Playa Tamarindo

Playa Tamarindo is beautiful! It's extremely hot, and very windy (the wind reminds me of home in Chicago!). Yesterday morning, Mary, Grace and I got up and got breakfast at a fruit smoothie place. The fruit was fresh and delicious. We tried going to a few piercing shops I had found to replace my lost nose ring but because it was Good Friday during Semana Santa there was nothing open. I think I will try again in San Jose, or just wait until I get home.

We spent most of the day at the beach! Maura and Isaac joined us later. These people are so beautiful, and I'm so glad to have spent the past week with them!

We got quiches for lunch at a cute little stand on the street, and then went back to La Oveja Negra (the Black Sheep) which was our hostel. We hung out there for a bit--I journaled and talked to my dad on FaceTime, Mary read my extra book Year of Yes by Shonda Rhimes, and Grace talked to someone on the phone and rested. It was very relaxing and beautiful, until we got hungry! We decided to go out to a sushi place we had passed by before--Grace and Mary are vegetarian so it's important that wherever we go have options for them, and they did! 

The restaurant was delicious. I got a yummy drink called the Flying Cucumber and teriyaki chicken. The waiter took this picture:

We went out with the whole gang after that to a club that had half salsa dancing and half gringo music (hip hop and pop). I met a Tico who was part of a professional dance group and he showed me some new salsa moves!

Tamarindo was very fun, but what wasn't fun was the 7 and a half hour drive back from Tamarindo to San Jose I took the next day. In the morning, Grace, Mary and I got delicious french toast from a steakhouse down the road and then said our goodbye's. It was so fun to meet them all and I really hope to keep in touch with all of them!

BUNGEE JUMPING OH MY GOD

Today we went...

BUNGEE JUMPING!!!

I cannot believe I did it! It was a very last minute decision and that's probably the only way I could've done it because otherwise I would've siked myself out!

We woke up early and headed to the other zip lining place in Monteverde where they have the "Tallest Bungee Jumping in Latin America"--465 feet!!

It was terrifying. Isaac and Maura went out first, and Isaac jumped but Maura couldn't. So when they came back, Maura stayed on for Paulina and I to go out. I jumped first! The people helping us (there were 2) are very good at their jobs and know how to make it quick so I don't think about it! I can't believe it, I actually jumped!

You're strapped in by your feet so you have to dive and jump head first! It was terrifying, but once I did I was so happy that I had done it! What a rush! You free fall for 4 seconds and then bounce and free fall again a couple of times. Then Paulina went, and so did Maura! We all did it! We were all so proud of ourselves!

Video on Facebook coming soon (it's on a CD and my computer does not have a CD drive anymore...).

After, we jumped in Miguel's car and rode 4.5 hours to where we are now--Playa Tamarindo. It is already much much hotter than it was in Monteverde. I get one full day here (tomorrow) and then back to San Jose on Saturday for one last day in this beautiful country! It went so fast!

Zip Lining!

Today was awesome! We got up early and headed out for Monteverde--a cloud forest about 4 hours away from where we were (Arenal). We took a jeep, then a boat, then a jeep. Here is the view from the boat:



Then, we got to our hotel, then on to the zip lining course! We were there for almost 4 hours zip lining. We had 7 small zip lines first, then one very long one, then two "Superman" ones which were the "Longest Zip Lines in Latin America" where you lay on your stomach as you zip line, then a "Tarzan Swing" where you jump from 135 feet in the air and free fall until the rope catches you and swings you back and forth!

I will upload all the videos on Facebook once I get better wifi. That is definitely one thing hostels in this country lack...

The day was AMAZING! It was good practice for what is to come tomorrow ;)

Yepe, one of the guys who caught us as we came down from the Tarzan swing, told us he was going to be at Los Amigos bar that night, so after we got back and had dinner, we found him and all his friend who also worked at the zip lining place there! It was so fun dancing with all of them, and I danced with Miguel too, who decided because I could dance like a Tica he would change my name in his phone from "Leah Gringa" to just "Leah". Haha!!

La Fortuna Waterfall and Baldie Hot Springs

La Fortuna waterfall is BEAUTIFUL! I won't write much on this one, just put the pictures. They speak for themselves... These were taken by Luis's brother, Miguel, who is accompanying us on our trip, as well as on my phone.




It was a walk of about 400 steps to get to the waterfall--easy going down but awful going up. The waterfall was only about 15 minutes away by car, and we stayed for a few hours. After that, we went back home and I got some lunch at a pizza place and took a nap. Swimming in that ice cold waterfall wore me out!

