Adventuras en la jungla!

Yay! I found some photos we had on a CD, so you can be entertained until we home on Saturday. These are from Tortuguero, where we spent the weekend, literally in the jungle. The hotel we stayed in was spread out and more like a bunch of cabins surrounded by rain forest. It was practically impossible for us to fall asleep because during the night, the monkeys were screaming and running across the roof.


This is a caiman. They have caimans and crocodiles in Tortuguero, but no alligators. I think these guys are scary enough.


Every night we could also hear the frogs croaking. This frog is called the Blue Jeans frog. Can you guess why?


And here is a picture of the Red-Eyed Tree Frog. His picture turns up everywhere on things in Costa Rica, so he's pretty famous. And he isn't poisonous.


We loved the monkeys even though they were noisy. Mom liked to sit on the porch outside our door, with her entourage of hotel dogs (pictures of the dogs will have to wait), and watch the monkeys.


In fact, we were so inspired by the monkeys that we decided to zip through the trees just like they do. Here are some funny pictures of us flying down the zip line in the canopy of the rain forest.


We felt perfectly outfitted to work for the electric company. I bet all the monkeys were watching us and laughing, but it was really fun.


And Saturday night we went on the turtle tour to see the green sea turtles nesting. We don't have any pictures of the turtles because no cameras are allowed on the beach. The tour was in the middle of the night. It was really dark and the only person who is allowed to carry a flashlight is the guide. The flashlight only has a dim red light, so it doesn't frighten the turtles away, but there isn't really enough light to see where you're going. So when we went on the turtle tour, the guide said we were a little late and we had to hurry to the beach. We were practically running through the town and the forest and the beach in the darkness, trying desperately to keep up with the guide so we could be closer to the flashlight. Then when we got to the beach, we got to see a turtle laying her eggs. She was 1.7 meters long. I was really surprised that the turtles were so big. We also heard another turtle digging a nest behind us, and we saw another turtle pull herself down the beach and into the sea. It was really a great experience.

Alright...I promise more pictures this weekend! We'll see you soon!

Sorry guys!

I know you are all eagerly awaiting news of what Mom and I have been up to in Costa Rica. Unfortunately we have been taking all the pictures with Mom's camera, and she doesn't have the camera cord to put the pictures on the computer. So you will all have to wait until after we get home on Saturday to see our really neat pictures. Just so you know how exciting the upcoming post will be, here is what we have been doing:

Arenal Volcano: The morning after Mom got to San Jose, we left bright and early for Arenal Volcano, where we spent all day hanging out in Tabacon Hot Springs. It was so beautiful because you're basically sitting in different parts of the river, but the water is really hot. It gets cooler as you go downstream, but not much cooler.

Tortuguero: We spent this last weekend in Tortuguero basically in the middle of the jungle. We had a really hard time sleeping because the monkeys were screaming, the frogs were croaking, the birds were singing, the bugs were making whatever kind of weird noises bugs make, and the guy next door was snoring really really loud. We saw all kinds of fun animals, and even went to Tortuguero beach in the middle of the night to see the green sea turtles nesting. One of the days, we decided to do as the monkeys do, and we went on zip lines through the rain forest canopy. When we went walking through the mud in the middle of the rain forest, we even saw poison dart frogs. Lanna-don't worry! We didn't touch them!

I can't wait to come home and see all of you again! And I know you are all sitting on the edge of your seats, eagerly anticipating our exciting photos. I promise I'll get them up as soon as I can!

Bumming Around Downtown

After the trip to Manuel Antonio last weekend, I decided to pick an activity that was a little easier on my stomach, so my buddies and I decided to bum around downtown. Our first stop was the gold museum, where they have lots of ...gold!


Look how cute these little gold and jade frogs are!


These are some pretty scary gold crocodiles.


And for your viewing pleasure, more frogs! Can you tell which animal I liked the most?


After being blinded by all the shiny yellow stuff at the museum, we started walking toward the National Theater to have a cup of coffee (or in my case, some tasty mango juice). In the square next to the theater, there are tons of people feeding the pigeons.


Yes, this is a pole-dancing cow!


There are even cows dressing up like pigeons!


The National Theater is really beautiful, quite possibly the most beautiful building in San Jose. It was built by the coffee barons, so if you were wondering where the money you spent on coffee went, here it is.


I love all the marble, statues and paintings. I can't wait to see a show here!

This is their gorgeous coffee shop where I got to enjoy my fancy schmancy mango juice.


The statues on top of the building are so fancy that even the pigeons wanted to adore them.

Here is the outside of the building. It's so pretty and the front is a public square.


After that, it was about 2:00, which in Costa Rica means it's time to start raining, so it was time to head home. No more bumming around.

I've never been to Hawaii...

...but I'm already convinced that Manuel Antonio is one of the best places in the world to spend a vacation. This is where I spent last weekend with my friend, Jess. After suffering through the four hour bus ride (and four hours of extreme motion sickness), we finally arrived in Jurassic Park Paradise Friday evening. The beaches were absolutely gorgeous, not crowded and a good place for spotting animals.


We saw a lot of these osos perezosos (sloths) hanging out all over the park. It was hard to notice them at first because they move so slowly.


The beach had lots of these cute little hermit crabs scuttling around.


