My Journey through Tortuguero and the Providencia Sports Field

I have a new place to add to my list of favorite places. Tortuguero was amazing. Not everybody gets to go to a Caribbean rain forest where you have to take a boat over an hour to be able to get there. There was so much nature there. It was like seeing how a lot of the world was before we humans came and built cities over it. We saw so many animals, even more than in Manuel  Antonio. We saw toucans, macaws, sloths, monkeys, spiders, bats, lizards, basilisks and caimans. My favorite part of the trip was the first day, when we did a tour in a boat of a lot of the forest around the town. We saw a caiman on that trip and that was really, really cool. Caimans are like small crocodiles and if they bite they can bite off a few fingers or even a hand. We got super close but it didn't react. It probably saw us but it acted like it didn’t even notice us. When we kept going we got to see a spectacular show. Some white faced monkeys were moving from one side of the river to the other and we got to see them leaping from branch to branch. There were a lot on the ground too and I thought that was really interesting because I had never seen a monkey on the ground before. They’re the only kind of monkeys that go on the ground. The capuchin monkeys were jumping right over us about 20 yards! It was really amazing to see the monkeys in their natural habitat doing things that they would have done, humans or not. We were there about fifteen minutes and my favorite part was when we saw a monkey chasing a basilisk. Basilisks are bright green lizards that can run on water. I don’t know if they were playing or if the monkey was trying to attack the basilisk but either way, it was pretty cool to see. Unfortunately the basilisk didn’t run on water even though we cheered it on. The hotel where we stayed was really cool too, especially the pool because we could see a bunch of monkeys and tropical birds. The next day we had a walking tour of the little town. The town is very small, like 1200 people, and it’s really nice. It’s an island in between a huge river and the Caribbean. The ocean was beautiful. I mean, it’s a Caribbean Sea, but we really didn’t spend that much time there because the current was so strong and the waves so big and choppy. The whole trip was one of my favorites so far. Being in a Caribbean rainforest was amazing.

One of my favorite things to do here in Costa Rica is go to the plaza, a huge soccer field in Providencia, to play sports. We go at least three times a week either with the Young Dreamers or the younger kids from the school. I don’t think I’ve mentioned this before but Providencia is split into two parts, well technically three. There’s a top part (the main section of town), a bottom part and a middle part. There’s a road connecting the bottom and the top and at the middle of the road there’s a split that goes to the third part. The top is where most people live, where the school is, where the recycling center is and where the plaza is. The bottom part is where my family lives. Several families live down there, and there's a restaurant, which is also our house. The restaurant is one of the only ones in town and when tourist groups come they usually eat there. The middle part is where the adventure zipline park is and where a few families live. Back to the plaza. Most days we go up to the plaza and play soccer or baseball (because we taught them how to play last year), but once a week all the host families go and bring hot chocolate (well, for me juice). Here I’ve been playing a lot more soccer and it’s been great because it’s one of my favorite things to do. It’s also great exercise because the hill to the plaza is really steep, not even mentioning the sports we play when we get to the top. Sometimes we even go up there in the morning to specifically do exercise. And now I can actually run up from the bottom to the top (25-30 minute walk and 10-15 minute run), but it’s really hard since it’s so steep. That’s one of my favorite things to do here because, besides all the fun of playing sports, we get to spend good time with the people of Providencia. 

Trail Blazing in the Cloud Forest

Last week we did work that was pretty different from the work we've done before. We worked in a forest reserve, which is basically all the area around the adventure park where we went ziplining last month. We created trails for groups of students and volunteers that will study the area for the climate change impact. They're going to try to figure out what all the environmental changes are and why they're happening. The trail making was hard physical work and even though we did hard work on the farm, this time we were right smack in the middle of the forest. Taking out all the roots and branches to make a trail is really hard. It was all fun, though, at least for me. One thing that was not so fun were all the bugs but hey, siempre tiene que haber un pelo en la comida (a spanish saying that means "there always has to be a hair in the food"). We basically had to bathe ourselves in bug spray. Although it was fun sometimes the feeling of destroying parts of nature kind took hold of us. I think it helped to focus on the fact that we were mainly taking out small roots and leaves to make a narrow trail for a much bigger project. I really liked the work we did and I thought it was awesome to swing a hoe in the middle of a cloud forest.

My Grandparents, the Rain Forest and Sloths

A few weeks ago my grandparents came to Costa Rica. My grandparents live in Iowa so I only see them a few times a year, but this time I hadn't seen them for over a year, so I had really missed them. Even though I don't see them as much as people that live in California it's been amazing to actually see someone from home here in Costa Rica. The feeling was really really awesome because it completely removed all the homesickness I had, at least temporarily and I also feel like it reminded me that home still exists, that everybody is still there. It made me really look forward to going back home in a few months. Other than finally seeing someone from home I've had a really good time with them. We've played a lot of games, gone on some hikes and really just had some quality time together.

On Friday we went on a hike through the cloud forest, then the rain forest for about an hour and a half to see a huge waterfall. The hike was really fun, as all hikes are when you're surrounded by so much vegetation. At one point we had to take off our shoes to get across a river, or in my case, jump from rock to rock. The waterfall itself is beautiful, or better said, was beautiful. It's a huge waterfall that's about 300 feet high. When we went last time (when I was here last July) there was a ton of water and it was an actual waterfall but this time it was just a tiny tiny little trickle of water where you would have to stand under it for 10 minutes to finally get wet. It really reminds you that we have a shortage of water on our hands, even in Costa Rica. Last time we were there we saw some puma tracks when we were heading back. The guide had some clay that you put in the tracks to make a mold of them. After we waited for them to dry I went back to check on them and there were some new tracks right by the old ones. A puma had passed by just minutes after we had been there! We also found some beaver tracks but I don't think those were nearly as cool as the puma tracks. This time around, we did not see animal tracks. Still, it was a memorable walk. The waterfall is incredible and I'm lucky to have seen it twice. On this trip, I've really come to appreciate all nature has for us to see and all that it has for us to learn. 

2 weeks ago we went to Manuel Antonio National Park. The drive was about three hours from Providencia, pretty close but completely different landscapes and environments. The whole area is on the Pacific Coast, but the actual national park is a rain forest. We went on a half hour hike through the forest to get to a little beach. My favorite part was the hike because we saw so many awesome things. Our guide was amazing at spotting all different kinds of plants and animals and he was also just really good at his job, we really learned a lot. We saw sloths, bats, birds, deer, scorpions, spiders and monkeys. I think the sloths were really the highlight. We saw six in total, of both kinds, two toed and three toed! Two toed sloths are mean and aggressive, and we didn't really see them up close. On the other hand three toed sloths are gentle and peaceful so we got to see them up close. We even got to see a baby that was less than a week old! Now I can tell you from personal experience that they really are as slow as everybody says they are. My favorite bird that we saw was one that was super, super camouflaged. It looked exactly like a crumpled leaf but you could see its big brown eye that was the only thing that would give away its position. We saw a bunch of white-faced monkeys that put on a a show of taking people's food and throwing it. The beach itself was amazing too, it was like what you would see in pictures of a paradise beach, with the jungle right up against it. The water was calm and it felt perfect, although it was burning hot outside. After the beach we went to our hotel that was in a town called Dominical. The hotel was amazing with a fun pool, and I wish we could have stayed there longer than one night. The next morning most of the group went surfing but I couldn't go because I had an ear infection. That Sunday we said goodbye to my grandparents which was sad but it helped to know that I will see them not long after I get back. It was all around, an awesome Easter weekend!

Next week we visit Tortuguero, which is a completely different part of the country on the Caribbean side. That should be interesting.