Hello friends and family!!
Sorry I’ve been a slacker and haven’t updated my blog in a while. A lot has happened since I last updated you guys. Let’s break down the last four weeks, shall we?: (p.s. if you click on the captions of the pictures, they open in a larger window)
After Panama, we still had almost a week of break left, so we hung out at home and rested. Panama was a blast, but we came back exhausted, so I loved having more time to actually take a break. On Wednesday, we went to this Mexican restaurant by our house and had the best burritos EVER! They are gargantuan and are covered in guacamole...can it get any better??
After lunch, we began a movie marathon that lasted for three days. We watched: Hairspray, Little Mermaid, Meet Joe Black, Slumdog Millionaire, Marley and Me, Hotel Rwanda, Madagascar 2, Pleasantville, and Ice Age. I’m pretty sure I gained a good five pounds from eating and sitting on the couch for sooo long! On Good Friday, Hannah, Serena and I ventured into Cartago to watch the famous processionals for Easter. This was quite a show! There was a huge mass of hot, sweaty people all gathered around to watch the procession. Because this is an entirely Catholic country, everything in the city shuts down for Holy Week, so getting home was a bit of a problem. The regular busses weren’t running, so we sat and waited for a bus for an hour on the side of the highway :) But we eventually made it home and had a sleepover that involved more movies and pizza.
Easter Sunday was another interesting day. We went to church in the afternoon at the International Baptist Church that we’ve been going to for a while now. It was a nice service, but it made me miss home a little. I missed helping all the little kiddos at my church put their flowers on the lattice cross for all to see. I also missed having a big lunch with my family. After church, we went to San Jose for lunch, but almost nothing was open. So we ended up at Taco Bell. Not the best Easter Lunch.
After lunch, we met this old man who told us about a piece of the Berlin Wall that is in San Jose. We sort of didn’t believe him, but we went out in search of it anyway. After a few minutes of walking in circles, we actually found it; this little sliver of graffitied concrete that used to be so significant. It looked depressed and lonely in it’s sad corner of the courtyard, like nobody has come to visit it in years. Neglected and ignored, it looks like somebody forgot to clean up after a construction project.
Holy Week ended and we returned to school rested and ready for the remainder of the year. The following weekend, we took a day trip to the Pacquare river to go rafting. Now, I’ve been rafting before, but we basically floated down the American river with an ice chest and several adults that had maybe been drinking a little too much. It was kiddie-rafting. The Pacquare river is one of the top five rivers in the world for white-water rafting. This was real rafting. We got knocked around and thrown from boats, drank lots of river water, laughed A LOT, and had an amazing time. We were split into two boats of four people, and my boat didn’t tip over at all! We totally dominated that river. The other boat was smaller, and so they lost a few passengers along the way. This trip is definitely in my top five experiences this semester. Afterwards, we were sore, tired, but totally satisfied!
For the next part of my journal, keep track of how many busses we took. Are you ready? Ok, here we go. The next weekend, we took a day trip to Poas Volcano. This involved a bus ride from Moravia to San Jose, from San Jose to Alajuela, and from Alajuela to Poas. We got to Poas and it was a perfect day. Normally, it is really cloudy and it’s hard to see the actual volcano. We totally lucked out and only had clouds when we were leaving. This was the closest I have been to a volcano before. It was a strange feeling to peer into the mouth of a volcano, knowing that at any moment, it could have a bad case of indigestion and swallow us in lava. Next to Poas is Botas Lagoon, which used to be a volcano, but is not extinct and has filled with rainwater. It was so beautiful and green.
After visiting Poas and Botas, we had some lunch and headed back to Alajuela. From here, we wanted to go to this town called Sarchi. It’s this really cool artisan town that has a million little souvenir shops. So we got on the bus to Sarchi and shopped for a while. At this point, we had already taken 5 buses. To get home, we took three more buses; Sarchi to Alajuela, Alajuela to San Jose, and San Jose to Moravia. Total bus count: 8 BUSES!!!! Eight buses in one very-long day. The awesome thing was that all of these buses only cost about $5! Traveling is so economical here!
Ok, week 15. As many of you know, I’ve made some amazing friends on this trip. I’ve talked a lot about Hannah and Serena in particular, because the three of us have become a little family. Because they are from ASU, their program is a little different than ours, and they leave Costa Rica much earlier than the Westmonters. So week 16 was my 2/3 mark and their last week. We decided to take one last big trip as a final hurrah. During Semana Santa, we talked about going to Nicaragua after Panama because we had so much time left, but decided to relax instead. So for our final weekend together, we planned for an amazing long weekend in Conchal and Nicaragua. However, that’s not how it went down. Conchal was great, but Nicaragua was a huge disaster. Here’s the basic itinerary of what happened over the entire weekend:
Taxi, bus, bus breaks down, Conchal, sleep, bus, bus, border strike and police blockade, kicked off bus, walk, back of guy’s truck, walk, taxi, walk (6 kilometers), walk, cross border, swine flu health inspection, filthy bus, filthy jam-packed bus, walk, sleep, horse buggy tour, walk, bus, bus, cross border, bus, miss the next bus, wait two hours, bus, taxi, sleep. This all happened in less than three days. Yeah. Not cool, Nicaragua...not cool.
