Friends of Joy:)

This month has been amazing in so many ways.  All I want to do is hold onto the memories for as long as I can.  Where to begin? 

It was a bit hard for me to get back into the groove of teaching after the July break, but it didn’t take me too long.  I think I had a little change of heart when I went hiking with Kyle, and his 5-week long visitor, Eric.  We were in the beautiful mountains, just enjoying Costa Rica.  And that’s when I remembered where I was, and it’s a great feeling! 

 The second week after break, we went with the 4^th and 5^th graders to camp.  It was great!  We had some great bonding-time with the students.   It brought me back to my camp days.  Even the teachers got to participate in some activities!  One highlight was probably the high ropes course, which entailed different ‘challenges’ high above the ground.  The food really was tasty, but since every meal only consisted of rice and beans, I was a bit tired of it towards the end.

I expected it to be cooler at camp since it was in the mountains, but it was actually hotter than San Jose.  The campfire just wasn’t quite the same considering I was already sweating before sitting by a roasting fire.  But it was still a lot of fun:) Warmer weather and camping in the jungle, of course means bigger bugs.  Seriously the bugs we saw made the bugs in San Jose look like tiny!  I can’t complain now…because if I ever found a spider in our house, like the one in the shower at camp, I might be packing my bags…But, we survived:)

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The weekend after camp, we had a little realization we aren't living in the states anymore.  We had a cleaning session at our casita that weekend.  Deep cleaning, mopping, and throwing away our stuff that molded during the month of July:(  Since our internet wasn’t working, and our floors were soaking wet from mopping, we decided to go use the internet while the floor dried.  During that time, we did leave some random belongings on our porch (still behind our huge iron porton). 

We weren’t gone long before we find out someone was climbing over our porton to steal our stuff!  (We aren’t even sure if our house was locked).  Luckily, we have a land-lady who is always watching out for us.  The guy didn’t even get all the way over before she chased him away.  Moral of the story, we are living in a foreign country, so we do need to be more careful.  The next day, our land-lady helped us out by putting what most fences/portons have in Costa Rica: barbed-wire; big, round, spikey barbed-wire.  I’ll admit it does make our house feel a little bit like a prison, but I do feel safer.

The week of the visitors finally came!  In anticipation of their arrival, I tried to finish as much work as possible.  Writing tests, lesson plans, Mother’s Day Celebration, grading, you name it, I probably had to do it.  But at the end of the week was a lovely reward though, my sis, Ali and my friend, Meghan!

Our favorite mountain top spot!

One Saturday morning, the six of us were about to embark on an adventure...and it was a great one!  We met at the bus station early to head to a new part of the country for me; La Fortuna and Volcan Arenal.  We arrived around 1pm, we were barely off of the bus, before our new best friend Julio was getting us sucked into his deals.  “It’s only $12/night, with breakfast” and “I can get you a tour in an hour of everything you want to do in an hour”.  So we went to check out this $12/night hotel.  At this point we are very hot and hungry..the place doesn’t look too bad, so we took it!  We not only agreed to the hotel, but we did sign up for a volcano, hike, waterfall, jungle, dinner, and hot springs tour.  We didn’t have much time, but needed some food.  So we went to a restaurant and as we were scarfing down our pizza, we were throwing money on the table since we were in such a rush to make it in time for the tour.

We arrived at the meeting spot, and no one is there.  I realized we already gave him all of our money.. what if he never shows!  This is exactly what Lonely Planet was warning us about.  But luckily Lonely Planet was incorrect, and they were just on Costa Rican time…a bit late.  After the 6 of us piled into the van, we stopped at another hotel to pick up more people.  All was going according to plan, until the van seemed to have some trouble.  It wasn't exactly starting.  But the Costa Rican way is “Don’t worry!”  Little Miss Sunshine style, the driver pushed starts us down a hill to get us going.  We are about 15 minutes outside of town before it actually broke down for good.

