Adventures in the Rainforest

This last weekend I went to Monteverde to hang out in the rainforest. My adventures began with a five and a half hour bus ride from San Jose to the forest. Half of the trip was on windy dirt roads in the mountains and there was no air conditioning on the bus. Ugh. Then I finally made it to my hotel. This cute, little, old, grouchy dog was my hotel's little guardito. He is adorable, but he bites.

On Saturday, I took a trail through the rainforest. It was so green and beautiful.


I know it is hard to see in this picture, but this a picture of one of the bright green suspension bridges I walked on to see the forest. They are really, really high, and they sway a little in the wind. I was trying really hard not to look straight down, but looking out was beautiful.


This is a fallen tree. As one of the guides said, "Everything in the rainforest is recycled; trees, leaves, even lost tourists, so don't get lost!" You can see all the vines, ferns and orchids growing off this dead trunk.


This plant is called Lady's Lips. The guide joked that they call it the Angelina Jolie plant. These grow all over in the forest.


Later I went to the Ranario, where they have different kinds of frogs. Unfortunately I had to go during the day, so most of the frogs were sleeping and were very difficult to photograph. This is a picture of the red-eyed tree frog that you see in so many postcards and t-shirts. It looks different because it is sleeping. Doesn't he do a great job blending into his environment during the day?


This is another cute little tree frog. I say a lot more, but they were really hard to get pictures of, so you don't get to see any really poisonous or colorful frogs. But this guy was definitely posing for my picture.


I also went to the Orchid Garden which was incredible because all they had to do to grow the orchids was tie them to a stick, and they just grow there. That is also how they grow in the rainforest. They attach themselves to the trunk of a tree and their roots pull moisture out of the air.


This pretty orchid is the one that smelled the very best. I wish I could put the scent on my blog too because it was so nice. Most of the orchids only put out a scent at night to attract insects to pollinate them. And some of them definitely have better scents than others. One smelled like soap, but the strangest one was a little orchid that smells like blood at night to attract insects. Yuck!


This orchid is an endangered species and can only be found in Costa Rica. Isn't it pretty?


And I had to take a picture of this Lady's Slipper. Do you think this slipper would fit on Cinderella?

And last, but not least, instead of trying to take pictures of the hummingbirds (which resulted in many, many blurry shots and a severe headache), I took a video of them. I hope you can see them all right. Their colors are so vibrant and different from the ones we have at home. Enjoy!

Indiana Box and the Jungle of Doom

I thought I'd tell you all about my wild weekend adventures in Costa Rica. I did feel a little like Indiana Jones at times because my weekend involved both ancient artifacts and tropical jungles. On Friday, I went to downtown San Jose with a couple of my classmates. First we went to the National Museum which is housed in this amazing Spanish fort:


They had a great collection of ancient artifacts, including gold and jade pieces, pottery and metates.


Metates are used for grinding corn, but these intricate metates were buried with the dead so that they would have food in the afterlife. They are made of volcanic rock.



Some of the English translations in the Museum were pretty interesting, but this was my favorite.


This is the view of downtown San Jose from the balcony of the fort. You can tell that is is almost lunch time because it is so cloudy, but generally it doesn't start raining until around two or three in the afternoon.


This is a beautiful statue in the plaza in the middle of the fort.


After visiting the museum, we ate lunch and then starting walking around downtown. In the parks and pedestrian streets of San Jose, they have a bunch of cows that have been decorated by various local artists. This is a Frog-Cow:


This is the Cow Diva. Isn't she fancy?


There were also some beautiful artistic cows:




And some goofy cows:


I loved the Taxi Cow, complete with license plate:


Next, Cow Kabob and Butcher Shop Cow. These two are a little morbid, but so funny:



And that was basically the end of Friday. After spending the whole day in the city, my classmate, Bette, and I decided to get out of town on Saturday. Our tour left at six in the morning for breakfast in a coffee plantation. This is a picture of how they lay the coffee out to dry:


This is a picture of a coffee plant. Can you see the little coffee beans? They are green, like almost everything else in Costa Rica.


And in between the rows of coffee plants, they plant banana trees to take up the extra moisture from the ground.


After Bette, the coffee aficionado, loaded up on coffee to bring home, we went to the crater of Poas Volcano. Here is a picture of the crater:


Don't worry! Although the volcano is active, it's main form of activity is emitting a fumarole, not lava. And here is a closer picture of the fumarole:


After visiting the volcano, we went to La Paz waterfalls. They have very pretty recycling containers there. After all if they can recycle here in the rainforest, can't we be better too?


