Week 4 catch-up: Puerto Viejo, World Cup, White Water Rafting

   Wow, I have a lot to catch up on.  Last weekend was my class trip to Puerto Viejo.  We left Saturday morning, and after our 4 hour bus ride we hopped off the bus and started hiking up into the rain forest to visit a service station that is part of the indigenous Bribri village.  It was a very intense hike and very muddy.  Along the way our guide stopped and talked about different plants and their medicinal uses.  At the top we had lunch at the service station and then walked even farther up to a tower to look out over the forest.  It was a breath-taking view.  Then we hiked back down, and just our luck it started raining so it was a very slippery walk.
   After the hike we went to our hostel, Walaba in Punta Uva, just outside of Puerto Viejo.  It was surround by beautiful nature, so our beds came with bug nets.  We changed there and went to the beach until it got dark and then had dinner.
  The next day we woke up and went to the beach to do clay masks and practice Chin-Kun.  It was a very quick and busy weekend.
   School wasn't too exciting this week, but on Friday was got to leave class early to watch the Costa Rican World Cup game.  We walked downtown to watch it at the town square.  The energy of all the ticos was amazing!  They won their game which means that they get to go into the second round, which also means that the celebration was huge! All the excitement lasted from noon until really late at night.  We could hear blow horns and car horns anywhere and everywhere for 12 hours straight.  It was insane!
  Today we woke up and went white water rafting.  It was awesome!  It was on the Pacuare river, which is about 1.5 hours outside of San José.  Our guides name was Roy, he was a pro and hilarious!

My teacher for Alternative Health Approaches

The beginning of our hike to Bribri service station

Up at the service station

The look out tower

View of the ocean over the trees

The Talamanca mountain range that continues down into Panama

Beach across from the hostel

Courtney and me with our clay masks

Sitting area at the hostel

Our lovely beds and bug nets

More of the hostel

World Cup soccer game in San José

4 hours after the game, the celebration at San Pedro mall (building on the left). They shut the highway down!

Olivia showing her Costa Rican pride

Quitirrisí and ziplining in San Ramone

My elective Alternative Health Approaches class is full of field trips.  Yesterday we went to an indigenous village of the Quitirrisí people that live up on a hillside about an hour west of San José.  It was full of history and very interesting!  We met don Juan who was a cacique (like a chief) of that village and he gave us the history of how the Quitirrisí have been in Costa Rica since the 1500's. And later in the 1800's the Spanish came over and tried to take their land and so they fought in war and were able to keep it. 

  He also explained how their elders learned how to live by watching how animals live.  They decided to live day by day and not worry about tomorrow.  He explained to us that everything they do is a celebration, even work.  When they build in their village, they do it with pleasure and make a festival out of it.  It was a very neat outlook on life.  They believe in a god, but my teacher explained later that it is not the real God.

   After don Juan gave the introduction about history, we walked to some of the places that they have ceremonies and looked at different plants that are used for natural healing.  I am so grateful to have met these people!

The altitude was so high we were literally inside a cloud.

In front of the place they would have village meetings.

Me, don Juan, my professor Ricardo, and Meredith

A circle of sticks with animal skulls on top.  He performed a welcome ritual here.

Don Juan showing a welcome ceremony with some of the students, I sat back and watched.

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The burial ground, right then Don Juan's mother (101 years old) and brother (80 years old) were burried.  They put the bodies here for a period of time before they dig it up and then bury the bones into a different tomb.  The sparrow on the wall is the sparrow that goes to their heaven and helps people be judged to not go to their hell.

Today, Meredith and I went Ziplining because we are going to miss one of the CEA excursions due to a class field trip this weekend to the Carribean.  Costa Rica has many Zipline places, but today we went to San Ramone, which is about an hour and a half north of San José.  It was awesome!  There was one Tarzan swing and the last line was a Super Man style about 250 feet high.  We flew over the tree tops and got to look down onto the rain forest, it was beautiful!

                                  

Meredith, Maggie from CEA, and I before our adventure

Manuel Antonio

    Last week I started my 2 classes per day schedule, so I didn't have much time to do anything touristy.  I have my medical Spanish class from 8-12p and then Alternative health approaches from 3-5p.

    Over the weekend we had an excursion with CEA to Manuel Antonio, which is another beach town near Jacó, and famous for its national park.  A van picked us up after our Spanish classes and we arrived around 5 pm on Friday to check into our hotel and have dinner.

   Saturday we woke up early and went and had a typical Costa Rican breakfast: gallo pinto (rice and beans), eggs, toast, fruit, and grilled plantains.  After breakfast we walked to Manuel Antonio and took the nature walk and we saw many monkeys, lizards, and one sloth.  In the middle of the national park there is a beach that was gorgeous, so we stopped there after we took our 2nd hike through the mountain side around the ocean.

   Sunday, the girls from the 5 week program and I went waterfall rappelling on the Savegre River.  It was an adventure, but I will never do it again!  The first couple rappels were without water, which I enjoyed, but the final one was a 150 foot waterfall that was really intense.  It didn't help that it had rained alot the day before, so the water was strong.  I am glad I am able to check it off my list of things to do though!  Right after we finished we took the van back to San José.

Jacó and Manuel Antonio are on the Pacific side

Manuel Antonio Hotel

View of our balcony (that's the ocean behind the palm trees)

Dinner the first night with all the CEA girls

Typical Costa Rican breakfast

View of the ocean across the street from the restaurant

Monkey in Manuel Antonio National Park

View from our intense mountain-side hike

Pura Vida!

The suspension bridge and waterfall we rappelled down

Me rappelling

The after view of rappelling

Fun attraction along the way to Manuel Antonio

Recently, in the past couple weeks a head was found of a drunk man that decided to swim with these crocodiles!

Universidad Veritas

We are taking our classes at the University of Veritas in Zapote, San Jose.  It is an art and architectual school, so the layout and inside are very neat.  Also, it has a very natural feel to it because it is not completely closed off, but has alot of nature growing in areas of it.  

Sculpture we pass by at the entrance

One of the cafeterias

Entrance to the library study area

Looking at the entrance to the library from the study area

Main hallway with trees growing

                    

Student artwork