I can’t believe that half my time in Costa Rica is already over. I’m very happy, and for reasons that will be discussed shortly, I am also finally very tan. It’s been good times all around.
Get comfy, this is going to be a long one.
2 weekends ago my friends Tom, Lauren, and I decided to go to Uvita. It’s a small, remote little town that took lots of time on rocky, dusty roads to get too. But it was absolutely worth it. There is a national park there which has spectacular, practically empty beaches, and some cool wildlife. It’s known for dolphins and mainly HUMPBACK WHALES! But unfortunately, the tours to see the whales were super expensive, so we opted to skip them and just explore. And explore we did! Everywhere we went was at least a 30 minute walk in the hot hot hot sun…and for some reason, I always found myself doing these treks in my flip flops and without water. I think we walked 15 miles, easy, over this one weekend. But we ended up at a gorgeous waterfall and swimming hole, which again, was totally empty. We also found a bamboo forest which was incredible and I want one in my backyard one day. And on a failed attempt to walk to a mangrove swamp (that we don’t think actually exists), we found another totally empty beach to play in. Our hostel was awesome with tons of hammocks everywhere, free coffee 24/7, and bunnies, so needless to say I was in heaven. We also did a pretty intense hike to see the sunset one night…I thought I was going to pass out halfway up the mountain, but I ended up getting the most incredible sunset pictures, and it really sounded like we were in the middle of the jungle. I took a video just so ya’ll can hear the amazing wildlife around us. There was even a howler monkey in the background. Pretty sweet stuff.
So we return home Sunday night, and I’m totally exhausted after our weekend and 8ish hours on a bus. I walk into my casa around 9:25, ready to make some tea, do some reading for the upcoming week, and go to bed. Yet I had no such luck. At 9:30, my phone rings, and mamatica says it’s for me. I pick up and hear tons of voices in the background, yelling all at once for me to come over to Monroe’s house. I was totally beat, but she lives next door so I went.
Now let me backtrack for a second. My friend Kate had a friend from home, Christina, coming to visit, and they were going to skip the whole week to go to Manuel Antonio, the beach I went to my first weekend here. She had already told our professors that she wouldn’t be in class, and everything was taken care of. They were planning to stay with our friend Meagan, who was already in Manuel Antonio since her family was up visiting. A few of us were going to meet them in another beach town on the Nicoya Peninsula, Montezuma, the following weekend.
More background: there are 12 of us on the program, and we’re split up into 2 programs, human development and environmental sustainability. I’m in the human rights program.
Ok so back to Monroe’s…I walk in to find Kate and Christina, and then Jeff, Paul, and Monroe…everyone from the human rights program, except for Tom and Meagan. (Tom is responsible and Meagan was already planning to skip the week to be with her family).
“Rachel, this is Christina, Christina, this is Rachel.”
“Hey. I thought you guys were going to Manuel Antonio?”
“The airline lost Christina’s luggage, so we’re leaving tomorrow. Oh, and everyone is coming. We’re all skipping class this week and then we’ll still head to Montezuma for the weekend. You in?”
And that’s how Semana Fantastica began.
After only a little bit of coercion on their part, I ran home, unpacked and repacked my dirty clothes, told my laughing hostmom—who kept saying “how wonderful…you’re only young once…so beautiful…oh when I was young…see as much as you can…enjoy” and things of that nature. I passed out cold, and the next morning we went to our one class of the day, and then right to the bus station.
Manuel Antonio is one of the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica. The area is touristy (in fact, I’ll be going back for a third time with my family in May) but so much fun and really beautiful. And I LEARNED TO SURF!!!! It’s my new favorite thing, and I can’t wait to rent a board every time I’m on a beach and play! And I flirted shamelessly with the instructors and ended up getting us lessons for less than half the price. I just had to then say that Jeff was my brother so that they would stop harassing me. But it was so much fun!!
