The Caribbean

we just got back from the caribbean which was awesome.

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.

 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

The weekend (aka saturday-weds)

On Saturday we went to the pacuare river to white water raft. It was about an hour and a half away from San Jose, up more mountains and around windy roads which we’ve become accustomed to. We had to get up really early again in order to leave by 6:30 to make it for breakfast at the white water rafting place. We tried to get only guys in our raft in order to paddle stronger and faster, and we almost succeeded but didn’t. We had a little briefing session in the van on the way up to the river., but not super detailed. Once again I felt unsafe, but oh well. There were class 2-4 rapids Most people in our boat got tossed out at one point or another, and it was really really fun. Probably one of my favorite parts of this entire trip. Going down the river, we were in the middle of the jungle which was quite breathtaking. Unfortunately, my camera is not waterproof so I have no pictures. We even got to see native Costa Ricans (like indians) along the side of the river at points which was pretty cool. We were in the middle of absolutely nowhere. Our guide was great, and nobody was seriously injured thankfully. We ate lunch on the river and swam around, and after lunch we rafted for another hour. I realized that being in the front of the boat is 50 times more fun than being in the back because you get splashed and its just out of control. After we finished, we went back to San Jose and pretty much everyone just crashed at home since we had to get up even earlier the next day to leave for the Osa Peninsula on the pacific coast near Panama.

Sunday, we had a very long bus ride to the Osa Peninsula, including a moment when we had to get off the bus so it could "perform a somewhat dangerous manuever" which involved students pushing the bus from behind so it could bottom out on a tiny bridge. We had to ride on boats to get to the town we were staying in on the peninsula, and the ride was really fun. We went through a forest on the boat (pictures to explain that will come later) and got to go pretty fast out on the open ocean. We got to our camp/tents/nice place that would serve as our hotel for 3 days and everyone got to relax which was wonderful. Dinner was delicious too which made the travel day much better.

Monday we had another early morning, around 7am, to go to the corcovado national park which we had to ride a boat to. This trip has been so crazy for our normal schedules as college students considering all the early mornings. There were 3 groups of about 10 students, and luckily I had a really crazy guide who also worked at the hotel we stayed at. He was in tune with nature to the fullest and hadn't worn shoes voluntarilly in 15 years. He let us on the trail and had us eat termites if we wanted (which taste like wood/dirt but are extremely healthy), eat some kind of muscle thing that was growing on a rock in the ocean, and swim in the this swimming hole that was at the base of a stream coming out of the peninsula that lead to the ocean. We saw lots of bugs like spiders and leaf cutter ants and even a jaguar footprint in the dirt. We also saw tracks of the Tapir on the sand. The Tapir is the largest mammal in the park, and kind of looks like an anteater. We headed back for lunch and saw a half-eaten sea otter that we had to wade past which was pretty repulsive. After we ate lunch and hung out at the beach, all the groups went to the waterfall. My crazy guide lead a small group of us from this little waterfall everyone was at (about 6 feet tall) to a the huge waterfall upstream that was probably 30-40 feet tall. We climbed up rock faces and there were multiple times that I thought I was going to slip and fall off of it and die, but luckily there were no fatalities. After the waterfall visit we took the boats back to our hotel and played cards until dinner and after dinner. This weekend was full of more cards than I've ever played in my lifetime probably.

The next day we went by boat to rainy boat ride to the island where we went snorkeling. The water was clear blue which was gorgeous, and the coral reef we were over was pretty far down so to get a close look at the fish you had to dive down a little bit. We also hung out on the beach for a little bit and then went home early for fear of being trapped on the island by what seemed to be an incoming storm. Most people went to sleep in their tents when we got home but I wasn't tired so I read outside and thoroughly enjoyed the awesome view from my deck. I slept a little before dinner since everyone else was still sleeping and then hung out with everyone at night.

On wednesday we road the boat back to the town where we left our bus and had the longest bus ride ever. It was a long day.

itinerary until i leave
Thursday, June 5, Leave to La Selva Research Station, Caribbean (BRING MU T-SHIRT)
Friday-sunday, chill in the puerto viejo, go to banana plantations,
Monday, June 9, Return to San Jose
Tuesday, June 10, Class, Lunch, Class
Wed, June 11, Evals., Group Reports, lunch, Final Exam
Thur, June 12, Poas and water falls visit (no swimming) (BRING MU T-SHIRT)
Fri, June 13, Free day, packing, Farewell Dinner
Sat, June 14, fly home

Manuel Antonio fotos

cocodrillos (crocs) in the dirty river
dirty croc river. they were massive.
the tiniest croc next to the malnourished cows
small croc next to big croc.
view from our hotel, this is as sunny as it got the whole time. probably raining in this p
the town of Manuel Antonio, that i thought would be resorty. it was not.

dinner time pictures. morell, heidi, me, jon campbell, and paul
monkey road kill. sorry but i had to.
wrestling match. bad idea.
hanging out outside. me, stephanie, steve, and diane.
another view from the hotel
on the beach walking toward the national park
pacific ocean, for the first time in my life. pretty cool even though it was overcast.
cool rocks in the ocean
mas
mas
forest.
another lovely view. it was still pretty even though we had crappy weather.
if you look closely, there are 3 little black dots in the brightness on a branch in the top middle of this picture. those are howler monkeys, and this giant branch almost crushed us when it fell and they screamed and it was one of the most intense moments ive ever had.
me posing on the rock everyone else posed on too oceano pacifico
playa y oceano pacifico
another view
i think there is a white face monkey in this picture. right in the middle at the top, a black dot-ish thing. sorry, i tried.
upper left corner, small rodent-esque animal thingy. very hard to see, well camoflaged.
mas playa y oceano
flores
hotel pool. rain on the water.

final view of manuel antonio. thank you tropical depression/storm thing for giving us tons and tons of rain.

Monteverde Cloud Forest fotos

cute puppies at the pitstop on the death ride to monteverde. for the record, puppies are and will always be cuter than babies. hands down.
first sign of clouds entering the cloud forest. the first sign of the incredible non-stop wetness we were about to experience for 2 days. mas clouds
carmen and morell after the tarzan swing at the zipline tour place. it was cool to say the least. notice the wetness

1/2 of carmen, morell, evan, and I after doing the tarzan swing. notice the wetness

bug on the night time forest tour. notice the wetness.

tree frog. its tough to take clear pictures at night using flashlights instead of camera flashes which we weren't allowed to use for some reason. notice the wetness.

a caterpillar that had been eaten from the inside out. pretty cool. notice the wetness.

tarantula. guess i got over my fear of spiders?

it was pretty cool. it only comes out at night because sometimes if they come out during the day a huge wasp will come, stun the tarantula, pick them up (spider is about the size of your palm) and fly it somewhere, inject its babies into it, the spider would wake up, and 2 months later hundreds of wasp babies would burst out of the tarantula killing it. nasty but cool.

my night time tour group and guide. notice the wetness.

selva (forest) in the morning

what tarzan supposedly swang around the forest on

caterpillar of some sort that was alive. whoops, my flash went off so i could finally get a clear picture.jon campbell in front of the strangler fig tree, hollow in the middle because the tree let things grow up beside it, get to the top to take in the sun, they throw their roots down the side of the tree, eventually the middle of the tree rots out and dies, often times bats live in here.famous female Quetzal through the telescope, didnt get a pic of the male

female Quetzal in the tree

plant of some sort

different plant of some sortmy early morning (6am) tour group

leaving the cloud forest.

leaving the cloud forest. notice the wetness. still. everything i brought on this trip got soaked.

cool river on the ride home

man with horse and dog on the drive home