Living in San José is so nice because it is very easy to go
to the Caribbean coastline and in 4 hours you’ll find
Puerto Viejo and Cahuita National Park. After taking the midterm exams for my
four week Spanish class I packed my bags for Puerto Viejo for the weekend. On
our drive, we saw many banana plantations but the biggest one we saw was
DOLE plantation. A long day of classes and driving had everyone’s appetite
ready for some Caribbean chicken. Our tour guide showed us a beautiful local “soda”
where we ate a wonderful meal of Caribbean chicken, plantains and gallo pinto
made with coconut milk.
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| Beautiful city at night |
Now our accommodations were not near five star accommodations but
it was so fun because they had hammocks all over for people to relax in. They
also had coconut trees all over the place. We learned that the brown coconuts are
actually not the good ones but when you want to drink the juice you want them
to be green. After breakfast, we headed to Cahuita National park. We had a guide with us on our hike and he was trying to teach us to
train our eyes to see all the animals. One time he stopped the group and said “whoever spots the poisonous
snake first gets $500" and I thought he was completely joking. BUT sure enough,
about six feet away from us in the bush was a poisonous orange snake (I
forgot the official name).
Our tour guide was very knowledgeable and pointed
out sloths, snakes, iguanas, frogs,
monkeys and spiders on the trail. Another cool thing
I learned is that if you are stuck in the rain forest and you need stitches, you
can pick up the ants and they will bite your skin and then you break off the
rest of their body which will hold your skin together like stitches (Our guide demonstrated on me and it didn’t
even hurt). After we hiked for a while we got to the beach where we hung out, ate fresh pineapple, watermelon and cacao all grown in the area and tasted so fresh.
In the afternoon we went to the beach and
watched a surfing competition and went swimming. A really cool thing
about
Puerto Viejo is that so many people from around the world are visiting
or
living there you meet very interesting people. The most interesting
person I met Dani Ella who did a TED talk on positive thinking and she
was from Europe just hanging out in Costa Rica for a month (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B8Yuac4VHBA). At night, I went out with a few other girls for dinner and we ventured off the beaten path a little ways to find a cheap yet tasty restaurant. For dinner I had Cevichi which is fresh raw fish marinated in citrus
juices. The dish is not cooked with heat but instead is made fresh and is the traditional dish of Costa Rica.I really enjoyed the taste of.
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| Pura Vida |
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| The view of the Caribbean for the beach |
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| Such fun group of students from all around the world |
On Sunday, we traveled down the road to another beach
and to hike to Mirador Manzanillo, Miss may point. This place was simply breath
taking. It seemed like a place where pictures for desktop photos are taken because
of beauty. After hiking, swimming and walking the beach, it was time to head back to San Jose for a few days.
During this weekend, I was so thankful for the other students that I am with. Everyone is embracing this adventure with an open mind and a willing heart. I am thankful for the people I have back at home who are praying for me everyday and encouraging me to keep learning spanish. I am thankful for the CMU study abroad program that helped set this opportunity up. Lastly this week I am thankful for warm weather that I can walk to school in shorts every day and never be cold. #thankful
To learn some more Spanish, my friend and I went to the gym and participated in a cycling class at the gym. We got on the bikes and began cycling when in walks the teacher who fit the word "guapo" at the least. The class was so much fun with disco lights, loud Spanish music and everyone in the class yelling/singing the whole time. I caught on quickly to words such as "baja" or "más rápido" because the teacher would jump off his bike and come over and yell at you in SPANISH! It was super intense and fun but I am very excited to take some more workout classes in Spanish.
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| Toes in the water, toes in the sand... |
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