After three days in Manuel Antonio, and getting extremely tan, we left early Thursday morning for Montezuma. It took hours on a bus (that got lost for 2 extra hours), to a ferry, to another bus, but we finally made it. The entire time there was really great…nice beach, relaxed and fun but absolutely filled with gringos on spring break. I ended up getting a pretty bad cold for a few days and missed the adventure the first night where my friends thought it would be a good idea to go swimming in the ocean at night…their evening ended with Jeff getting stitches after slicing his hand on a glass bottle of cerveza that he was holding while falling on a rock in the water. Next day was all beach and then salsa dancing at night. Saturday we hiked to the three waterfalls in Montezuma, its main attraction. The first one is a pretty little stream that’s very easy to get to, the 2nd one is much bigger with a rock about 10 feet up that you can swim to and jump off of. The third one, however, was about a 40minute, very rugged hike (again, in my flip flops and without water), but we made it. There’s a swimming hole and then the waterfall, which falls into another swimming hole about 40 feet below. Lesson #1: always listen to Lonely Planet guidebooks, which are my bible. Lesson #2: never listen to Paul (the same Paul you all read about from my Panama post…). But alas, even though the book says not to jump from this waterfall, there were tons of people doing it, and Paul had heard from a couple at the other waterfall that it was “totally awesome.” So we jumped. 40 feet. Let’s just say that my leg, arm, and derriere are still really purple. Kate is even more colorful than I am, after landing pretty much on her back. The fun part was hiking back down after all of this. So when we got back to San Jose on Sunday afternoon, I still had a cold and had lost my voice, and I was limping from the fall. Kate could barely move her back, Jeff has his stitches…we were all broken. But it was so fun!! Our teachers were a little displeased, as was the director of the program, considering the fact that only one person from our program stayed for class, but everything blew over way easier than we expected. We have no classes on Fridays, so we only missed 3 days. And hey, I learned to surf! Can’t get that kind of education in a classroom. Life lessons just have to be experienced firsthand!
And we are back now, working hard for the next 2 weeks until our spring break. So Semana Fantastica was really just a dry run…a pre-spring break, if you will.
This weekend we have a group field trip to stay with rural families on a farm, where I am hoping to milk a cow and get dirty. But it will be nice to be with the whole group and to not spend any money for a whole weekend.
Off to study. Also, I saw Gran Torino last night, which is a great movie and Clint Eastwood is super badass. ALSO, I am about to finish reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, which is one of the most inspiring and amazing books I have ever read in my life. It’s reminding me of why I want to do the work that I want to do, and that anyone can make a huge difference in the world. Every single person should have to read this book. So read it. All of you. It’s really incredible.
Abrazos y besos a todos!
Oh, and the pictures above are all from Uvita. I’ll post the surfing ones soon since they’re awesome!
Get comfy, this is going to be a long one.
2 weekends ago my friends Tom, Lauren, and I decided to go to Uvita. It’s a small, remote little town that took lots of time on rocky, dusty roads to get too. But it was absolutely worth it. There is a national park there which has spectacular, practically empty beaches, and some cool wildlife. It’s known for dolphins and mainly HUMPBACK WHALES! But unfortunately, the tours to see the whales were super expensive, so we opted to skip them and just explore. And explore we did! Everywhere we went was at least a 30 minute walk in the hot hot hot sun…and for some reason, I always found myself doing these treks in my flip flops and without water. I think we walked 15 miles, easy, over this one weekend. But we ended up at a gorgeous waterfall and swimming hole, which again, was totally empty. We also found a bamboo forest which was incredible and I want one in my backyard one day. And on a failed attempt to walk to a mangrove swamp (that we don’t think actually exists), we found another totally empty beach to play in. Our hostel was awesome with tons of hammocks everywhere, free coffee 24/7, and bunnies, so needless to say I was in heaven. We also did a pretty intense hike to see the sunset one night…I thought I was going to pass out halfway up the mountain, but I ended up getting the most incredible sunset pictures, and it really sounded like we were in the middle of the jungle. I took a video just so ya’ll can hear the amazing wildlife around us. There was even a howler monkey in the background. Pretty sweet stuff.
So we return home Sunday night, and I’m totally exhausted after our weekend and 8ish hours on a bus. I walk into my casa around 9:25, ready to make some tea, do some reading for the upcoming week, and go to bed. Yet I had no such luck. At 9:30, my phone rings, and mamatica says it’s for me. I pick up and hear tons of voices in the background, yelling all at once for me to come over to Monroe’s house. I was totally beat, but she lives next door so I went.
Now let me backtrack for a second. My friend Kate had a friend from home, Christina, coming to visit, and they were going to skip the whole week to go to Manuel Antonio, the beach I went to my first weekend here. She had already told our professors that she wouldn’t be in class, and everything was taken care of. They were planning to stay with our friend Meagan, who was already in Manuel Antonio since her family was up visiting. A few of us were going to meet them in another beach town on the Nicoya Peninsula, Montezuma, the following weekend.
