Just another school week in San José

The rest of the week was a little bit less dramatic as Superbowl Sunday. My host parents own a business called Speaking Roses Costa Rica. They print messages and pictures onto roses which they arrange for weddings, birthdays, Mother's Day, and especially Valentine's Day. They were rather busy all week getting ready for the big day. Sophia had her first day of school. She is four years old and not quite in Kindergarden, but she leaves for school extremely early in the morning and returns after lunchtime. Sophia and I watched a couple of Disney movies in Spanish throughout the week. I watched Beauty and the Beast twice and Mulan II.

Melissa and I also got a chance to watch Pocohantas in Spanish from Sophia's personal collection. However, the songs were not quite the same in Spanish. Melissa and I are keeping up with our daily workouts for the most part, but it is almost midterm time for our elective classes, so we are quite busy. During the week we went food shopping for our lunches and planned for our weekend trip to Montezuma. One day, we walked to Parque de La Paz, a huge park about a mile away from our houses. La Paz includes two big lakes with ducks and running paths around them. There is a hill in the middle of the park where kids like to go sledding. Of course there is no snow here, but they use cardboard and rubber mats to go sledding in the grass. At the top of the hill there are some benches where we could pretty much see all of San José. I am going to have to go back and take some pictures on a clearer day.

One day, we took a long walk to downtown San José. I have been downtown a number of times, but this was one of the warmest days yet. We walked around trying to find the food market that I had been to before. Unfortunately, my awful sense of direction was of no help to us. We will have to try again next week. We were able to find the Artisan Market that sells a lot of beautiful things for descent prices. There were a number of cute coffee shops, ice cream parlors, book shops, museums, churches, and other things to look at downtown.

¡Tazon Super Domingo! Superbowl Sunday :)

We returned from La Selva in enough time to catch the beginning of the Superbowl. My tica dad is an American, so there was no way that he was going to miss the Superbowl. My mama tica did not have exactly the same appreciation for fútbol americano, but she watched it with us too along with my tica sister and my friend Melissa. My host parents made us amazing Nachos too! Unfortunately, the Superbowl for Costa Rican viewers was broadcasted from a Mexican station. That meant, no American Superbowl commericals. In fact, due to the lack of commerical breaks, I knew that my Steelers had lost way before everyone in Pennsylvania.

It was definitely funny to watch the Superbowl in Spanish. Instead of calling it the Superbowl, they called it the Super Tazon which literally translates super bowl (that you use for cereal). They called the Packers los Pacadores and the Steelers, los acereros. Acero means steel in spanish. Overall, it was a very fun night despite the fact that my Steelers did not win. There's always next year! On Monday, my host dad made sure that I got to see all of the commercials via youtube :)

La SELVA!

On Saturday, I woke up rather early in the morning to get on a van to go to La Selva. This was my first of two Tropical Ecology laboratory field trips. La Selva, which translates ¨the jungle¨, is a Biological research station located in the Caribbean province of Limon. In order to be able to go to La Selva, we each had to purchase rubber boots, because there are a number of venomous species of snakes, spiders, and frogs in La Selva. The drive was only about two and a half hours to get to the La Selva. The first thing I noticed after getting out of the van with my twenty some classmates was the dramatic change in the climate. San José is in the middle of its dry, summer season. However, because we are surrounded by mountains, the temperature is still rather lower than the surrounding provinces. La Selva is in the middle of a tropical rain forest, and it NEVER stops raining. There was a slight drizzle when we arrived, the air was thick and humid, and it was uncomfortably hot. It pretty much rained the rest of the day.

My friends Rachel and Rachel and I on the suspension bridge in La Selva.

My classmates and I stayed in a lodge with bunkbeds and a shared bathroom. The bathroom did not function most of the weekend, because many Americans still do not understand that you simply cannot flush toliet paper in Costa Rica. The plumbing cannot handle it. The cabin and the station reminded me a lot of being at Kirchenwald. Instead of being homesick like many of my classmates, I was ¨campsick.¨

After settling in, we put on our rubber boots, put on our raingear, grabbed our field notebooks, and prepared for a guided tour of the rainforest. Due to the fact that it was an Ecology laboratory field trip, we were expected to take extensive notes while walking through the forest. The only problem was that even with rain jackets and an umbrella, my notebook managed to get soaked. Have you ever tried to write notes on a soaking wet piece of paper? It does not work so well.

