Siempre estoy reiendo! (I´´m always laughing)
So much has happened since my last post. Where to begin? For the weekend, there was a group of 6 that headed for a ´nearby´ town; La Fortuna. There they have an active volcano that we got to see (from afar of course). Unfortunately it wasn´t as breathtaking as I had hoped but I still had a fabulous time. While on our tour it rained virtually the entire time so that added some flair!
Let me back up...I need to explain what our group of 6 consisted of...once I do that will explain in part why I had such a delightful time on my mini vaca.
#1 - me (US-25yrs), #2 - Chelsea (Canada-20), #3 - Dana (Germany-23), #4 - Melissa (Belgium-20), #5 - Felix (Switzerland-37), and last BUT CERTAINLY NOT LEAST is #6 - Detriech (Germany but has lived in Spain for the last 10 years - late 40s).
Please notice that we are all from different countries around the world which automatically makes for an intersesting adventure. Also notice the girls are all close in age and then our ´father´ figures are along for the ride (they had no idea what they were getting involved with!)
Detrich is one of the most rare types of human beings God ever created (MOSTLY in a good way) ;) He was the main cause of most of the laughter all weekend long. All the others just fed off of him and we literally did not stop laughing the entire trip (unless of course we were sleeping).
Okay - so we traveled by bus on Friday morning (approx 5 hrs). This was an experience of its own bc here in Costa Rica, just because the seats are all full, doesn´t mean they stop selling tickets. It just means you´re gonna be standing in the aisle the ENTIRE ride! So, on our way there, the bus was packed...and at one point Dana and I felt a little guilty we were sitting whie this old couple had to stand so we gave up our seats. We got to ride Costa Rican style for about an hour and a half until other seats became available. While standing, we got to witness an older Costa Rican gentleman use a cell phone for the first time. How did we know it was his first time? I´´m glad you asked...bc he was talking on it while holding it upside down! NO wonder he couldn´t hear anything and he had to scream to let the person on the other line hear him. It was HILARIOUS! I was dying with laughter (which as most of you can guess, drew quite a bit of attention to the matter)! You maybe had to be there but it was great!
We eventually made it to our hostel and got settled in. Talked to some tour peeps and then ate lunch while discussing our plans. We decided to go through our hostel for a volcano tour and they were gonna charge us $40 but thanks to Detriech we only had to pay $30! One of the many reasons it was good to have him around! Unfortunately the first half of the tour was nothing to get excited about. It rained for most of the time so walking through the ´forest´ around the volcano was not so enjoyable. BUT the 2nd half of our tour was something indescribable! We went to a natural hot springs off the side of some road! We thought it a bit shady bc as we exited the tour van the guides were very adamant about us not taking ANYTHING with us...not even shoes or towel or clothes...NOTHING. They were quite forceful with it so we started thinking the worst - like they were gonna take us to these hot springs and leave us there to die! But despite the uneasiness of the situation, we all left our things and walked down this ´path´ which lead us to some HOT water! Once we got in the first pool one of the guides took us into a ´cave´ underneath one of the hot spring waterfalls while the other guide got out...so naturally we thought they were seriously leaving us there to die. The positive note we made was that if they did leave us - we wouldn´t freeze to death!!! Haha. The whole deal worked out quite well and it was seriously an UNFORGETTABLE experience!
The next day - after much searching - we found a rafting tour. This too was such a FUN activity with our group. The two guys were in the front of our raft as our ´leaders´ but the funny part about that was they NEVER did what our guide told them. They were either looking at nature or rowing the opposite direction that we were told or rowing when we weren´t supposed to! I was dying with laughter...i had to yell at them every time we received instruction! haha. After the rafting, we were taken for a delicous meal where we also received a taste of some homemade licour and fresh squeezed sugar cane juice! SUCH A COOL TOUR!
The next day we just took it easy and hopped on a bus back to San Jose.
MONDAY I talked to the school about changing my housing placement which they did with pleasure! My new home is WAY more comfortable and the hosts are equally as nice!
This week is my last week here...and then I will fortunately return to the states!!! I´m leaving in about 10 minutes to head to a beach on the carribean side of CR...i´ll be sure to fill all the missing details when I get back! Thanks for hangin in there....hasta pronto (I hope)
Sierra
