Goodbye Costa Rica

This was written 2 hours before I left for the airport


In the past week I have been saying my goodbyes to Costa Rica. There was a goodbye party with all of the host families on Saturday in which we played families vs students soccer. I got elected goalie and am proud to say that only 14 goals were scored on me. This is a record usually the students lose by over 20. I was lifted onto everyones shoulders at the end of the game. It is probably the best sport moment I will ever have. On monday I went with two friends to Monteverde cloud forest. I can tell you very little about the cloud forest because we opted for an extreme canopy tour complete with tarzan swing, 100 ft repel, and 1 km superman cord. It was awesome and when I was flying horizontally and pretending to be superman 3 scarlet macaws pulled up near me. It was pretty incredible. On Wednesday we gave our final presentations and now my semester abroad is over. I leave for the airport in 2 hours. On our last day of class we went over how to adjust to being back in the US so we are not unbearable to everyone but it is expected that I will go into a semi-depression in which I hate on the US and everyone gets tired of hearing about Costa Rica. I find I am not excited for that. But I am now informed of it so hopefully I'll just be mopey and complain about the weather for a couple days and then get over myself. That is the plan going forward.

I really can't comprehend the concept of leaving. Four months was very very short and I still have so much I haven't seen here but looking back I've completed something pretty cool and I hope I can bring some of the things I learned here back to my life in the states. I'm going to miss my families here very much and I have to believe that someday I will be able to see them again. I've been trying to think about an answer to the question "how was study abroad?" I think its kind of a cop-out to say it was life changing or something that while true is also true of everyone's experience. It is impossible to come out of this unchanged (I have been informed that I am not yet aware of how I have changed but others will point it out to me upon my return). What I can say of my experience is that I got to watch the sunset on the beach for 60 nights, I know what it is like to wake up to chickens being obnoxiously loud, I am a professional bus rider, I became a part of two very different families and I got to be a part of a project that will attempt to better the lives of the people I have met here. I have no real regrets from my experience here which feels great and to some extent I am ready to come home. This was only part one (see blog title) I'll be back soon. Hasta pronto

Week 15

Lujadoras on the side of my presentation

This week I returned to the Pacific Coast many times. The first was on Friday when my group went to Tarcoles to take the fishing tour. I did not go since I have done that many a time and I got to visit my host family!!!!!! I missed them a lot so it was really fun to get to surprise them. My host mom started screaming "My daughter! escaped from the city!!!!" I was very very happy but when it came time to say goodbye we were all tears again. I did manage to get their address this time so now I will at least be able to keep in touch. After Tarcoles I went to try my hand at surfing in Jaco and try out their famous tourist nightlife. In terms of the nightlife, I would rather not do that again, we got into all the bars free and the drinks and music were great but there was a lot of prostitution going on around us so we left to night swim in the ocean before the party really got started. The ocean was incredible. There must have been a phytoplankon bloom recently because every time a wave crashed it started glowing electric blue.  We watched it for hours. The next morning, I did some very important shopping and then headed to the beach for surfing. Surfing is terrifying, we had beginning boards that are really good for catching waves and the waves were great for surfing however, balance was very tricky. When I felt myself catch a wave I would try to stand up as fast as possible but inevitably I would tip forward and summersault into the wave only to be stuck under water for around 15 seconds as the wave passed over my head. It was pretty freaky. I did manage to surf on my knees once without falling but after a particularly scary wipeout in which my board hit me in the back of the head, I decided I had had enough of surfing for a while. We returned to San Jose that night.

On Sunday we went to the Museo National de Costa Rica which was fun but pretty small in comparison to the museums I am used to, it only had 4 exhibits but all were very well planned out and I ended up learning a lot about pre-columbian costa rican culture which was nice.

On Monday I returned to Tarcoles for the last time to give my presentation to the fishermen. We set up the overhead on the beach and I got to present to about 50 people in spanish which was a challenge. Culturally it is not considered rude to shout questions or random comments in the middle of a presentation so I had to walk around constantly answering questions while explaining my slides multiple times. It was way out of my comfort zone but after completing it I feel much better about my spanish ability and I don't think I will be as nervous for any presentations in english in the future. After my presentation I said goodbye to my host family and the ocean for the last time, more tears but we formed a plan for my return and future life in Costa Rica which I hope to follow. I also promised that they will be a part of my wedding which they seem to think will be much sooner than I do.

