stuff during the week.  So I think I'll end up traveling part of the week with someone, then coming back and maybe I'll see about doing a different placement just for a couple days.  I just know I'll need something to do cause sitting at home is super boring!

Soooo that's all I can think of for now...everything else is going well!  I miss home!  But I know the time will go by fast and then I'll be at home for 2 days and be bored again haha.  Ciao :)

Hola todos!  I have officially passed the halfway mark of my time here.  One day last week while I was walking home from volunteering, we heard drums playing…at first I just thought it was street performers playing drums, but as we got closer and I saw all the people, it was actually a parade!  It was the anniversary of a school and they had a band (hence the drums), people on stilts, banners, and on down the road they had set up tents with information inside.  I don’t know what was in them because the other volunteers I work with are boring so we just kept walking instead of exploring.  Oh well.

We decided to go to Montezuma this past weekend.  There were only 3 of us, and we were kinda wingin it, cause we didn’t really plan anything except that we wanted to go and what time to meet up to leave.  It was fun not knowing what I was doing, but it was a looong trip there.  We left early Friday morning and took a taxi to the bus station, then started the trip on a good note when we found out we were at the wrong bus station.  So then we took another taxi to the right bus station, waited an hour for it to leave, then rode it to Puntarenas on the coast.  Then we had to take another taxi to get to where you buy tickets for the ferry.  Then we waited 2 hours for the ferry to leave, then took the ferry for a little over an hour.  Once we arrived in Paquera (that’s where the ferry landed) we took another 2 buses to finally arrive in Montezuma.  So.  It took us pretty much all day to get there.  But the journey was an adventure!  We had a basic outline of how we needed to get there, but we were pretty much just like asking people along the way where to go haha. 

I made a friend on the ferry.  There was this little girl (she was 2) from the family who was sitting next to us, and she eventually wandered over to where we were sitting and kinda leaned on my leg, then proceeded to stare at me for a good 10 minutes.  Like never looking away, just staring.  She was really cute and it was pretty funny watching her…so I felt pretty popular for about the last 15 minutes of the ride.  When the ferry docked in Paquera I felt like we were being dropped off for an episode of Survivor…there was nothing there except a small port to dock the boat.  It was all jungle, mountain, and nothingness. 

Montezuma was definitely a different type of place than we’d been before.  It was a really quiet small town, kinda quaint.  It’s not tourist-y like some of the other places.  We kept joking that we were roughing it cause it was all like dirt roads and stuff.  We walked down the road till we found our hotel, Hotel Lucy…supposedly it was the first hotel that was in the town.  It was cute, pretty similar to the hostels we’ve been staying in.  Except it didn’t have hot water or mirrors…terrifying, I know!  Nah really it was fine because it was SUPER hot the whole time so I would just keep jumping in the cold shower to cool off.  Our hotel was right on the beach too so I liked that we could always hear the ocean and stuff. 

The first night we ate at a restaurant that showed a free movie with dinner, so that was cool.  It was on a projector screen and we watched “The King’s Speech.”  Saturday we went to the beach for a few hours.  The water was VERY strong though, probably the strongest I’ve experienced so far, but here there were huge waves and they didn’t break until right at the edge of the shore…so swimming wasn’t much of an option, unless you could make it past the waves…I passed.  I was just walking along the shore and the water would wash up and almost knock me over!  We’d only been laying out on the beach a short while when I suddenly heard water rushing closer and closer…I jumped up in time to grab my purse—the important things!—to save everything in it that couldn’t get wet, like my camera and money and stuff.  But everything else got soaked.  So I guess I kind of underestimated how far the water would come up!  But the good news is, it was so hot that my towel dried really fast. 

Later that afternoon Becca and I decided to take a walk down the street to see what we could find.  We passed a small sign on the side of the road that said “Montezuma Waterfall Trail” and below it, a lovely warning that said many people had died there because it was dangerous and blah blah blah, so then we really wanted to check it out haha.  So we follow the trail and it comes out on a river, with lots of rocks and kind of like mini waterfalls.  So we followed it up for about 20 minutes, climbing over the rocks and trees and everything, kind of making our own path, until we found the big mama waterfall at the end!  It was really pretty and I was happy we found it on our own, without having to pay to get in like the last waterfall we went to!  So that was really fun and took up some time since we didn’t really have any activities planned.