These are some pictures I took on the GoPro:




Then, at 3pm, we went to Baldie Hot Springs. They weren't all natural hot springs, but they were still pretty cool! We spent a few hours in the multitude of pools just relaxing. I went down this crazy fast water slide that, when I hit the water, knocked my nose ring out of my nose! Crap! I have to find at some point before returning home or my nose will close up!

Here are some pictures:





After, I met up with Kendall again and went out one last time, only this time I was too tired to dance (that's saying something) so I said goodbye and went to bed. Tomorrow, more adventure awaits!

White Water Rafting

This morning at 6 am I was picked up by the Exploradores company and, along with my friends Mara, Grace, Mary, Isaac, and Paulina, and the other people on the bus, was driven to Parcuare River to go whit water rafting. It was about a 2 hour drive in the morning, perfect for some more sleep!

Once we got there, we were fed a traditional breakfast (gallo pinto and eggs and toast) and then taken down a very steep, very scary road to the beginning of the river. We were divided into groups of 5, and I was with two couples. Lisa and Christian were from Costa Rica and Pagoda and Christoff were from Venezuela. They were all very nice! My guide's name was Yepe (well, nickname), and he was absolutely hilarious. The first thing he said was his nickname on the river was Osama Bin Laden because he's "always trying to kill you"... That wasn't exactly reassuring!

We practiced on the river bank the different commands for rowing--foward (adelante), back (atras), right forward left back and vice versa, high side right and left, and get down. It seemed pretty simple, but would prove to be very difficult to follow once we were actually in the rapids! We also practiced our high five, where we put our paddles together in the air and shouted "PURA VIDA" at the top of our lungs (this happened quite a lot).

We pushed off, eventually, with Christoff and Christian as our leaders in the front. After about ten minutes, however, Yepe asked if Christian would switch places with me and if I would be the leader, because Christian kept getting the commands wrong! I happily obliged, and went head first towards the rapids.

At one point it started to rain and it never stopped. Even when we stopped for lunch--a picnic spread of a buffet style make your own burrito and delicious fresh pineapple--it was pouring and our food was very soggy! It didn't matter though, because after the first two and a half hours of rafting before we stopped for lunch we were all terribly hungry!

We rafted through class I, II, III, and IV rapids. It was pretty difficult to go through the rapids, but what I wasn't expecting is there is a lot of down time. Rapids only last about 20 seconds at max, and in between you have a few minutes of drifting down the river and looking at the incredible scenery. That was a nice surprise, because when I heard that we would be rafting for a total of 4 hours I got a little worried! Plus, I appreciated the chance to look at the cloud forest that we were rafting through. It was one of the most beautiful places I had ever been.

I fell out one time after lunch because Yepe had my side of the raft turn around. You aren't strapped in at all in the raft, you just put your feet under the tubes in front and behind you and use that and luck to try and stay in. Being backwards proved this to be extremely difficult! When I fell out I hit my shin on a rock and got a nasty bruise, and swallowed a lot of water along the way, but I was fine! They pulled me back on the raft by my life jacket and I realized the adrenaline rush of falling out was actually really fun!

I don't have any pictures unfortunately because I couldn't bring anything in the raft for it would have fallen out, and the photographer wasn't feeling well that day so there was no one taking pictures of us! I was very, very sad about that! Pagoda and Christoff had a GoPro with them on their helmet, and I gave them my email in hopes of getting some of the footage. Hopefully they remember to email it to me, but for now I have nothing! :(

We had a 4 hour bus ride to our next location: Volcano Arenal. The guide who came with us on the ride was Yepe's older brother Kendall. He talked to me and Mary the whole bus ride home, and was very nice!

Once we got home I showered and we started to walk around the town to look for dinner. While walking, I ran into Kendall! He told me he was going dancing and would I like to join (of course I did). We went to a bar that I can't pronounce the name of and danced Merengue for hours! It was so, so fun. The poor guy had to wake up early the next morning and go rafting again! I went back to my hotel and passed out, anticipating the fun day to come tomorrow!

Puerto Viejo

I'M BACK!!!

It's really incredible to be back here in Costa Rica. It is Semana Santa in the country, meaning "Holy Week" which is equivalent to spring break, so everyone is out having fun this week--including me!