And of course, no trip to Manuel Antonio would be complete without monkeys! We saw three different kinds in the park, but these white-faced monkeys were my favorites. See the grouchy look on the other monkey's face? He wants some coconut too.


We spent all day Saturday and all Sunday morning hiking around the park and lying on the beaches.


I thought I'd leave a message in the sand for all my poor landlocked buddies in Salt Lake.



While we didn't see any monkeys really close to the beach, we did see some really sneaky raccoons running off with a little boy's peanut butter sandwich.


Jess was really trying to watch out for the little girls with abnormally long arms, dogs, sloths and monkeys in the road.


And for those of you who were wondering what a $10 a night hotel looks like, this is it. Even though it wasn't particularly fancy, it was less than a block away from the park entrance.


Our room was so small that I couldn't get a good picture of the entire room, but here is Jess looking particularly gigantic in front of the itty bitty bathroom door. We had to duck to walk through the door. Our fancy digs included an icy cold shower, teeny ants on the floor and two geckos that liked to chirp in the middle of the night.


My favorite part of staying at this hotel was the yummy breakfast we had every morning. This is gallo pinto, cheese and bread served on a banana leaf which gives the food a very interesting flavor. We also had fresh guanavana juice each morning from the guanavana tree in the yard. The family who owned the hotel was so sweet and took great care of us.


I love throwing these random ocean pictures in here because they are so pretty. Enjoy!


Because Manuel Antonio looked just like where they filmed Jurassic Park (which I'm told actually was filmed in Costa Rica), I thought I'd post some pictures of the "dinosaurs" we saw. There were lots,

and lots,
and lots of lizards!

It was a pretty fantastic weekend, and I would highly recommend Manuel Antonio as a great vacation spot. I wanted to stay there forever, but I'm pretty sure that I wouldn't pass my Refugee Law class by lying on the beach all week. Too bad.

A Day in The Life...

So...I decided that I was spoiling all of you with my fancy weekend photos. Just so you don't get greedy for more fancy schmancy pictures, I thought I'd show you what my weekdays are like.

5:30a.m. I wake up because the sun is shining into my room through the skylight. I lie in bed until 7a.m. trying to go back to sleep because it's too early to wake up.

7:00a.m. My host brother, Manuel, is getting ready for work, which means he has turned on his salsa music and it is impossible to try to sleep any more. I get up and walk into the kitchen where I find my tasty breakfast waiting for me. This is fresh, homemade juice that my host mom, Maritza, made for me, a bowl of fresh mango, papaya, strawberries, bananas and pineapple, and a plate of gallo pinto (rice and beans) with scrambled eggs and bread. Yum!



8:15a.m. I leave the house to walk to the bus stop. Here is a picture of the house. By the way, the car belongs to the neighbors. I was slightly surprised to learn that Maritza does not know how to drive and doesn't have a driver's license. Manuel is just starting to learn how to drive because here you can get your license when you're 21. You'd think that by waiting to give people their licenses until they were older, there would be fewer accidents and safer drivers, but that is just not the case. Drivers here are crazy. Stop signs mean drive faster. Pedestrians NEVER have the right of way, and there are very few crosswalks. I'm still working on my street crossing skills.

This is a picture of the street where I live. I love all the different colored houses.



This is the sidewalk I walk down every day. You can tell it's the rainy season because the sidewalk and gutters are so green. Although the sidewalks are not well maintained (there are lots of big, random holes) and I am pretty accident-prone, I haven't fallen down yet. And at the very end of the sidewalk, across the street is the park where I catch the bus.




8:50a.m. I get off the bus and walk to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights or the Inter-American Institute of Human Rights where we have class until noon. This is the Court. I don't have a picture of the Institute, but it is equally white and impressive.



12:00p.m. I walk to Costa Rica Language Academy to have a cheap lunch (about $2.50 for a burrito and a drink) and try to get my reading done for the next day. Pretty, huh?


2:00p.m. It starts to rain. You can watch the video of the scary rain. It is so loud. And 2:00 is also when I make my daily phone call to Garrett. Sometimes the rain is so loud that I have to wait until it lightens up to call Garrett because even though I'm inside, he wouldn't be able to hear me.




3:00p.m. I have my Spanish class and then wait for the rain to lighten up enough for me to walk to the bus stop. When I finally get home around 5:30, Maritza is usually home from work and in the kitchen making a yummy dinner. I continue to read and study for class the next day.


8:00p.m. Maritza, Utako (the other girl who is living in the house) and I all sit down and watch Maritza's favorite novela, Nuevo Rico, Nuevo Pobre. I'm glad the acting is way over the top because it make it really easy to follow the story.



9:00p.m. Manuel comes home from the dance class he goes to after work. Maritza always meets him at the door. How sweet!


11:00p.m. After finally finishing my reading and outlining the cases for the next day, I finally try to sleep. I always put on my headphones so I don't have to listen to the neighbor's dog cry all night. I've never disliked a dog so much. He is sad because he is outside, but the porch is pretty big and covered and it's only around 70 degrees. So he's not wet or cold or cooped up, he's just sad that he's outside and has to let everyone know it. I really do not like that dog.

So that is my typical day. Pretty exciting, huh? No monkeys or rainforest, only nice people and lots of studying. But I'm really having a great time. If you've noticed, I added a new song to the blog. My Spanish teacher introduced me to this one, and I thought it was pretty cute.

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!