Later that night after dinner we went back to the same restaurant we’d been at the night before to get milkshakes, and we had the same waiter that we’d had the night before, and when I ordered my shake he said, “ok, but only because you have pretty eyes!” haha he was really nice though.  Oh and I forgot to say when we ate breakfast on Saturday there were these birds that would swoop down and steal the bread from the empty tables, and one of them landed right behind me so I was keepin an eye on it so he didn't try to attack my food!  And there was a big iguana that climbed a tree right behind us...so we really felt like we were living in the jungle.

Sunday morning we got up early to head home…the trip home wasn’t as long or as haphazard as the trip there though.  We had to wait about an hour for the ferry to leave, and the bus back to San Jose was perfect timing because it left as soon as we got on.  Before the ferry left they loaded on a bunch of cars, including a full sized bus, a huge truck of bananas, and a truck with a bunch of cows in the trailer!  So it was a pretty sizable boat.  But I think there were cockroaches on it. Ew.  Anyways we got back to San Jose in the early afternoon so it wasn’t too bad.  Montezuma really isn’t that far away, but it was just all the transportation and waiting in between that took so long!

I’m not sure yet what we’ll be doing this weekend.  We have two new girls living with us, so now we have 6 girls upstairs and one downstairs.  The roommates change all the time so we’ll see what happens this week. 

What’s everyone doing back home?  Miss you all, and see you in less than a month now!

My classroom at Carmelo

Hotel Lucy (Montezuma)

On the way to the waterfall

Found it!

Bye bye, Montezuma



Hola todos!  Before I get to the weekend, a few things from last week: Wednesday night we went to see the Hangover 2 and it was pretty funny.  Here it’s called “que paso ayer” which is “what happened yesterday” haha.  The movies are in English but with Spanish subtitles.  And on Wednesday nights they’re super cheap!  The ticket costs the equivalent of 3-4 dollars.  On Thursday night we went to the national theater in downtown San Jose and saw a percussion show.  The theater was really pretty, it was all lit up outside and inside looked old and had paintings and sculptures everywhere.  The group performing was from Spain so it was kinda funny to listen to their accent.  They played marimbas…the show started a little slow but got better and more entertaining by the end.  So I got my culture in haha.

Yesterday at school I wore my hair down and at least 3 different kids came up and started like touching and petting my hair…haha I’m not sure if they’ve never seen it before or just never noticed before yesterday…and another girl asked me how to pronounce my name and when I told her, she said, “that is a very beautiful name” haha super sweet.  Sidenote about my name—no one can pronounce it.  Usually I’m “Yenna” or “Jana” or “Jayna.”  Oh well, I guess I’m just super foreign sounding haha.

Other sidenote: I’ve noticed the guys here are different because they generally put a lot more effort into their appearance than guys back home.  Everyone—guys and girls—loves their hair gel, and they use LOTS of it sometimes haha.  But the guys just look more put together, like their clothes and their hair and stuff just look more put together.  And they have more decorative type piercings…I’ve seen a lot of eyebrow, lip, ear, and even back of the neck piercings.    

OK, on to the weekend!  This weekend we traveled to La Fortuna, home of Arenal.  Arenal is an active volcano but hasn’t erupted in several months.  Sadly I did not see any lava.  We left on Friday, and when we got to the bus station we found out that the bus actually left half an hour before we thought it did.  We were missing one person in our group, but had no way to contact her to tell her of the change.  As the bus was pulling away, we see her and caused enough ruckus to stop the bus and let her on.  Haha it was so funny, so she really made it the last possible second! 

When we arrived, we found our hostel and it was actually really nice.  It had a nice pool and a swim up bar and everything.  I love staying in hostels because we’ve met so many people from around the world…this weekend our friends were from Australia and Switzerland.  As soon as I arrived I discovered that my camera batteries had died, sooo….video camera to the rescue!  Lucky for you guys, you now get to see my weekend in live video.  Apparently the batteries in things run down even if you’re not using them…learned my lesson. 