Me being caught off guard by a question during my presentation 

The last couple weeks

 I've been pretty busy lately so I think this post will be mostly pictures. So we shall start where I left off. I don't really have words for what leaving Tarcoles was like, in the last week I realized what an incredible experience it was and tried to soak up every second I had left. My host family took me to Punta Leona on the boat my last day to enjoy the ocean, and the morning I left I walked down to Playa Azul so I thought I was going to have some sort of closure on the whole experience. I did not because when my bags were packed we had to tell the little kids I wasn't coming back and my host mom started crying and telling me that all her children are always welcome in her home and I started bawling and my older host brother dragged me to the bus stop. It wasn't pretty. But I am proud to say I didn't miss a single sunset on the beach, looking back on it I got to live somewhere really really awesome for 2 months, I got to have little brothers, dig for clams at night, and be surrounded by piles of burning garbage and poisonous things. But it also hit me that I do not have very much time left here so I went into doing things mode. So we started with rafting the day after I returned to San Jose. Very very fun I recommend it. Then on that wednesday I went with my SJ host family back to the pacific to fail at surfing (my surf board was taken away and I was given a boogie board because I was embarrassing my host brother). Then on Thursday 11 people from my program and I went to the Caribbean. The Caribbean of Costa Rica is very different from the rest of the country but the main difference I noticed was that they but coconut in all the food. I am a big fan of this. We stayed in a hostel that was more or less a tree house and snorkeled over coral reefs. It was a very good weekend. Then on Sunday we went to a soccer game and I must say that the stadium is pretty genious. Because fans get so excited and then aggressive during the games you are not allowed to take in, any sort of bottle, coins, electronics that have throwable batteries, food, or excessive keys. So they make a lot of money when everyone has to turn in their change and then nothing in the stadium can be sold for less than 2 dollars because that is the smallest bill. But from the soccer game I saw in which no one scored, I think all these restrictions are necessary. It was a truly tico experience in which the cement bleachers we were standing on started shaking from the thousands of people jumping on them for the entire game. Then on Tuesday we went to Volcan Irazu so I have officially been to all 5 active volcanos in Costa Rica. On Friday I return to the Pacific!

Soccer Game!!!!!

Rafting Group

Cow

Rafting

Rafting

Snorkeling

Fishy

Volcano

Week 11

My mom, Aunt Sheri and Miss Lisa came to visit me this week!!!!!! After a couple flight cancellations everyone made it in by late Thursday night and we started our tourist adventures on Friday morning in Tarcoles. We started at the crocodile bridge and then went on a guided tour of Carara National Park, although I had been to the park before, the guide was a really good plan. He was able to point out animals we never would have seen on our own, we saw many lizards and cool birds including scarlet macaws, baby crocodiles, frogs, bats, and a boa constrictor. After the park we went to meet my host family and then out to lunch. At lunch my friend from the program Margo joined us for the night. In the afternoon we went to Pura Vida gardens and waterfalls which was incredibly beautiful, it was a sculpted garden on top of the mountain with a really cool view of the ocean which was wonderful to walk around in. That night we ate dinner at the hotel and went for a swim which was magical.

On Saturday we woke up early to catch our bus to the Tortuga Island snorkeling adventure that we had planned for the day, we were given breakfast and then set out on the catamaran to Tortuga Island. This island is exclusively for tourists and is absolutely beautiful with white sand beaches and a reef not too far off. Snorkeling was really fun although there were jelly fish in the water with us.

On Sunday we shopped around Jaco in the morning and did a zip-line in the afternoon. The zip-line was over Playa Hermosa and some of the lookout points were truly incredible. The zip-line itself was really fun, our guides were knowledgeable about the animals around us and the lines were super fast and I even got to try hanging upside-down from one of them.

On Monday we decided to rent a car and head down to Quepos the town where Manuel Antonio National Park is located, unfortunately the park is not open on Mondays so we had to "settle" for spending the day on the beach. It was quite relaxing and really beautiful. In the evening we went to Hotel Villa Calentas to watch the sunset in their outdoor viewing area, this hotel has been build straight into the mountain so the view is just spectacular.

On Tuesday morning everyone left and I went back to my not so real life here in Tarcoles to try and soak up as much of the Pacific Coast as I can until I return to San Jose on Saturday. I will be adding photos to this post when everyone puts them up on facebook for me to steal.