At this point, it was pouring down rain, and the 4 of us in the back (Kyle, Miss K, Megs, and I) are getting a bit ancy.  We are crammed in the back, the windows are fogging and don’t open, and we’re sitting on the side of the road, just waiting.  Keep in mind we have already had a 5-hour bus ride that morning, the last thing we want to do is sit in a humid, crowded van.  We are tempted to hoof it back to La Fortuna and do the tour the following day.  But between “don’t worry another van is coming" and Ali and Eric content in the front of the van saying, “It’s fine, let’s do it!”, we ended up pressing on with the tour.  

So we stuck it out, piled into another van, and continued onward.  We are all getting fairly silly in our state of being tired in combination of funny events and people.  The volcano was beautiful.  Different from the volcanoes I’ve seen thus far.  It was more of the typical mountain versus a big crater.  Our hike through the jungle was great.  We were all having a great time.  Taking photos, rubbing seeds on us to act as bug repellent, seeing waterfalls, and of course getting WET.  

It started to rain when we were out there.  All I had was a half zip, while others had rain coats and ponchos.  But really, all of us were just soaked!  It was actually very fun to embrace the rain.  It was coming down so hard, and the trails we were hiking on were looking like mini rivers.  Kristin, Megs, Al, and Eric made face, mud masks.  It was great!  I don’t know where all the wildlife go during the rain like this, it’s amazing!

We were...wet.

The next comical event, was waiting for our van that left us while we were hiking.  It didn’t return for…awhile.  We were all wet, hungry, and waiting.  Don’t worry, we’re getting very good at keeping ourselves occupied by now.  It was great bonding time.  Al spoke French with some French kids, we learned some tricks, drank some tea, laughed, and waited.

The temperature difference is amazing.  How could I go from being so hot to so cold?!  Perhaps because our sopping wet clothes were not about dry any time soon.  Needless to say we were ready for the hot springs and let me say, they were worth the wait!  20 thermal pools, of all different temperatures felt great, and were beautiful!  

There were also 3 slides at the Baldi Hot Springs…and these were not your typical water slides.  They were intense!  Slides like this would be illegal in the states.  Slide #1:  First the boys went, then Kristin.  When Kristin went, all we heard from the top was a painful rumbling, a scream, then silence.  Megs went, we heard a painful rumbling, a scream, then silence.  Al went, I heard a painful rumbling, a scream, then silence.  It was terrifying.  I eventually went down that slide as well!  So scary.  The scream was a straight drop off into the water (but you can’t see a thing in the tube)!  Good times:)

10:30pm we finally get back to our hotel, exhausted.  Long story short, we couldn’t go to bed quite yet..the girls room was finding dead flies, hairs, and worm-pod things in our beds.  Oh thank you Julio for the hotel recommendation.  When we finally did get new sheets (thanks Kyle and Miss K), we were ready for bed, in the beds.  Then all of a sudden, we heard a man’s voice yelling, coming from our bathroom!  Ali and I ran for the door, but stumbled and scared Megs and Miss K even more.  We turned on the light, and we realized our bathroom had a window, which connected to another bathroom.  Our hearts were pounding.  But by 12am or 1am, we did, finalmente go to sleep.

Sunday morning was a bit more relaxing, it entailed breakfast, pool, reading, shopping, lunch, playing soccer…Then that afternoon was the best.  Zip Lining.  We ended up booking the tour with our best friend Julio.  The Sky Trek.  We went around 4pm, suited up with all our gear, and took a gondola up.  As we were on the gondola, the guide was telling us about the zip lines.  At one point in the gondola, we were 200 feet above the ground, but the highest zip line is 600 feet above the ground!  My stomach was starting to sink, but there was no turning back.  We had a couple of practice runs..then #3 was the big one!  It was so long, and so high!  One at a time we went, each person got smaller and smaller as they flew over the jungle!  Finally it was my turn, and I was so scared; but as I let go, it was amazing!  Jungle 600 feet below, a huge lake on one side, the volcano on the other side, just flying at high speeds!  It was unbelievable!  We proceeded to have about 6 more runs after that.  Each was awesome!  Towards the end it was getting dark, so that was another experience.  Zip lining in the dark, it was wild!  The whole experience was definitely a highlight!