Saturday was a very busy day.  We got up in the morning and took a taxi to the bottom of Cerro Chato, an old volcano that’s right next to Arenal.  We hiked up it…it was brutal.  It took two hours to get to the top, and it was literally a vertical climb.  I think the whole thing was less than two miles, so you can do the math on that one.  My misery was a combination of being hot, dehydrated (yeah I only had one water bottle) and not being able to breathe because of the altitude.  So it was pretty rough but I’m still glad I did it cause I feel accomplished now.  Inside the crater at the top of the volcano was a lagoon.  So after climbing to the top, we climbed straight down into the crater to get to the water.  As we went along, it became less of a “here’s a trail for you to follow” and more of a “find your own way to climb down this tree” type of thing haha.  But once we were there in one piece it was pretty cool.  We were the first people there so I felt really isolated and it was really peaceful.  The water was green and cold and you really wouldn’t want to get hurt up there because it was so secluded you wouldn’t get help for a long time!  One of the guides that came shortly after us told us that a guy had died there of a broken leg.  Lovely.  So after a bit we start climbing back out to start the hike down.  A guy from Illinois joined us on the way back, and he’s studying biology in school so he had his guidebook and was pointing stuff out along the way.  I found a snake on the way down but we could only see its tail.  We also saw some frogs and bugs and parrots but that’s about it I think.  Oh and lots of lines of leaf-cutter ants.  We made it back down in about an hour and a half so that part was more pleasant than the way up.

Next we set out to find the waterfall.  There was no place to eat so our lunch consisted of snacks from the store at the front…some cookies and plantain chips, so healthy.  Getting to the waterfall involved more hiking, which caused me to have flashbacks of that morning and my legs to hate me a little bit more.  But once we got there it was beautiful.  It was a small waterfall but still really awesome.  We swam around it and I stood behind it.  I might even venture to say that it was my favorite part of the trip so far.

After the waterfall we headed back to the hostel and I took a nap in a hammock in the yard.  When we met up with the rest of our group we headed out to Baldi, the hot springs.  We had heard that the real hot springs has problems with people stealing your stuff, and we were exhausted, so we went to this place that has hot springs but they’re really not natural, it’s more like a water park in a hotel.  It was super nice though, I’m sure it’s really expensive to stay there.  They had a ton of different pools, some of them had pool bars and TVs, they had waterfalls and even water slides!  It was so much fun and so relaxing after a very physical day.  The pools were different temperatures but some of them were super hot, like it hurt to get in it at all.  We stayed there until they closed, and we got to eat a big buffet dinner too…it was so good, and they had a whole buffet just for dessert!  I went a little crazy and got 2 plates of dessert and almost had one of everything…but it was awesome, I’ve been chocolate deprived lately so I needed to make up for it…I mean they had a chocolate fountain, what would you do??

After our big day we all slept like babies.  Sunday morning we got up and did the canopy tour, aka ziplining!  We drove up the mountain (thank god they didn’t make us walk it, I was so sore) and clip you on to the line, and send you off, soaring over the open jungle and land.  It was quite scenic, cause you can see all the countryside below you.  It was really fun and not scary like I thought it might be.  After that, we all just hung out at the pool at the hostel until it was time to catch our bus back to San Jose. 

Through our weekend trips we’ve learned quickly that they also overbook the buses, so if you don’t get there early you might not get a seat.  This time we had great seats on the bus, then it broke down on the side of the road.  We all had to get off the bus and wait about 20 minutes for another bus to come retrieve us and take us the rest of the way home.  What an adventure haha.