I arrived in San Jose around 1pm, however I didn't make it to my Airbnb until after 4pm because my plane had to taxi for over two hours! There was a big back up on the tarmac.

Once I got to San Jose, I headed back to my old school Veritas to visit some friends. I saw Drew, Jake, Chris, and Charlie amongst others. I got lunch from Don Ro--an empanada con pollo. It was delicious!

That night I went out with a group of friends to La Concha and danced with a Tico! He was surprisingly not a good dancer... I was just slightly disappointed! Haha!

The next day consisted of basically the same thing--hanging out at school and seeing friends, as well as going to the mall. The real fun started on Monday! I bought a bus ticket and headed for Puerto Viejo early Monday morning.

Puerto Viejo is in Limon, near the Costa Rica-Panama border. It's a beach town, and while it's very expensive, there are ways around that! I rented a tent at Rocking J's--a hostel along the beach.



It was SO hot in the tent, but at only $8 a night I couldn't complain! I was only there for two nights anyways.

I saw Charlie and his friend Zach (Ziggy) in Puerto Viejo and we went met a friend named Daniel from Holland. He was hilarious! We went to the beach both days (yes, of course I got sunburned...) and we found a restaurant to have dinner at called Hot Rocks. They had live music and dancing, which was my divertido! 

Puerto Viejo was very very fun, but almost TOO hot. I was only there until Monday, when I, along with the group with Tico Viajero, went white water rafting!

Me and Charlie, Ziggy, and Daniel:

  

Pura Vida!

As I sit here in the airport, about to board my flight for home, I'm thinking about my trip as a whole. I can say without a single doubt that this was the best experience I've ever had in my life. At no point was I regretful or sad - it was three weeks of pure excitement and joy. My favorite part is tied between parasailing at Manuel Antonio and the combination of all the fun dancing we did!

Some things I haven't discussed yet about Costa Rica, but I have noticed, are as follows...

-The driving here is quite comical. People run red lights if no one is coming, ignore stop signs, and (get this) drive on the wrong side of the freeway! For miles! It's a bit scary, and I could never drive here, but I also was never in any danger. The drivers here are more alert because they have to be. I never even saw a car on the road with a dent!

-The water system is very different. When you use the toilet, you cannot ever flush the toilet paper (you just throw it away) because it will clog the toilets! Also, the showers are heated by electricity, so the way we knew our shower was "hot" was when our light started to dim (it was never that hot anyways...)

-As in many Spanish speaking countries, you greet everyone with a kiss on the cheek. Also, you must greet people profoundly before starting any sort of conversation. Always say hola, buenos, como esta (buenos is short for buenos dias. Most people just say buenos or buenas), and if you don't you won't be treated with any respect. It's very important to be friendly here.

-All of the people here have gates in front of their house. It's not necessary, but it's like "if my neighbor does it, I have to". We had three levels of gates in front of our house, all double locked. The only time I felt like I was in danger was just late at night, walking from the taxi to home, but usually someone was with us, and I was never put in any danger.

-"Tico Time" is hilarious. Tico time is, basically, an excuse for being late! People will be up to three or four hours late, and that is totally acceptable! Also, people will say they are coming somewhere but not actually go. It's very different than in the US!

-This is odd, but a lot of the trees have the first four to five feet of their trunk painted white. I have no idea why, and never found out...

-Instead of saying de nada, people say con gusto or mucho gusto when you say gracias. I like that a lot! I always remember my grandma, who was fluent in Spanish, saying she hated how people said de nada because it discounted your gracias.

-Speaking of my grandma, she would be so proud that I have traveled here, and would be excited for me to know that I plan on visiting a lot of Latin American countries!

-I am so confident in my Spanish now! When you're forced to figure it out, and I really feel like I have! I can definitely hold my own in a conversation now. I need to visit more Spanish speaking countries to keep it up and not lose it!

This has been such a wonderful, interesting, new, and profoundly fun trip! I will most definitely be coming back soon, maybe even for my spring break! Thank you to all the people who helped me get here - this was a group effort and I am so grateful that I had such an incredible opportunity!

PURA VIDA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

1/22/16

LAST DAY! NO!!!

This morning, I had my last Costa Rican breakfast: Eggs, Platanos (not pictured because I devoured them...), hash browns, sausage and gallo pinto:



This is me trying to lock our gate in the morning. We always had such trouble locking it! The gates have to be locked twice - meaning you have to turn the key once to lock it and again to double lock it. It was never easy to get in or out!