Week 10

We hiked to the top of the lump on the left

This was the beginning before it got steep

This is a cool bird I saw

This weekend I took a mini-vacation to La Fortuna, which is where Arenal Volcano is located. I left at 6am Friday morning and sat on 3 different buses in order to arrive at La Fortuna at 3pm it was not very fun at all. La Fortuna is one of the most touristy parts of Costa Rica, so much so that I had a hard time using my costa rican currency which I found a bit ridiculous but that is just how the town works. One of my friends from my program is working in La Fortuna so she was able to show us around. She was able to recommend probably the swankiest hostel I have ever seen to us, It is called Arenal Backpackers Hostel Resort and for $15 a night you get to lounge in nice hammocks, and swim in a really pretty pool also the rooms have ac, and the bed was probably one of the comfiest I have slept in since arriving in Costa Rica. So if you ever find yourself in La Fortuna I would recommend staying there. The one downside was that the rooms are dorm style and they are gender neutral so the first night my friend and I spent the night with 6 other guys. 5 medical school students studying to be urinologists because "The world needs more cock doctors" that quote pretty much sums them up, they were charming charming fellows who we spent very little time around. The other person was a quiet german man.

Our decent into the lagoon

Close to the end

          On Saturday morning we decided to hike to the top of Cerro Chato which is the old volcano that now has a lagoon in its center, the hike was only 3km from the start of the trail so we were pretty convinced that we could do that for the morning and go see the waterfalls in the afternoon. That was an incorrect assumption, we decided to walk to the trail so we added another 5 or 6 km onto our trip both ways by doing that and the 3 km hike was absurdly steep. It was absolutely beautiful but I did not make it through the hike with very much dignity. My friends are very good hikers and climbers and I am slow and kept getting distracted or wanting to stop and sit for a while so I made the journey by myself and every once in a while someone would yell down the mountain to make sure I didn't get bitten by a snake or something. But eventually I did make it to the top, only like 5-10 minutes behind everyone and it was worth it, we could see everything and the lagoon was beautiful so I think for a day trip it was definitely worth it. That said, I am currently very very sore and my host family finds it very comical.

Lagoon

Week 9

This is my rural host family: from the left, Clever, Marcos (host dad), Maria (host mom), Sammi (host nephew), Me, and Mariano (host brother)

            I feel that maybe I should describe the actual living in Tarcoles part of my life. I was in San Jose Monday and Tuesday which made coming back to Tarcoles after a week away more describable. First off I'm not sure if I have reported on this yet but it is obscenely hot here. Not like yay vacation hot, like I can't move but I have to because I am so sweaty I frequently slip off furniture hot. In addition there is no air conditioning anywhere period there just is none of that. Also it was low tide at night this week which means no ocean bathing. So because it is frequently super duper hot I try to stay in the shade most of the time for safetys sake. Costa Ricans are not big water drinkers so I often ask my host mom for access to the kitchen to fill up my water bottle and she comes back with a cup of coffee and tries to convince me that its the same. So thats where I am at on the temperature front but usually it cools off a bit at night or at least the sun is gone so I can play about outside. Which leads me to the second thing about this week, I got quite a lot of bug bites last week. This has put me at somewhat of a circus freak status and everyone who sees my legs feels the need to say something usually it is useful like "dear god what happened to you" or "thats a lot of bug bites" so I have a set response to all of these comments of how grand that you noticed I have so many bug bites I had forgotten!

So this is what the discovery channel decided mermaids
look like

              The most exciting thing about this week was that I finally have found the key conversation starter for Tarcoles. Before we entered the field our program directors informed us that if you want people to talk to you talk about something they like to talk about and that it will usually be futbol. Which makes sense because there is a big rivalry in the country between La Liga and Saprissa. I am proud to say that I have been assigned a Saprissa fan so Go Purple Monsters!!! but overall futbol doesn't really get people talking here so I was very excited  that I stumbled into the real topic. Its Mermaids!!! Which is awesome, people here can talk about mermaids for hours and they have done their research which is fun. I've talked to a couple fishermen who keep earplugs in their boats at all times in case they come across Sirens (greek myth style). But most people believe that a mermaid skeleton washed up on shore a couple years ago and that the government (were blaming NASA here for some reason) took it away so the public wouldn't get scared. But essentially the theory is that mermaids are an ancestor of humans that moved into the ocean around the time that the giant wolves that are whales now moved back into the ocean and that over millions of years these creatures turned into half human half dolphin sorta things that we call mermaids. I find this endlessly entertaining because everyone has a slightly different take on it and can contribute my knowledge of NASA to the conversation, because I'm just not sure NASA cares about mermaids so much but they are a widely known government organization here probably due to US television channels so I'm probably not going to win this one. But hey why not mermaids would be cool I am totally on board with them and there is a much anticipated discovery channel documentary on tonight about them so were all going to stay up late and watch it.