For this week I’ve switched Spanish classes…I don’t really know why, I think maybe because there’s a ton of new volunteers that came in recently so they needed to switch around the schedule.  So I don’t know if the change is only for this week or if it’s permanent but I have a different teacher and I’m in the advanced class, yeehaw.  She’s very nice and I like it better because my class is 2-4 instead of 4-6 so I don’t have to wait so long in between volunteering in the morning and class in the afternoon.  Speaking of volunteering, I’ve realized that even though I am teaching English at the school, it helps my Spanish too!  It’s interesting to see how they go about teaching English, since I’ve never really thought about how to acquire the language before.  It definitely helps that I know Spanish too, because if the kids don’t know a word in English I can translate it for them, and when they have questions they ask it in Spanish so I know what they’re asking.  I’m learning new words as we teach them English too because as we translate words, sometimes I don’t know the Spanish word for the English word that they’re learning so then they’re kind of teaching me too.

Yesterday I had my first tandem conversation.  It was so much fun!  It’s these two guys that are 19 and 20 and we just talked for almost an hour.  It’s great because I get more speaking practice, and they’re really nice and funny.  They are learning English at Maximo too.  I was kinda sad I only get to do it once a week cause I wanna be friends with them now haha.

We have four girls living upstairs now, and one downstairs.  Always new people showing up!  Like I said before, there’s a huge group of volunteers that arrived recently.  I haven’t met them yet but mostly they’ll travel to places I’ve already been so I need to start getting creative on my weekend travel plans cause I don’t want to repeat somewhere I’ve already been.  Yikes I don’t wanna run out of things to do and places to see!  Cause I have to convince someone to go with me haha.  But don’t worry, I have a plan for this weekend…

Now, for your enjoyment: the video series I’ve entitled, “Arenal: to the edge and back.”  Haha enjoy! 

PS these videos were a pain to get on here so I hope they work!

My lovely travel group...that's a volcano behind us :)

Episode 1: "Life is still pretty good"

Episode 2: "I am fading..."

Episode 3: "...and fading..."

Episode 4: "I might actually die"

Episode 5: "This is cruel and unusual punishment"

Episode 6: "Success!"

Episode 7: "Chillin in the waterfall"



Episode 8: "Is my life in danger?"

This blog is a work in progress because it seems every time it rains the internet goes out so it’s annoying but I’ll post this (and pictures too) whenever I can! 

Hola todos!  I had a lovely weekend at Manuel Antonio…it is a beautiful place, I’ve never seen anything like it!  We arrived Thursday night and ate dinner at a place right next to our hostel…but we learned pretty quick if you go somewhere that’s a small local restaurant it will take hours to get your food and get out!  So we were all starving by the time we got to eat at like 9.  This hostel was nicer because it had internet, a free 10 minute phone call per day, free breakfast (make your own pancakes!) and a pool down the hill.  Shout out to mom and dad—glad I got to actually call and talk to you guys!  After dinner we went for a night swim in the pool…it was so cool cause there was lightning so we just sat back and watched the sky. 

Friday we got up and hung out at the public beach all day.  To get there we walked down the mountain—kind of a long walk but good to get some physical activity haha.  It was very hot too…the sun’s a bit stronger here!  I didn’t do too bad though, only burned my shoulders a bit on the last day.  (Sidenote--even my host mom called me "negro," aka black, when I returned haha).  They’re really bad about harassing you to buy stuff though, like as soon as you walk on the beach about 10 different people ask you if you want to rent a chair or a shade thingy for the day.  I never wanted one so by the 10,000^th person that asked me I just wanted to be like, “NO. I do not want a chair. Now stop asking. Geez.”  At one of the shops we walked by one of the guys took one look at us and said, “what are you going to buy?”  Ha and I just thought to myself, “well, nothing from you.” Haha it just got so annoying after awhile. 

I can now say that I’ve been to 2 coasts and 2 oceans in one week!  This past weekend we were on the Pacific side, and the ocean is lots different than the Caribbean side for sure.  The ocean on the Pacific side is very strong and the waves knock you over then suck you back in, then knock you over…not that I know from experience or anything…it was a little rough haha.  But I still went swimming of course.  The water was still warm but not as warm as the Caribbean side.  The waves were pretty big so we were getting beat up out there.  Some of the girls took surfing lessons, and while I always thought that was something I wanted to try, I decided I didn’t want to feel like I was drowning all day and opted out.  Plus the bottom of the ocean was rocky, not sandy, so I imagine it would hurt when you scraped your body along the bottom.  It seemed a little more rough than I expected soo I’m not too sad I didn’t do it haha.  Although I must say, there were lots of attractive guys there and some of those surf instructors had some rockin bodies…so anyways, I just enjoyed the view from the beach.