This is a picture of the very awesome bathroom sink! You turn the little rock with a frog on it, and the water comes down the little waterfall. I thought it was so cute, but I can only imagine what the bathroom attendant was thinking as she showed every single person who used the bathroom how to turn on the water.


At La Paz, we went to the aviary where we saw some beautiful little birds:




And some beautiful big birds. I was three feet away from this toucan, and although there is wire behind him preventing him from flying away, there was nothing between me and the bird. His huge beak made me a little nervous, but isn't he beautiful?


After the aviary, we visited the butterfly garden where there were hundreds of butterflies fluttering by the lovely flowers:




There was also this friendly little monkey who wanted to say hello:


After the butterfly garden (can you tell this was a really long day?), we went to the hummingbird garden. Unlike the other gardens, this garden was not surrounding by any kind of net or wire to keep the hummingbirds in. There were just tons of feeders that attracted them. So all the hummingbirds flitting around were native to the area, but only one of them would hold still long enough for me to get a decent picture:


And during lunch, I had a little visitor. Mmm. . . tasty!


Here is a cute little (not poisonous) tree frog we saw:


As you can tell from the pictures, we really were in the jungle. Here is one of the three incredible waterfalls:


And here is a cute little guy (I can't remember what the name of the animal is, but our guide said he is in the raccoon family) who decided to say hello:


And last, but not least, we ended the day by taking a boat ride down the Sarapiqui River. We saw a lot of iguanas and howler monkeys, but none of the pictures turned out very well.


I guess I'll have to try next weekend for some good monkey pictures. I hope you enjoy these pictures, and I'll keep them coming!

Now I know the way to San Jose!

Here are the promised pictures! This is a photo of the most tropical bird I have seen so far. It is made out of a tire and hangs in the back patio of the Costa Rica Language Academy.


This is a cute fountain that is also in the back patio of CRLA. It's so green here!


This is the back of CRLA, which is kind of our home base. My law class is actually at the InterAmerican Court of Human Rights, but we have a one hour Spanish class here in the afternoon. There are lockers, the internet and a cafe, so it's pretty much where everyone hangs out during the day.


I love that here, in the eco-tourism capital of the world, there is recycling. My host Mom recycles too. I love it.


Also, the fabulous exciting thing I did last week was get a pedicure. I tried to take a picture, but it didn't turn out very well. They are pink with white tips and cute little white flowers, AND it only cost six dollars! I was so happy when I found that out. If only they were the same price at home.

I haven't made it into downtown San Jose yet, or ventured farther away, but I am hoping to plan a fun excursion for this weekend. For now, I spend most of my evenings reading for class, so I don't really have a lot of free time. It is starting to thunder now, and the rain will probably start in about twenty minutes. Right on time.

My First Days in Costa Rica

¡Hola! First of all, let me apologize for the lack of pictures. I haven´t been brave enough to venture to school with my laptop yet, and this computer doesn´t have a usb port. So no pictures... yet. To clear up some confusion, here are some facts about Costa Rica:

Costa Rica is a country in Central America in between Nicaragua and Panama. It is not an island, but there are some islands that are part of it. I am staying in San Jose, which is in the middle of the country and surrounded by mountains. It is winter here until about November, which means that it is hot in the morning and rains like crazy in the afternoon. It also gets dark very early. Costa Rica is not a commonwealth of the U.S., but it is the oldest democratic government in Central America. The currency here is the colon, and the exchange rate is about 520 colones to the dollar.

It was dark when I flew in to San Jose, so I didn´t get to see anything. At the airport, a driver from the school met me and drove me to my host family. My Costa Rica mama is Maritza, and she takes very good care of me, especially when we cross the street. The drivers here are a little crazy and there are not very good sidewalks or crosswalks. Her son, Manuel, is 20 and is studying business. He speaks English very well. Utako is another girl who is staying with my family, and she is from Japan. She is very nice, but she doesn´t speak very much English and I have a hard time understanding her Spanish.

On my first full day here, I visited the school where I will be taking Spanish classes. Then I had lunch with Maritza, her brother, her sister and her mother. They are all very nice and Maritza makes me feel very welcome. I have had a hard time getting used to the food here, and it isn´t all rice and beans (I haven´t even eaten one bean here yet, though Maritza says some people have rice and beans for every meal). It rains a ton every afternoon, and the thunder is REALLY loud. I jump when it is so loud, but no one else does. I guess they are all used to it.

Today I went to the place where my law classes will be held, and then Maritza and I had lunch at the mall. Quizno´s tasted so good. We had a long day walking around and riding the bus, but it was fun. I hope everyone is doing well, and I will try to post some pictures soon!