Greetings!! Our study abroad program officially ended on the 12th of May- a couple days before it ended our cordinators took us to Leon and to the beach for two days of swimming and hanging out. After everyone flew home, a couple of us who stayed behind started our travels. The past couple weeks I have been traveling with a couple people from my program. Before heading to Costa Rica, I spent some time saying goodbye to my host family and friends there. It was hard to leave Managua and say goodbye to everyone, but I was excited to see more of Central America.
Our first stop was in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. A cute little town on the pacific ocean. From there we left for Costa Rica, taking alot of chicken buses to reach the border and make our way to Monteverde. Costa Rica is alot different from the past three countries I have been living in. Even small things like public transportation are so different. I have alot of distinct memories from experiences on public transportation, having to sit on bags of coconuts in El Salvador, cramming too many people on a bus for it to go up hill in Guatemala, being showered with fruits as your bus runs off the road trying to pass another bus, and being able to buy a whole bag of mangos for 20 cents from a street vendor on a bus in Nicaragua.
Our first stop in Costa Rica was beautiful Monteverde. There we did some wonderful hiking. We went on a hike to a waterfall with a lake underneath that you could swim in, which was completely out in the middle of nowhere and the hike was breathtaking! After Monteverde we went to La Fortuna to see volcano Arenal. Volcano Arenal is a huge volcano that is continually erupting. We took a hike where we could see the lava coming down the volcano- which was really cool. We also visited some hot springs and spent sometime chilling in the warm water.
We stayed in La Fortuna for a night then took a bus to San Jose, the captial. We only spent one day there, but it was a nice to see the capital to compare to other capitals we´ve been to in Central America. After San Jose we took a bus to a small town to see a less touristy area, where we had some great comida tipica and danced to music on the streets. The next day we went to Osa Peninsula. To get to Osa we had to take a taxi boat which was the craziest boat ride I´ve ever been on. Half way through the boat ride they stoped us to give us ponchos, but there weren´t enough so we all had to share- it was just one of those great travel moments - where your sharing a poncho with a complete stranger, trying to have a conversation in spanish, theres so much rain your soaking wet, and your flying three feet off your seat every fifteen seconds cause your going through huge waves in the mouth of a river problably 30 mph faster than you should - it was great - I practically had a smile on my face the entire time.
Osa was relaxing. We went hiking in Corcovado National Park- a beautiful rain forest. We saw a ton of wildlife- toucans, scarlet mccaws, howler monkeys, spider monkeys, alligators ect. Our tour guide was a hoot- we went on these random hunts - climbing all over the place off trail looking for Tapers- which we never found. It also rained almost the entire six hours so we were walking in huge puddles flopping around in mud. It was so much fun!!
Yesteday we left Osa at 3:30 in the morning to come to Panama. We finally arrived in Bocas after fourteen hours of travel. Costa Rica was gorgeous but vary touristy, I am excited to be in Panama and have the opportunity to expereince one more culture before I head back home!

The past week and a half has been really fun but also vary intense. Last weekend I went to Corinto with my host family. Corinto is a small town on the beach in the south western part of Nicaragua. It was a really nice relaxing weekend. We spent alot of time with the family, the entire extended family lives within a couple blocks of eachother a minute walk away from the beach. Its a cool city because it hasn´t been occupied by resorts and restaurants, casas de carton line the beautiful beach. Also everyone rides bicycles and takes tricycles for taxis. My family owns a couple tricycles so we took those out and biked our family around. There was a fair going on Saturday night, which consisted of a Ferris wheel and a merry-go-round. The Ferris wheel was problably the scariest ride I have ever been on, but it was fun!
On Tuesday we had our final take home exam due and since no one did it over the weekend alot of us stayed up till 5 in the morning, then some of us had a good conversation about living in Nicaragua.
Thursday we left for our "mystery location" which was a beautiful beach near Leon. It was a really nice two days. We did alot of swimming, ultimate frisbee and just hanging out. Thursday night we had a bonfire and made smores. We also made a human chain laying on the beach looking at the stars and talking. It was alot of fun.
Last night we all went out one last time- it was so fun! We went dancing at a couple places and everyone was just groovin and having a good time. At about 4 am we took the first bus of people to the airport. It was really hard to say goodbye, its been really hard saying goodbye to all these people because I have grown so close to them over the past four months. Four months is alot of time to spend with only 17 other people your age. I mean we´ve had friends from some of the countries but all 18 of us have been together the entire time. We have been through so much, its just hasn´t sunk in that its over. I keep thinking I´m gonna see them all tommorrow and we´ll continue our experiences here.

It is now Thursday and I am exhausted. This week has been busy but amazing. On Tuesday we presented our final projects and individual reflections of our semester. For my final project, three girls and I did our project on homosexuality in Nicaragua. We met a women from the US who is here doing a project financed from a grant creating a coffee shop. What sparked my interest on this topic was I found out that it is illegal to be homosexual in Nicaragua. There is a law forbidding people to be homosexual and promote homosexuality. Can you imagine a law forbidding you to love who you want to love!! So we did some interviews with people from different organizations, and the more people we met the more interested I became in this project. The people we met with were so nice and so open about their lives. Not many people from the US come to Nicaragua, let alone do projects on what it is like being a homosexual. For our final presentation we did a water color painting using the Beehive cooperative´s portrayal of politics using butterflys (its hard to explain unless you´ve seen the paintings)But it turned our amazing!! The night before we presented we had the people we interviewed over for pizza and heard what they thought of it and their interpretations of it. It was a really good experience overall, I learned so much and met so many interesting people! For my personal reflection I wrote a poem about my experience here.
Our history class is finally over, and I definately enjoyed it. Classes abroad are so much better because meeting people, experiences and hearing speakers are part of the classes. I have really grown to love the program and all the people on the program. Thinking about going home has brought alot of mixed emotions. But I do have a week and a half left so I am gonna make the most of it!