That beach had like big boulders and little rock islands on it so we went exploring again and got some good pictures climbing in and on the rocks, they’re really pretty.  Oh and I drank out of a coconut!  It just had water in it so was like coconut-tasting water, it was actually really good (probably because I was already dehydrated too—we don’t drink the water outside of San Jose, so when you have to buy all your water in bottles, you run out pretty quick and drink less, pretty much).  It felt like a really tropical thing to do haha.

Saturday we went to the national park—it has lots of the exotic animals in it.  We hiked through the trails and some of them were really narrow and overgrown so I felt like we were in Jurassic Park hiking through the jungle.  We didn’t get a tour guide so I kind of felt like we were walking past a lot of things that weren’t obvious.  But we still saw: a baby toucan, a big fat poisonous caterpillar thing, crabs, lizards, an iguana, birds, butterflies, some people saw a sloth but I couldn’t find it in the trees, and monkeys but that’s coming up later!  We followed one of the trails to this little inlet with a small beach…it kind of looked like our own private island.  This place was the most beautiful I have ever seen—I was literally living inside a postcard.  Like, it was so pretty it looked fake almost.  I took pictures but it doesn’t really capture being there.  Here we had a picnic lunch of PB&J sandwiches!  I must say, it was a very nice setting for our little lunch.  After eating I didn’t feel too great but I think it was probably a mixture of not getting much for breakfast, then eating a lot at lunch, and being hot and dehydrated.  After lunch we walked back out of the jungle and went to the park’s beach—it was perfect, it had white soft sand and even soft sand in the water so it didn’t hurt your feet like the public beach.  Here we saw all the monkeys.  They were really cute—there were lots running around—but they are little thieves!  They would run down from the trees and steal people’s food and run away with it, and they would even go up to people’s purses and bags on the beach and search through them!  Haha it was great entertainment but luckily they did not take an interest in our things.  We slept on the beach the rest of the afternoon.

Saturday night we went to Quepos, a town down the mountain that had clubs and bars and stuff.  We went early so the first place didn’t have many people in it when we got there, but we met these 2 families from Colorado on vacation there, and they had a bunch of sons around our age so we made friends and joined their table.  When we were getting ready to leave and go to the dance club, one of the guys came over and told us his dad paid for our tabs!!  It was the best night everrr haha—it’s a big deal too because there were 5 of us, most of us had about 2 drinks, and they were not cheap!  So that was awesome.  Then we all moved on to the other club and danced the night away.  A successful night, I’d say.

Sunday we went back to the public beach—this time we gladly took the bus, I was really sore from all my walking in flip flops.  And guess what we did!  I went parasailing!  Me and two other girls all went at the same time and it was SO MUCH FUN.  I thought it would be scary but it wasn’t at all, it was actually quite peaceful and so cool.  To take off, we stood on the beach while the boat was out in the water, then the boat starts moving and you just kind of jog along until you’re lifted into the air.  Then when it’s over, you plop into the water and the boat drives you close to shore then you swim in.  After that we hung out on the beach and played with these two adorable little puppies until we had to go back up the mountain and catch our bus back to San Jose.  Oh yeah and we saw the guys from the night before on the beach too! 

Today in the English classes at school we went to the library and watched a movie.  It was like an educational type movie where they had to watch the movie clips and then write down what happened.  It was so funny to see though, because it was like really simple, clear conversations where they talked really slow and awkwardly so the kids could understand haha it just reminded me of Spanish movies we used to watch like that in school, they were probably just as unnatural. 

Funny sidenote: as if I didn’t know already how much I stick out, today walking home from volunteering someone selling shampoo (of all things…shampoo?) on the street asked me if I wanted to buy it and called me “Barbie.”  Oh boy.  Despite the lovely advertising, I did not buy any.

