To Costa Rica and Beyond!: Just another weekend

I have been here for almost four months and there are still so many more new and wonderful things to see and unique and exotic places to go. I have just two months left, and while that may have felt like ages in the US, time here seems to fly by faster then I ever imagined possible. As my time here winds down I am beginning to realize that I just don't have enough time to see everything I have tagged with the neon orange duct tape bookmarks stuck on almost every page in my tour book. This weekend, after waking up at 2:30 in the morning to catch a bus, I did get the pleasure of removing one of my tabs, and hence checking off one of the many items left on my list of things to see before I have to go home.

On Saturday I met up with Ryan and Tieta, two other students from the US, in a city called Alujuela where we caught a bus up to Volcano Poas. I stepped off of the bus about an hour later and was instantaneously shocked by the cold. My town is the second hottest in town in Costa Rica, and I had been thoroughly enjoying all the perfect sunny days where all you want to do is hang out at the beach, until suddenly it was so cold I could actually see my breath! I guess this doesn't seem that cold compared to winter in Colorado where that's a everyday occurrence, and I guess it serves as a good warning for me about what I can expect to come home to. From the bus there is a short walk to a lookout platform. Initially my view was blocked by a group of other tourists, but they quickly moved on and I suddenly found myself gazing out at a completely breathtaking view into the crater, absolutely stunned by how huge it was. We took a short “hike” to a nearby dormant crater that has become filled with a gorgeous lake, supplying some extremely needed exercise that, unfortunately, my everyday life here seems to lack.

The bus took us back down to Alujuela and our plan was to take a bus from there to Puntarenas and sleep there, but no one seemed to know if there was such a bus and as we asked around we were given the names of a bunch of different stations that might have a bus. For some reason, in Costa Rica it appears to be almost impossible to get the same directions from multiple people and as a result most of the directions are just straight up wrong, but after wandering around for a while we did manage to find a station and a rout that only consisted of one bus transfer. After dinner, which ate picnic style at the beach, we went for a walk down the sandy coast, gazing up at the stars as we went. We saw a few stars shoot across the sky, and as we walked I couldn't help but think for the thousandth time how lucky I am to be having this experience.

The next morning we caught a bus to a beach nearby called Doña Ana. Its a small beach, but absolutely beautiful. There are thousands of beaches in Costa Rica – I can name at least 20 within an hour driving distance from my house – so we chose this beach for a very specific reason. Monkeys! This beach has monkeys that hang out in the trees at the edge of the beach and they came down low enough for us to feed them. I suppose that feeding wildlife is not really the best thing for them, but they were just sooo cute! We hung out on the beach for a little while longer until we got hot and jumped into the water. The water here is always so perfect and I don't think i'll ever get tired of the ocean.

Trying to get home was an adventure all on its own and reminded me why I love the Costa Rican bus system, (thats sarcastic) because despite being about two hours away from my house in a car, it still took me more than six hours to get home. I realize that my last few posts have gotten rather lazy, and therefore more then a little dull to read. I apologize and I'll see what I can do about being slightly more entertaining in the upcoming weeks.