More background: there are 12 of us on the program, and we’re split up into 2 programs, human development and environmental sustainability. I’m in the human rights program.
Ok so back to Monroe’s…I walk in to find Kate and Christina, and then Jeff, Paul, and Monroe…everyone from the human rights program, except for Tom and Meagan. (Tom is responsible and Meagan was already planning to skip the week to be with her family).
“Rachel, this is Christina, Christina, this is Rachel.”
“Hey. I thought you guys were going to Manuel Antonio?”
“The airline lost Christina’s luggage, so we’re leaving tomorrow. Oh, and everyone is coming. We’re all skipping class this week and then we’ll still head to Montezuma for the weekend. You in?”
And that’s how Semana Fantastica began.
After only a little bit of coercion on their part, I ran home, unpacked and repacked my dirty clothes, told my laughing hostmom—who kept saying “how wonderful…you’re only young once…so beautiful…oh when I was young…see as much as you can…enjoy” and things of that nature. I passed out cold, and the next morning we went to our one class of the day, and then right to the bus station.
Manuel Antonio is one of the most beautiful beaches in Costa Rica. The area is touristy (in fact, I’ll be going back for a third time with my family in May) but so much fun and really beautiful. And I LEARNED TO SURF!!!! It’s my new favorite thing, and I can’t wait to rent a board every time I’m on a beach and play! And I flirted shamelessly with the instructors and ended up getting us lessons for less than half the price. I just had to then say that Jeff was my brother so that they would stop harassing me. But it was so much fun!!
After three days in Manuel Antonio, and getting extremely tan, we left early Thursday morning for Montezuma. It took hours on a bus (that got lost for 2 extra hours), to a ferry, to another bus, but we finally made it. The entire time there was really great…nice beach, relaxed and fun but absolutely filled with gringos on spring break. I ended up getting a pretty bad cold for a few days and missed the adventure the first night where my friends thought it would be a good idea to go swimming in the ocean at night…their evening ended with Jeff getting stitches after slicing his hand on a glass bottle of cerveza that he was holding while falling on a rock in the water. Next day was all beach and then salsa dancing at night. Saturday we hiked to the three waterfalls in Montezuma, its main attraction. The first one is a pretty little stream that’s very easy to get to, the 2nd one is much bigger with a rock about 10 feet up that you can swim to and jump off of. The third one, however, was about a 40minute, very rugged hike (again, in my flip flops and without water), but we made it. There’s a swimming hole and then the waterfall, which falls into another swimming hole about 40 feet below. Lesson #1: always listen to Lonely Planet guidebooks, which are my bible. Lesson #2: never listen to Paul (the same Paul you all read about from my Panama post…). But alas, even though the book says not to jump from this waterfall, there were tons of people doing it, and Paul had heard from a couple at the other waterfall that it was “totally awesome.” So we jumped. 40 feet. Let’s just say that my leg, arm, and derriere are still really purple. Kate is even more colorful than I am, after landing pretty much on her back. The fun part was hiking back down after all of this. So when we got back to San Jose on Sunday afternoon, I still had a cold and had lost my voice, and I was limping from the fall. Kate could barely move her back, Jeff has his stitches…we were all broken. But it was so fun!! Our teachers were a little displeased, as was the director of the program, considering the fact that only one person from our program stayed for class, but everything blew over way easier than we expected. We have no classes on Fridays, so we only missed 3 days. And hey, I learned to surf! Can’t get that kind of education in a classroom. Life lessons just have to be experienced firsthand!
And we are back now, working hard for the next 2 weeks until our spring break. So Semana Fantastica was really just a dry run…a pre-spring break, if you will.
This weekend we have a group field trip to stay with rural families on a farm, where I am hoping to milk a cow and get dirty. But it will be nice to be with the whole group and to not spend any money for a whole weekend.
Off to study. Also, I saw Gran Torino last night, which is a great movie and Clint Eastwood is super badass. ALSO, I am about to finish reading Three Cups of Tea by Greg Mortenson, which is one of the most inspiring and amazing books I have ever read in my life. It’s reminding me of why I want to do the work that I want to do, and that anyone can make a huge difference in the world. Every single person should have to read this book. So read it. All of you. It’s really incredible.
Abrazos y besos a todos!
Oh, and the pictures above are all from Uvita. I’ll post the surfing ones soon since they’re awesome!
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