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!