thursday: In the morning we visited a medical supplies place called Makol. We learned about the medical sector of the economy and how cutthroat socialized health care is in Costa Rica. The hospitals, run by the government, are narrow minded and only buy the cheapest product, even when in the long run or bigger packaging they would get better deals. The hotels also have no way of inventorying things, so when an order comes to Makol, who is only a distributor, products are needed ASAP. We also learned that the socialized health care system works well when you have a life threatening problem, but if you just have a normal check up, you could be put on a waiting list for over a year. Kind of a flawed system. Costa Rica is also having problems with Nicaraguans illegally entering the country using their socialized health care and schooling systems without paying for anything through taxes (see any resemblance to the United States and illegal Mexican immigrants? I do).
After the stop we drove to La Selva (The Jungle) research station. Here we went on a few nature walks and relaxed. We saw some monkeys that got pretty close to us on our afternoon walk which was neat, and we also saw the tiny tiny tree frogs for which Costa Rica is famous. A few students opted to walk around at night but we didnt see anything. Nevertheless, it was extremely scary because we had no idea what we could run into and didn't have a guide. We stayed overnight, had a short morning walk, and drove to Chiquita. There we saw this ridiculous show, the packaging factory, lunch, got bug bites for the first time, and drove for a long time to Puerto Viejo. On the drive we finished off the Bourne movie trilogy, 2 movies in a row, and it was fantastically distracting.
Puerto Viejo, on the caribbean coast, was kind of shady town to say the least but was still fun. I was offered drugs multiple times, but that will happen in a Rastafarian-dominated place. We had dinner and went out on the town.
saturday: We got up early and drove to Cahuita national park to go snorkeling. I finally got some fins that were actually the correct size and a better snorkel which made me very happy. We saw lots of coral and fish, and even a decent sized stingray in the water. The water was very shallow water compared to the Osa, but was kind of murky. After snorkeling for a while, we had to switch out with this other group so we sat on the beach for awhile. There, we came face to face with white face monkeys right next to us. I could have touched them if I wanted, and they were obviously used to human interaction. They even tried to steal this lady's purse. We also saw a yellow eyelash pit viper (a very small but bright yellow cool snake) and a sloth that was high up in the tree.
sunday: After very little sleep we got up to eat breakfast and a small group went to the actual town of Manzanillo. We went on a little walk to see Panama and this cool view. It was very hot. We also walked around the town and surrounding houses and saw some interesting things. We went back to our hotel for lunch where I had a great hamburger, hung out at the pool and ocean, and relaxed again which was glorious. This was one of the first times that we could actually just sit around and relax and not have to be going going going doing lots of different activities. We ate a good dinner (our hotel had fantastic food), watched strange movies on tv while falling asleep, and made a bonfire on the beach. I slept really well.
monday: Drove back to Puerto Viejo to hang out for 2 hours and eat lunch, JC/me/paul/peter rented moped/scooter things for an hour whcih was the best thing ever. Everyone except me had near-death experiences, right in front of the place we rented them from. We also ate at Peace & Love Pizzeria, which was some of the best pizza I've ever consumed. Then we drove home. It was a good day
saturday: We got up early and drove to Cahuita national park to go snorkeling. I finally got some fins that were actually the correct size and a better snorkel which made me very happy. We saw lots of coral and fish, and even a decent sized stingray in the water. The water was very shallow water compared to the Osa, but was kind of murky. After snorkeling for a while, we had to switch out with this other group so we sat on the beach for awhile. There, we came face to face with white face monkeys right next to us. I could have touched them if I wanted, and they were obviously used to human interaction. They even tried to steal this lady's purse. We also saw a yellow eyelash pit viper (a very small but bright yellow cool snake) and a sloth that was high up in the tree.
After lunch we drove to Manazillo, a very small town close to Puerto Viejo. It was what one of our teachers refered to as a "postcard beach". Our hotel, Hotel Las Palmas, was amazing, very nice accommodations. It was definitely the best place we had stayed at which made everyone happy. The beach was clean and isolated so there were no large groups of tourists, no sketchy people trying to sell drugs or crappy crafts, just the ocean and nice hotel rooms. It was great. A group of us stayed up all night to attempt to see the sunrise over the ocean, but we were up and the cloud cover prevented us from seeing it happen unfortunately.
sunday: After very little sleep we got up to eat breakfast and a small group went to the actual town of Manzanillo. We went on a little walk to see Panama and this cool view. It was very hot. We also walked around the town and surrounding houses and saw some interesting things. We went back to our hotel for lunch where I had a great hamburger, hung out at the pool and ocean, and relaxed again which was glorious. This was one of the first times that we could actually just sit around and relax and not have to be going going going doing lots of different activities. We ate a good dinner (our hotel had fantastic food), watched strange movies on tv while falling asleep, and made a bonfire on the beach. I slept really well.
monday: Drove back to Puerto Viejo to hang out for 2 hours and eat lunch, JC/me/paul/peter rented moped/scooter things for an hour whcih was the best thing ever. Everyone except me had near-death experiences, right in front of the place we rented them from. We also ate at Peace & Love Pizzeria, which was some of the best pizza I've ever consumed. Then we drove home. It was a good day
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