Zip Lining in the dark!

We just couldn’t say good-bye to Julio just yet, so on our last day at La Fortuna, we played a soccer game versus some Ticos.  6 on 6.  So much fun, the gringos even won!  Later that day we piled on the bus back to San Jose, a wonderful weekend indeed.

Tuesday, back to school; but this time with my visitors.  My kiddos were so excited to meet Megs and Al.  It was great having them at school! 

Since all of us bonded so well that weekend, on Tuesday night we made a big dinner at our house accompanied by some wine.  It was such a memorable night.  It’s amazing how having wonderful people together is what made it so amazing!  I think I really just appreciate people so much now.  Talking, laughing, speaking Spanish with each other, and just being with great people was the best!

The next day, I was able to take the day off to spend with Al:) We took a day trip to Jaco for some sister bonding!  It was a lovely day, bus ride, delicious breakfast, beach, shopping.  It was sad that her time in Costa Rica was coming to an end.  It went so fast!  It was such a unique experience to have my sis come visit me while I’m living in a foreign country.  We now have so many wonderful memories.

The next big event we had was rafting The Reventazon!  Alright, a couple of months ago, we rafted The Pacaure, which was big water.  Well, now I don’t even know how to express the amount of water in The Reventazon.  It was Class IV+ in Costa Rican terms..meaning it would DEFINITELY be Class V in the states.  I’ve grown up on rivers and feel very comfortable rafting..but this was rafting at a whole new level!  Especially when rapids have names like Frankenstein and Indigestion.  We would be headed for a wave that just looked like a wall of water several feet over our heads.  It was quite the rush!  It was awesome!

We had an amazing guide and the 6 of us made a great team (Al wasn’t there for that, but our friend Leslie was the 6^th soldier).  The back of the raft is the most dangerous spot because it’s more bumpy…so Kristin and I were brave and sat in the back.  I had a couple of close calls of falling out!  So scary!  I sat in the right spot near the guide because both times he grabbed my life jacket and told me “Don’t do that again!”.   Luckily the only injury I suffered was a hurt finger.  I think I tried to grab a rope and held on with a single finger before the guide grabbed me.  It was quite the experience!

We survived and finally it was Megs last night, we all made a delicious dinner, played cards, and went dancing. 

Then there were four of us.  We had to have one last hurrah before Eric left on his adventure to Ecuador.  So, we went to our favorite spot and spent a weekend in Manuel Antonio.  This trip is getting so easy now.  We know how to do it…and it’s great every time; food, beach, cards, dancing, and jungle.  It was a great weekend!

We just barely caught the bus after school and crammed on!

I realize my time in Costa Rica is already flying by!  I need to make a big push to practice my Spanish in the next few months.  I started a new project thanks to the push from Eric.  I must read 8 books in Spanish, speak only Spanish during lunch and recess with the kids, and I need to listen to at least 2 hours of Spanish radio every week.  I even made a deal with the kiddos:  They can only speak English during my classes and I can only speak Spanish during breaks and recess.  The kids are getting into it, which is great!  They are a great resource and can really help me!  So this is exciting! 

All good things must come to an end.  It is always sad to say good-bye to good friends.  I think we all became really close, and who knows where life will take us all.  Eric wrote a beautiful song while he was here, and it says “These faces will live with me forever, like a friend of joy surrounds me”.

In the meantime Miss K, Kyle, and I will be planning more adventures.  I'm so happy they're here with me!  God has been watching out for all of us.  It's been good:)

Well, sorry for the monton de informacion.  You are probably wondering if I'm actually doing any teaching down here.  Claro que si!  Working hard as always;)