We got to Conchal Friday afternoon and had a very nice day. I’ve been here before, so it wasn’t all that exciting the second time around. My first red flag was the first night in Conchal when neither Hannah or I could sleep AT ALL. Literally, we laid in bed counting how many times the fan rotates in a minute.
Saturday morning, we got up early to catch the bus to Liberia, which would take us to Nicaragua. As we were walking to the bus, we walked by a family of howler monkeys, which was pretty awesome. These monkeys are incredibly loud and have some vicious-looking teeth.
So we got on the bus at 7 am and headed to Liberia. From Liberia, it should have been a straight shot to the border, however it wasn’t that easy. When we got to Liberia, everyone was saying that we couldn’t go to Nicaragua because there was a strike (huelga in Spanish) at the border and no cars or buses were being let through. Awesome.
There was an entire bus full of people that wanted to at least try, so the driver just started driving to see how far he could get. Turns out that wasn’t very far. We got about 50 kilometers away from the border and the police wouldn’t let the bus go any further. So we were kicked off the bus, and left on the highway to walk the remaining 50 kilometers, like that was even remotely possible.
We began walking and found a local (who’s truck was already past the blockade) who let us ride in the back of his truck. He took us about 20 kilometers closer until he needed to turn on another road. So we hopped out and began walking again.
After walking for a bit, we passed a taxi who agreed to take us even closer to the border. We finally reached a point where absolutely no cars could continue on at all. From this point, everyone around us was walking. The taxi driver said that we were less than a kilometer away from the border. He. Was. Wrong. We walked and walked and walked for hours. I know this sounds ridiculous, but it was uphill the entire way, in the baking sun, with our gigantic backpacks, and we were all wearing flip-flops (no, we weren’t barefoot and there was no snow...). After about 8 miles of walking, we finally reached the border: the half-way point. Seriously.
We had to be checked for swine flu before crossing, which consisted of this woman asking me my name, my age, and it I felt sick. I said no obviously, and I got this recycled receipt with a stamp of clearance. Best health inspection EVER! Finally, we paid our border fees and crossed. Then we got on this school bus that had so many people on it, I thought it might explode. Literally, we were sitting three people to a seat, and there were about 30 people standing in the aisle. This bus took us to a second bus that was equally as full, but way more disgusting and dirty. This is how we were feeling at that time:
We finally made it to Granada around 5:30 pm. We had heard from a bunch of people that Granada is so beautiful and that we would love it. I don’t what these people were thinking, but Granada is not beautiful. It was easily the dirtiest place I have ever been to. There was garbage everywhere, and a high percentage of the population lives in poverty. Some of the old buildings were cool and I liked the historical aspect of the town, but that was about it. We walked around for a bit, had some dinner, and hung out at the hostel for the night.
Originally, we were going to be in Granada from Saturday to Monday, but by Sunday at noon, we were ready to leave. That morning, we got up early and took a buggy tour of Granada. This was literally the only thing to do in the town.
After that, we decided that it was time to go. We stopped by the grocery store for some food and water and peaced outta that town.
When we got back into Costa Rica, the strike was still going, but some of the trucks had moved off the road, so we were able to take a bus from the border to Liberia, which was a miracle!!
Unfortunately, when we got to Liberia, we missed the bus home by 5 minutes. Of course. The next bus didn’t leave for another two and a half hours. So we got some dinner and hung out in the bus station. We finally got home around 1:30 am. Thus concludes the narrative of the worst trip to Nicaragua ever.
Us Westmont students were leaving the next wednesday to go home for graduation, and the ASU students were leaving that Saturday. So we had a farewell dinner on our last night together in Costa Rica. I had been dreading this night for quite a while. I was so sad to say goodbye to my these girls that I had seen all day every day for the last 5 months. But we made our last night fun, and said our emotional goodbyes.
The next morning, I headed home for graduation. When I left Westmont in December, we were recovering from the devastating Tea Fire. I returned this time to the Jesusita Fire.
It’s weird that my semester in Costa Rica has been bookended by two huge fires. But graduation proceeded as scheduled. It was wonderful to see my friends and family and I’m so glad that they were there for my graduation.
After graduation, my family came back to my house for a little party. I’m glad I got some time to visit with everyone before I had to go back to CR.
For Mother’s Day, my mom and I went to an awesome Angel’s game!! Way to pull out the win, guys!
Now I’m back in Costa Rica for another 6 weeks. It’s nice to be back, but I am definitely going through withdraws of the ASU girls. When i take the bus in the morning, I have to wait in front of what used to be Hannah and Serena’s house and it makes me sad to know that the house is empty now. But I’m going to try and make the best of these last 6 weeks, knowing that I will see those girls soon.
Sorry for the world’s longest blog ever, but I had to get everything in!
xoxo
