a little bit soggy

Well, as I sit here typing this, I am soaked from about the waist down. This morning was probably the sunniest (most sunny? I know...I'm the English teacher) start to a day I've had since I've been here. Hardly a cloud in the sky as our group of 5 volunteers left the office in San Pedro to catch a bus to meet up with the rest of our group outside the McDonalds in the Pedestrian Walkway of San Jose. Even though it was warm, I was glad to be a little sweaty as last week was so cold and rainy. And by cold, I mean high 60s.

We continued walking the 10 city blocks to our next bus. Once aboard, I talked with some of the new volunteers about my time here - things to do, things to avoid, places I've stayed, hostels and weekend trips I would recommend, etc. Forty minutes later, we arrived in Carpio. Two of the boys we see every day were waiting to walk us to the church building. Normally the pastor meets us, but he wasn't there yesterday, and the boys told us he wasn't there today either. I found out later talking to a couple of the women there that he wouldn't be there for the rest of the week, which is really sad because I won't get to say goodbye to that sweet old man! :(

This week, the kids are back in school. The last two weeks they had been on vacaction (similar to our 2 week off during Christmas because this is their winter...they get three months off during their summer/our winter). During the last two weeks, the building was always packed with volunteers and kids ranging in age from 2-15. But yesterday, there were more volunteers than kids. Today, however, there were a few more kids, so I quickly grabbed some of the worksheets I had copied off on family member terms and sat down at a table with some of the kids and jumped into a lesson. Fortunately, the kids were eager to learn. A lot of the kids come just to play, which is totally fine because part of the intent of us being there is to provide an alternative to kids just being on the streets all day. But I love it when I can grab a few that are interested in learning something English and teaching them and playing games and coming up with stuff on the spot.

So after about 45 minutes, we had gone over family terms on notecards that they could take home and then the worksheet, which was identifying people in a family tree. They were all eager to have me grade them, and of course they all got a star, a smiley face, and a "100%"...they were very insistent about the 100%. :)

It's been very fun speaking in Spanish with them. I've even gotten to translate back and forth a bit between the volunteers who know very little Spanish and the kids who have questions for them. I'm hoping to take my camera tomorrow to snap a few shots of the kids and of Carpio.

On our way home, a few of us decided to do some souvenier shopping in a couple of the markets. We got inside the first one and started browsing and perusing our options when the monsoon hit. The rain here is so different than in Portland. Before I came, when I heard that it was the rainy season here and that it was recommended we need an umbrella, I thought to myself, "Psh...I'm from Portland, I can handle some rain." But I'm soooooo glad I did bring one (not that I couldn't have bought one from the 20 venders that I pass every day). It didn't look like it was going to let up anytime soon, so we decided to brave the downpour. We tried to jump over the puddles and rivers that were forming in the streets as lightning flashed and thunder boomed around us. In the first 10 seconds, my capris were wet from the knees down, and by the time we made it back to the busses (we decided to forego until tomorrow the other market), I was soaked from the waist down. Fortunately, Costa Ricans know how to prepare for the rain as the things that I had purchased had been vaccum-sealed in plastic! :)

The weather here ranges to the extremes throughout the day. Yesterday it was beautiful and sunny in the morning, downpouring for a couple hours in the afternoon, warm and pleasant as I walked and rode the bus home, and then last night we had one of the most intense thunder and lightning storms I've ever been in. Lightning would flash for several seconds and then seconds later, there may as well have been bombs dropping. And I thought Portland weather was skitzofrenic.

My time here has gone so quickly. Only two more days here and with the kiddos and then back home. What a wonderful experience it has been - I feel like God has been so gracious in so many ways. So many little things that could have been an issue that God spared me from having to deal with...I'm truly grateful. It has been so much fun experiencing a culture that is very different from ours. When I start to get homesick or miss "normal life", I try to remind myself that I may never have this opportunity again, so to soak it in as much as I can. Even if I am sick of having rice and beans for every single meal. :)

Thanks for reading and for praying. Can't wait to share more stories with you in person! :)

Arenal and La Fortuna

Crossing the rope bridge on our hike near La Fortuna Waterfall...

...in the middle of the jungle!

Arenal Volcano

Here are a few more pics from my weekend. There are more on facebook, and I will upload the rest when I get home next week.

I had an early start Saturday morning after a very interrupted night's sleep. I was worried that my alram wasn't going to go off at 5:00 for my 5:30am pickup, so after about 12:18ish, I slept really lightly, checking the time every time I woke up. At around 3 something, I was startled awake by a really loud noise and my first instinct was to feel if it was an earthquake. I don't konw why that was my first instinct, but it was. After assessing that it was not an earthquake, I lay there wide awake, not sure what had just made that horribly loud noise. But this morning, my host mom mentioned that sometimes cats jump on the roof, so that's probably what it was. Their roofs are made out of rippled metal (I'm sure there's a better name for it, but that's all I got). :)

At last, 5:00 came and my alarm went off. I got ready, checked off the last few items on my packing list and went outside to wait. The van soon arrived with my 3 other traveling companionsinsided, butwe had 3 more stops and 5 more people to pick up. Finally, we dropped them off at their bus stop, and then we arrived at ours. We were all a little nervous if we would be able to get tickets for the 6:15 bus to La Fortuna because for whatever reason, you can't buy those ahead of time. and our extra stops had not afforded us much of an early arrival to getin line. Thankfully, we were able to get the tickets and find seats next to one another.

