Roblealto y Arenal

After our trip to Poas and La Paz, we spent the following afternoon playing with kids at Roblealto ministry. We set up stations of different games and activities and really stretched our Spanish speaking and listening skills - the traffic next to the school was super loud!

I had the play dough station.

The next day after classes we left for a weekend trip to el Volcan Arenal. We stayed literally at the base of the volcano.  We swam and lounged in hot springs - which are naturally heated by the volcano.  The Saturday we were there was a busy day - we went horse back riding, zip lining, and had our own worship service in Senor K's room.  Horse back riding was not like the typical ride I'd experienced in the US. Instead of going on an extremely slow walk around some trail we got to actually gallop on our horses! It was a little scary, but really fun.  Zip lining over the canopy was the most amazing way to see it! We got strapped into our harnasses and were given a glove - which kind of reminded me of my throwing glove - to serve as our brake. We also got to do a tarzan swing over the tree tops at the end!


Katie in front of the volcano.



Me, Katie and Steve on our caballos.

Zip lining over the canopy.



Me, Steve, Jonny, and Irene with our glove-brakes.



Quick Update

Today marks day 2 in Quito! I arrived yesterday afternoon - I woke up at 4:15am in San Jose, went to the airport with all my Mayterm friends, flew to Panama City for my connecting flight and then flew here! I got in about 2pm yesterday and will be learning what I'm doing in the next couple days!

Everyone who was just in Costa Rica will appreciate this - the toilet paper in my bathroom here also has the pawprints and little dog with a stop sign on it :)

I'll be posting a final Costa Rica post, so it will be a little out of order, but just wanted to let everyone know I got here!

Everyday is a Bio-Blitz

So in addition to learning all about cafe yesterday, we also went to Poas Volcano and La Paz waterfalls and gardens.  The crater of Poas is 2574 meters above sea level (over 8000 feet!) and is in the tropical cloud forest (our guide very strongly stressed to us that jungles do not exist, there are different types of tropical forests).  We drove to the top and just had to walk about 15 minutes from the parkinglot.  Its one of the largest craters in the world (1 mile across).We were really lucky because only about 20% of tourists actually get to see the crater becuase it is often blocked by cloud cover.

The crater of Poas

Our timing was really just right becuase about 15 minutes after we got there, the clouds started to move in and you couldn't see anything.







Next we hiked over to the lagoon, which was so blue and beautiful.



Me and the lagoon.

We were really up in the clouds! Another view from the crater.

We then went to La Paz to see some waterfalls and lots of birds, butterflies, monkeys and jungle cats (the best part!).  We saw tucans, parrots, hummingbirds, a few different small monkeys, lots of butterflies, and ocelots, jaguars, and pumas!

Parrots!

Just a little friend we found.

The largest waterfall - about 120 feet!

Our guide told us there were tucans and three-cans...I only saw a tucan.



I want one.

I'm so glad that I was able to go on the day trip becuase I'd been pretty sick the day before. It was such a beautiful day of expolring and being reminded of God's amazing creativity!

If only I liked cafe...

We went to a coffee plantation today and learned all about cafe.  Here's how its made:
Step 1:

Grow coffee!
















Step 2:

Pick the coffee!

We were told that Costa Ricans don't like to pick coffee, so its mostly Nicaraguans who pick it. A person makes $20 a day picking coffee, and a good picker picks and fills about 10 of those baskets!

This is what a bean looks like when its ready to be picked.

Step 3:

Dry the coffee!

The coffee is dried by the sun. It is moved like this every 45 minutes for 5-6 hours (I think - I'm trying to remember all this information).

Dried coffee beans.

Step 4:

Roast the dried beans.

Ya esta!

I'm sure the coffee here is really good - but it all tastes like coffee to me (so not very good).

Domingo

After we got back from the beach we still had plenty to do on Sunday.  We went to a pentecostal church in our neighborhood which was very charismatic.  The worship was awesome - I love worshiping in Spanish and remembering that God understands every language.  One of the students told me that he didn't know exactly what he was singing, but he knew that God did.  We left the service early - after two hours...

Alexa and I at church.

The ruins at Cartago.

Then we got on a little tour bus and headed to Cartago, the original capital of Costa Rica.  We stopped to see the ruins of the church there.  The church had been badly damaged by an earthquake, rebuilt and then damaged again by another earthquake.  After the second earthquake the people just gave up on it and didn't bother fixing it again.  Unfortunately, it was closed so we couldn't see the inside at all, but the outside was still pretty cool.

Inside the manstion turned restaurant.

Next we headed to a coffee plantation for lunch.  The mansion of the plantation had been turned into a restaurant and was very pretty.  They also serve coffee flavored flan - which was ok (I'm not a huge flan fan) - and coffee grown at the plantation.  I tried a cup, but I still like the smell much better than the taste.

The cathedral in Cartago.

Last, we stopped at the Catholic cathdral in Cartago.  The cathedral is home of la Negrita - a small stone carving that is said to have healing powers.  There were cases of little charms that people had brought as a testament to being healed - lots of little silver legs, arms, eyes, etc.  The legend says that la Negrita was found by a little girl, and the girl tired to take her home, only to find she had disappeared and returned to the same spot where she'd originally found the statue.  After this happened a couple more times, they decided to build the cathedral in this spot.

Vamos a la playa!

We just got back from a short trip to the beach - Punta Leona - on the Pacific Coast. We took a private tour bus there, stopping to walk across a bridge and check out some cocodrillos.  This wasn't at all dangerous...we walked along this narrow sidewalk trying to avoid falling into the traffic or into the river with the crocodiles.  There were no casualities, for the record.  We arrived at the beach/resort Friday morning and had all day at the beach.  We played in the salty water, swam in the pools, and lounged on the sand.  We originally went to the playa blanca, only to discover this wasn't the beach Senor K had been telling us to go to, so we had a little adventure walking over to the other one during high tide.  It was great just relaxing and gettng out of the city to see the beautiful country.  Everything was so green! And it was super humid and hot.

Los cocodrillos en el rio.

On our way to the beach.

Treking to the playa blanca - we walked about 2K and sweated off all of our sunscreen.

La playa blanca.

Sunset at the main beach - unfortunately it was a little cloudy.

Typical Tico

It hasn't rained a lot since we arrived, but it has been quite a bit today...we got stuck at Pollo a la Lena eating churros.



I ate this for lunch today at La Cuchara de mi Abuela. Typical tico cuisine: rice, beans, meat...all for 2,000 colones!

This is my house! The walk to the front door is just through the brick pillars. The window on the front goes to my room.