             So  I mentioned at the beginning of my post that I need to ask permission to access the kitchen, this needs to be explained in my house here the kitchen is a very narrow room that really only one person can fit in at a time so I am not allowed in there all that often so if I'm feeling bold and want to fill up my water bottle by myself or something else equally crazy, I have to wait for my host mom to be off somewhere else then dart into the kitchen and dart back out just to be ratted out by one of my host brothers. So the kitchen is off limits, other rules are that I, as a guest, must always have a seat during tv time, this gets funny when everyone wants to watch what is on because there are simply not enough spots on the couches and I feel bad when I would be happy to sit on the floor but thats just how hospitality works here. Overall I am starting to feel more like a part of the family tho which is nice, they are starting to make fun of me, give me tasks, and I get in trouble for doing "cosas malas" mostly I am not allowed to scratch my bug bites

Semana Santa

About to head out from ranger station #1

Week 7 was boring and not worth reporting on, I actually did my work and such all week and there was no fun to be had which was ok because I was saving up for my camping adventure for Semana Santa. I only get 10 days of not doing my project... technically. So I saved my fun for the Wednesday of Semana Santa. Over the past couple weeks 5 of us got together and planned a camping trip to Rincon de la Vieja National Park which is an active volcano with many a waterfall and hot springs and such. So on Wednesday morning my companera del campo Lauren and I woke up at 5 to catch a large assortment of buses to the volcano. After grocery shopping we arrived at the national park around 3:30pm. We soon discovered that the park only allows camping at one spot and we were 8km away from it. So we figured we would get there around sunset which is perfect because hiking in the dark is dangerous and such right? A quick side note, this park does not have maps for you to take the only one I saw was a half sheet of paper in the rangers station so we headed in map free and entirely dependent on signage to get us to the campsite. So we began our journey and about 2 hours after we began we came upon a familiar looking sign which was a relief at first because we hadn't seen a sign in a while but we soon discovered that we had walked in one giant circle and were at the beginning again and the sun was setting! Upon this discovery we went back to the park rangers and explained that they had instructed us poorly to which they laughed a whole bunch and then explained that what we were actually supposed to do was duck under some "peligro" (danger) tape and continue on that path to the campsite. When we asked why there was danger tape covering the start of the trail they explained that they didn't want people getting confused and going down that trail when they wanted to go in the circle. I am not a fan of these park rangers. But as we were not allowed to camp at the first ranger station we started walking fast to the try to get to the other one. We did not reach our destination... we walked until we couldn't see anymore and it was getting dangerous because these were not flat trails in the least we were going up and down mountain and volcanic rock and sometimes the ground was bubbling so I was starting to get scared. We all decided that it would be best to just find somewhere flat and set up camp for the night. None of us slept well, mostly because we had failed to put the rain fly on the tent and it was raining but also we were sleeping on a rocky path so it was really only partially our fault.

Aguas Terminales

             So we began day 2 a little frustrated and very sleepy but there were white-faced monkeys in the  tree outside our tent so that brightened the day right up. In addition to that about 3ish kilometers away we found the hot springs which we sat in for quite sometime because they are wonderful even if they make everything smell like sulfur. So after that we just kept on treking for much too long but at around lunch time we were getting antsy because we hadn't found the campsite yet but we decided to keep going and about 30 minutes later we popped out of a trail labeled "for horses only" we had taken the much longer trail meant for people on horseback and I still don't know how we managed that but good for us we found the campsite and were able to set up a clothes line to dry our things and make a delicious lunch of peanut butter saltine crackers! In the afternoon we went to a waterfall and began to realize that we were beginning to be attacked by both black flies and mosquitoes. The day ended with a very smoky fire to keep the bugs away and a lovely massage train.

Hiking about in the forest

Cool view from the top of the mountain

           On day 3 we decided that we wanted to see the big waterfall so we hiked the 8km ,stopping at the hot springs of course, back to the first ranger station. We decided that we were going to camp illegally on the waterfall side of the park because we really didn't think the rangers would notice, unfortunately the rangers were more focused on us when we returned and did not let us go to the waterfall because it was too far away to make it back before sundown. This was a bummer but the closest hostel let us pitch our tent on their property so everything worked out ok there.

seriously small hostel room

         Day 4, 3 of my companions headed back to San Jose but my friend Margo and I headed to the coast to celebrate the end of semana santa on a beach called Playa del Coco. It was beautiful, we stayed in a very small hostel and walked and swam about all day, I got quite sunburnt and that along with the bug bites was unfortunate but it was wonderful.

Just a sampling of how many bug
bites I have

        Easter sunday was a different story, we had purchased bus tickets in advance because we knew that it was going to be a busy travel day but what we didn't know was that our bus was going to break down when we were already 2 hours behind schedule. This meant that our 4 hour journey took 9 1/2 hours which was really no fun at all but, silver lining, we got put on a new bus that was standing room only but the bus driver let me sit in the copilot chair which was a really cool view.
       

Playa del Coco