Contrary to our bus driver on the way home from Manuel Antonio, this driver seemed much more cautious and tended to slam on the breaks if there was oncoming traffic though a narrow section in the road. We made multiple stops along our way, continuing to pick people up until soon every seat was taken and the aisle was FULL of people standing. This ride felt so much longer than the 4.5 hours that it was because we kept making stops or slowing down, and every time the driver would put on the breaks, they would wail and vibrate as if they were in pain.

However despite so many stops, the countryside along the way was absolutely beautiful. Green hills of grass and trees and wide leaves from palm trees and other plants I've never seen before stretched for miles. The houses we passed were all bright and different colors - pinks, blues, greens, yellos, oranges, and more. In the US, we build up roads to make a more direct route, but here the roads follow the natural contours of the landscape, winding back and forth inefficiently. So at one point, there is a cliff to your right and a valley to your left, and 5 minutes later it's reversed. And when Arenal came into view, it continued to change windows as we snaked through the valleys.

Finally we made it to Arenal. Many who joined us along the way stood for the whole journey...I was very thankful for a seat to sit in! The humidity had picked up about an hour before we arrived, and when we got off the bus, we were all pretty hot and sticky.

We soon found our hostel that some friends had recommended we stay. It's called Backpackers Resort - the 5 star hostel of Costa Rica. And it was pretty great! The rooms were for 8 people so we ended up spending the night with 4 other people, but they all seemed pretty normal, which was comforting. :) There were some lockers in our adjoining bathroom, so we were able to lock our valuables in there.

We went in search of the best deal for a night hike and hot springs. I was really hoping to see the lava flowing at night. We ended up finding a guide who for $35 would take us on a night tour and then to Baldi Hot Springs resort and a buffet dinner. I personally would have preferred the $10 option which was a night tour of the volcano and a natural hot spring (Baldi is basically a water park in a resort), but the others really wanted this option, so I didn't really have a choice. :)

We were picked up by our Spanish-speaking guide and along the way, he stopped at a river that was naturally hot. We got out of the car and walked down to this place where a cold river meets a hot river - it was pretty amazing! I've never seen anything like that before. We kept driving and at one point, the guide pulls his car over and gets out to pick some fruit from a tree. This would have been really cool, except that he was totally stealing. The tree was part of someone's orchard as there was barb-wire fence that he had to crawl through. I wasn't so sure about it, and I really didn't want to get sick on top of stealing, so I opted to not eat the fruit that was not ripe and had worm holes in it.

We kept driving down a very bumpy, gravelly, rocky road until he parked and we started our hike. We trekked through the forest for an hour or so, and the guide pointed out various things to us along the way. Even though he didn't speak any English, I understood most of what he was saying most of the time. One of the girls I was with this weekend is fluent in Spanish...in fact, English is her fourth language. :) So we were always able to communicate easily with locals, which was very handy.

After a long and difficult but fun hike, we made it to the viewpoint which was as far as the guides would take us for safety reasons. It was really beautiful to see, but after 2ish hours of no action, we were very ready to leave. It started raining too, so our hike back was wet and muddy, but not too cold which is the nice thing about the rain here...it's not normally cold.

He took us to Baldi Hot Springs where we had a couple of hours to eat dinner and then swim in the 20 + hot springs (pools). The dinner was great as we were all starving, and then we put on our swim suits and wandered from pool to pool. They even had 3 different slides - we went down the most extreme one, of course. It was very fun and very relaxing to rest in the hot springs. Then back to our hostel for some sleep!!!

Yesterday, we went on a hike to La Fortuna Waterfall. After we paid for our tickets into the park, we had to sign a waiver claiming we wouldn't sue if we got hurt...I thought that was a little weird, but once we made it down the 500 (literally) steps to the waterfall, I understood. You can swim in the pool where the waterfall cascades into and if you're not careful, the water will pummel you into the rocks. We continued hiking past the waterfall and came to a shallow river where more people were swimming. One of the front-desk workers at our hostel had told us about a trail we could hike that was on the other side of this river that not a lot of people knew about, so we crossed the river and kept hiking. He was right that it was not well-known as we didn't see anyone else until we came to the very end.

The forest was beautiful and eventually we came to the rope bridge (I have pictures on it). We decided to cross it and continue on. The hike got insanely steep, but at the end, we came to a view point where we could see another waterfall, so it was worth it. We eventually made our way back, stopping for a bit at the river and waterfall pool so one of the other girls could swim for a few minutes. But then we were on our way back to our hostel where we grabbed our things, stopped at a restaurant for some lunch to go, and then on our return bus to San Jose.

Four and a half hours later, we were back in San Jose, in a taxi, and soon home. It was a great weekend! I'm so glad I've gotten to travel on the weekends, as it has felt like more of a vacation than during the week when I'm in the city and working with the kids.

We have the day off again today, so I am going to try and spend some time working on lessons for the week and just relaxing and reading.

I can't believe it's my last week here...I feel so much more adjusted now. While I can't wait to see my friends and family, I am going to miss being here and having these experiences that are so different than my normal life.

Alright, well I've hogged the computer long enough. Thanks for reading this incredibly long post. :)

Hasta Luego!