Back on Campus

Wow wow wow, where do I even begin? Our week long break was awesome! We have done so much in this past week, that I'm scared I'm not going to even remember it all. After we left last Thursday, we spent a night in San Jose and then got picked up from our hotel early Friday morning for our rafting trip, which has been my favorite thing in Costa Rica so far. 

We arrived at the rafting camp, ate breakfast, and had to pack a little bag because our trip was overnight. We got on another bus and rode to the beginning of the river to start rafting! Our luggage even came with us on a raft because we were spending the night on the river. I was a little scared to raft because I had a bad rafting experience on a Young Life trip where I fell out and floated down the river freaking out because of all the rocks. There were 5 Costa Rican guys as our guides and they were all really funny. We stopped along the river to take little hikes to waterfalls or to jump off rocks and eat watermelon and pineapple. After about 2 hours of rafting, we arrived at where we would be staying overnight, which was complete paradise. There were a bunch of tiny little cabins with 2 twin beds and no walls, just mosquito nets and a little curtain. We could see and hear the river from where we slept! The guides unloaded all the luggage and food from the rafts and cooked us an awesome lunch. We were in paradise! The rest of the day, we chilled in hammocks and read or sat in the sun, just relaxing. The food was the best I have had in Costa Rica, those guys could cook! The next morning, we left for about 3 more hours of rafting and stopped again along the way at waterfalls. I think I have seen at least 7 different waterfalls here in Costa Rica, all beautiful! I think the rafting trip has been my favorite part of Costa Rica so far.

Alyssa, me & Jessica getting ready to raft!

The river was beautiful!

Alyssa & me all geared up!

Our cute little room!

Our paradise!

The bar

Our awesome lunch

Another awesome waterfall. Notice the people in the background climbing up :)

Us with our guide, Esteban!

The river!

After the river trip, we headed back to San Jose and from there, left for our beach trip to Montezuma. It was just us students going and we really had no idea what we were doing. We had to leave the hotel at 4:30am to catch a  6:00 public bus and the taxis we called to come to the hotel never came so we were already off to a rocky start! It took 6 hours to get to Montezuma and we had to change buses 3 times and get on a ferry while also keeping up with our luggage so it wouldn't get stolen...it was pretty nerve wracking! When we finally got to Montezuma, it was about 90 degrees and HUMID! We found our hostel and got settled in. Our hostel was owned by recent college graduates from Colorado who had studied abroad and decided to open a hostel after graduation. There were howler monkeys everywhere! It was one of the coolest things I have seen. We saw families of them walking in trees and the sound they make is ridiculous. They woke us up around 6am every morning! We went to the beach everyday, hiked to a waterfall one day, and a couple girls got surf lessons. The water was beautiful and of course I bought about 2 ice cream cones a day. Most of us did not want to spend money on food so we bought a ton of peanut butter before we left and survived the 4 days on peanut butter sandwiches. But, one night the people at our hostel were making sushi so we learned how to make it and roll it which I plan to do for dinner a lot when I get back. It was pretty easy! 

When we got back to San Jose, all we wanted to do was sit in an air conditioned room and watch TV. I think we were all pretty beat. We left the room to go to McDonalds and also to get ice cream, which was perfect!  Now we are back on campus and our second session of classes have started. We transfer to our home stays Wednesday and I am pretty sure that I will be at the same one, so that's exciting! Oh and today was cool because this morning, we got to go to a local elementary school and teach a lesson about the skeletal system! 


That's all for now, Adios!