To Costa Rica and Beyond!: Hot Showers and Iguanas

While it seems hard to believe that I have been living in Costa Rica for a month and a half, its almost impossible to believe that I am already a quarter of the way through my trip! Never the less, it is finally time for the eagerly awaited meet up with the other exchange students to discuss our adventures thus far.

The weekend started bright and early, or maybe just early as I had to leave before the sun had even begin to rise. I woke up at 3:30 and by 4:15 we were in the car speeding towards Santa Cruz. I caught the bus at 5:00 and... Got to take the bus by myself! While it wasn't exactly the independence that I am desperately starving for, it was a start. The bus ride was 4 and a half hours which meant we arrived an hour after AFS wanted us too, fully accepting the Costa Rican culture of “hora tico” (Costa Ricans call themselves Ticos). Friday was spent filling out paperwork for our VISAs' and talking to the other students until dinner time when we walked to our hostel.

The hostel was nice and as soon as we got there we all headed strait for the pool. The pool was cold, and San Jose at night is also cold, making for a rather freezing experience for which I only cared to endure for 10 minutes. After my last trip to San Jose, I was considerably less then happy climbing into the shower, already anticipating the ice water that shocked me last week, but to my surprise, the water wasn't cold, in fact, it was hot! I didn't realize how nice hot showers are until I no longer had them.

Saturday morning we had pancakes and corn syrup for breakfast and then jumped on a bus and drove to the BIO Park. With no shortage of nature reserves and national parks, even close to the capital, I expected something a little more... Wild. The park looked like the inside of the butterfly pavilion, just without the butterflies, and wayyyy bigger. The whole thing was man-made, and we wondered around on paved walking paths through fake tropical forests for most of the morning. Don't get me wrong, it was still really pretty, just not what any of us had been expecting. It was actually hard hard to tell how big it was because the paths were so windy and I immediately lost my sense of direction. In Boulder I relied on the mountains being always to the West so here I have no idea which direction is which. While there wasn't exactly “wildlife” at the park, there were some animals. We saw snakes in tanks, and there was a little fenced area with crocodiles. There were turtles, and every so-often we would turn a corner and see an Iguana sunning himself in the middle of the path. At one point we saw a big ball of fur way up in a tree and were told that it was a sloth, but we really couldn't make out any kind of shape.

For breakfast Sunday morning, we had Gallo Pinto, a typical dish in Costa Rica composed of rice and beans, eaten by practically every Tico every day for breakfast, sometimes lunch, and sometimes dinner. The morning was spent doing more “orientation stuff”, before we boarded our buses and began the long journey home. It takes three and a half hours by car to get home from San Jose, in a public, express bus that drive is stretched to four and a half hours. I should start by saying that the roads in Costa Rica are far from direct, and as we zigzagged our way across the northwestern region, dropping kids off in different towns, our ride dragged on, lasting almost six hours, but I didn't mind because it meant that I got to see a little more of Costa Rica and talk to the other students.

The point of the orientation was to get VISAs, but for some reason we never made it to the fingerprint office on Friday, and I guess it was closed on the weekend, so we have to return to San Jose “sometime soon.” AFS's organization never ceases to astound me!