Yesterday I had my first Spanish class here at Maximo.  It’s every day this week for 2 hours, and turns out I’m the only one in my class, so lots of speaking practice for me!  Yesterday I learned that there’s a lot I don’t know haha.  I’ve picked up random things just by living here, but the reality is I speak English because the people I’m surrounded by most of the time only speak English—i.e., the other volunteers, English class at school, etc.  And I’m gone all day so I only speak to my host family a little bit at breakfast and dinner.  So, I think this is really going to be the only way I’m going to get better at speaking.  Oh yeah and in case you were wondering, I’m in the “upper intermediate—low advanced” level haha.

I’ve been holding out to buy you all souvenirs because I keep saying I’m not going to buy them until the end of my time here, and I have ideas of what I’m going to buy, but somehow I just keep buying things for myself haha…but of course, only practical things that I can use now!  I bought a coin purse because you get a lot of change with any transaction and I need my change to pay for the bus fare every day.  I also bought a headband and a wrap I wear to the beach because it functions as a towel and a dress/cover up. 

Other sidenote: I have no TV here but Maximo has TVs that always have the news on so as I’m sitting here I’m reading the headlines and I’m like, “what?!  what’s going on??”  haha because I feel like I have no idea of anything that’s happening so everything is news to me.  PS tell me stuff that’s going on at home, I miss everything and everyone!  8 weeks is a long time.  Hasta luego!

 Me, Becca, and our coconuts livin the life - Manuel Antonio public beach

Shenanigans in the rocks!

Becca, Karen, Me on top of a little rock island

Remember that time I lived inside a postcard? Yeah, this is it.

Monkey...planning his next move

Up, up, and away!  I am the dot in the front left.



Hola todos!  First, a few things I forgot to mention about the weekend.  1) We saw a horse in the ocean with it's owner cooling off...it looked just like postcards you see of wild horses haha and 2) The ocean water is SO warm...I never knew an ocean could be that warm!  When it's shallow it's hot, like bath water haha it was awesome, 3) We couldn't drink the water there so we were buying tons of bottled water...you never know how much water you drink until you're constantly replacing your bottle of water!  Plus it was reallyyy hot and humid, like you sweat the whole time you're there, so we drank lotsss of water.  Definitely made me appreciate the fact that we can drink the water here in San Jose :)

As for today, another good day at Carmelo.  This morning we went to Mass at the school (yep--it's definitely Catholic!) so I pretty much could follow along with that easily.  At the end of church they sang happy birthday to the kids to had birthdays that day, it was really fun.  Then we worked a little bit with a teacher we had been with on Monday, with fourth graders.  Then we switched and helped a different teacher who works with younger kids.  We went down to the preschool and taught them -- very cute -- mostly by singing songs like '5 little monkeys jumping on the bed' and 'hokey pokey.'  Next we switched to another class, a little older, maybe kindergarten or first grade, and did some of the same type of thing, learning things like body parts ('head, shoulders, knees, and toes') and family members.

The kids are really nice and sweet though, like in the last class when it was time for us to go, they mobbed us and gave us hugs and came up and asked questions...very loving haha.  One girl came up and the first thing she asked me was if I had a boyfriend haha.  Now the kids recognize us when we come in everyday so they always say hi if they pass us in the school and everything.  Oh and today I got a present...one of the fourth graders gave me a pencil :) yeehaw! 

I decided to start Spanish classes next week instead because I realized I wouldn't be here for much of the week because we're traveling this weekend...I'll keep the location a surprise so you all have something to look forward to in a future blog! :P  So I'll write about the class once I experience one...PS this also means don't panic when you don't hear from me Thursday-Sunday, I will be gone!

There's not as many people living with me now...we have three people upstairs and two downstairs, and one of them is leaving this week.  So we'll see if we get more new people sometime!  My host family is great...the other night the son got his guitar and was playing for us and trying to teach me, unsuccessfully mostly, to play too haha.  In the back of the house he has a bunch of bird cages with like 30 canaries.  Today he showed me some babies that are only a few days old...they were tiny and pink because they didn't have many feathers yet, all sleeping together in the nest.   

That's all I can think of for now...how is the good ol US of A?  Miss you all!  Nos vemos pronto!