In class we had our final presentations. Jess and I presented on costal ecosystems and how humans are destroying it (the theme of the class turned into how bad humans are to our environment!). Roberto told us he really enjoyed our class, and thought we were all very intelligent! We will miss him, however insane he may be!

We took a picture with our lovely mamatica Marjorie. She is someone I will definitely miss!



After class, Jess and I were both exhausted beyond belief. Three weeks of not much sleep has really caught up with us! We decided to take a nap. I was able to FaceTime with my best friend from home for a while, which was so nice. We also hung out with Morghan at home (she leaves tomorrow, too).

Around 7:30 we left to meet the rest of our class for our farewell dinner. Here's all of us, as well as Karen and me:



We also ran into Jake, Chris, and Drew (left to right)! Here's me with them:



This is the view of the side entrance to Veritas at night:



Dinner was very nice. Lisa took us to El Gaff, which was a nice restaurant. She got us all pizza and sangrias! Here's all of us:



We were planning on going out afterward, but again Jess and I were feeling just too tired, so we decided to sleep a bit before having to leave for the airport at 3 am!

This face sums up how we feel about leaving...

01/21/16

Our final was today! It wasn't terribly hard, just like the midterm. There were actually multiple choice questions along with our short answer, which was nice.

As soon as our final was over, Jess and I headed to the mall to pick up one last gift for one of our friends. We didn't find exactly what we wanted at first, but eventually found something better! We also went to the grocery store to grab some snacks for the plane. There, we also decided we are going to have a Costa Rica themed party when we get home, so we bought lots of food and drinks for that to bring home! That should be fun! We took pictures of both the Beach Club (left) and Hoxton (right). It's funny how Hoxton looks like an abandoned frat house, but is the best club to go to on Tuesday's nights!

I met up with Charlie and hung out at the school for a while before grabbing dinner at Don Ro, the nice man who has a small stand on campus. I've had his empanadas many times, however this time I got a hot dog (perro calliente!) and it was delicious! I ran home to change before heading to dance class - our last one!! There, we saw Luis (one of my favorite people at Veritas!). Here's him with Jess and me:

He's a goof ball, and is very nice. He always tells us we have "ugly eyes" (although it sounds like "oogly") because they're blue which is practically nonexistent in Costa Rica, but he later told us ugly was a good thing!

Here's Ryan and I, right before we had to say goodbye...

He has improved so much in dance class! I'm probably going to visit him over the summer. He's such a sweetheart!

After dance class, most of the people in class headed to Castro's Bar in Barrio Mexico (barrio means neighborhood), which is a famous salsa bar. Man, was that fun!! I danced with Charlie, Jess, and Jeron all night! The music was so great, and we have all gotten so good at dancing! We did bachata, merengue, salsa, and cumbia in class, and showed off all our skills at the club! It was probably the most fun dancing I have had this whole time!

Jess and Karen at Castro's Bar:

01/20/16

Today, we had another quiz in class! It was equally as hard. Hopefully the final won't be so hard tomorrow...

We had some interesting discussions about how humans have impacted the world and whether or not what we do is considered "natural", and also whether or not the world would be better off without us. People asked questions like:

"If Mars used to have life, is it possible that everything that happened on Earth already happened on Mars, but the humans turned the planet into what it is now, and the looks of Mars is our future?"

"Since humans have defeated our environment in the sense that we can control our conditions to our pleasing, is it possible that another species, like apes, could become smart enough to do that, too?"

"Are species only still alive because we want them to be, since we have the power to exterminate anything we want to?"

"Since it is a scientific fact that species will fight each other competitively intraspecifically for resources, isn't war a natural part of living? Does that mean war is okay?"

These really got us going, to the point where we didn't learn everything we were supposed to! And our final is tomorrow! Hopefully he won't test us on what we didn't get to...

After class, Jess and I went to Cafe Con Que to study and get some delicious quesadillas and brownies (the Spanish word for brownie is brownie, we learned) and, of course, some delicious cancer curing guanabana juice:



I really want to get a guanabana and smuggle it into the US... it is SO good!! We started to work on our final presentation that we have on Friday, and Charlie joined us eventually, too.

We walked home and rested, then I met up with Charlie again to hang out at school. We both then had to go home for dinner, but had planned to go out later in the night. However, after Charlie had dinner he got too tired, so I met up with Jeron instead. We were going to check out the soccer game, but when we got there it had ended, so we settled for Pescadito! Tomorrow will be a much more adventurous night!