The rainforest!

On our guided tour, we had the opportunity to see spider monkeys, howler monkeys, parrots, toucans, and many other species of animals and plants. Our guide showed us a rare species of bats. Bats are the most abundant mammal in all of Costa Rica. There were three bats that were a little bit bigger than cotton balls. They were a light green color, and they make their home underneath of a large leaf. They chew part of the spine of the leaf so that it creates a protective tent. Our guide told us that we were very lucky, and this particular species of bat is rarely seen in the wild.

This is the leaf where the bats lived.
It was hard to get a good picture with the lighting
 and the fact that it was raining.
They are in the center of the leaf towards the bottom. 

After lunch, a man told us to take a couple of bananas from lunch and drop pieces over the magnificient suspension bridge that the station is known for. A couple of my friends and I decided to try it out. Much to our surprise, the fruit parahnas in the river practically caught the pieces of banana before they even hit the surface of the water. There were dozens of them! From the bridge, we could also see iguanas and other lizards in the higher branches in the trees soaking up the sun. There were also crocodiles in the river.

We were given a presentation by one of the educators at La Selva. It is one of three main Biological research stations in Costa Rica. Many students and scholars from around the world come to La Selva to conduct research. They stay in the same lodges that we stayed in. Around the main inhabited area of the station, there was a small herd of peccaries. The peccaries are a species of wild pigs. I especially liked seeing the younger ones that were only a month or so old.

These are just a few of the peccaries living around the station. 

After the sun went down, we went on a night hike with one of the guides. Most species of snakes are nocturnal, so this was our chance to see snakes. We saw six different snakes! There was also a random armadillo that crossed the path behind us. We saw a number of species of birds sleeping in the trees, golden orb spiders spinning their webs, iguanas, bats, and many others.

This is just one example of the huge spiders we saw in La Selva.

The next day, we were expected to spend our time conducting our own research, and we were permitted to walk anywhere along the trails in the station. We are talking thousands of acres of rain forest! My friends and I decided to walk to this one swamp. It was about a two hour hike, but it was definitely worth it. We saw a lot of smaller, skinnier snakes. For our project, we looked at leaf-cutter ants and their interactions with eachother and their environment. The day before we had seen a number of leaf cutter ants that had dropped their leaves in the middle of the path to avoid the rain. Raindrops can kill the ants.

Leaf cutter ant: In action!

I could write a ten page paper on the activities of leaf cutter ants (and I probably will for my Ecology Class), but I will not bore you with all of the details. While taking photographs of the leaf cutter ants, I had a Bullet Ant fall out of a tree onto my arm! Bullet Ants are extremely painful if they bite you. Apparently, it feels as if you have been shot, and some people are bedridden for two days after being bitten. Luckily, I was able to flick it off of my arm before it could do any damage.

A Bullet Ant!

La Selva was definitely a once in a lifetime experience. Many people will travel to Costa Rica to experience all of the opportunities that the Ecotourism industry has to offer. However, it is rare to be given the opportunity to stay at a Biological research station. I had the opportunity to see primary growth rain forest. I tried to take pictures to put into perspective just how big the trees were, but the pictures really do not do the trees any justice.

Just one of many large primary growth trees.

What to do with all of this freetime?

Now that I do not have to sit through four hours of Spanish, I had to figure out some things to do with my free time here in Costa Rica. Do not get me wrong, I am still working hard on becoming conversational in Spanish, and my three other classes still take up a lot of time and energy. However, I now have my mornings free to explore San José. My friend Melissa lives in the house behind mine. Her host parents are the parents of my host mother. We sometimes joke that she is my aunt. We decided to start working out each morning around the neighborhood. It is a wonderful opportunity to see what is going on around the neighborhood and to explore new places within walking/ jogging distance.

On Thursday, one of our friends at Veritas was leaving to volunteer at a hospital in Nicaragua. We had a going away party for her at a pizza place near the University. It was the best jamon y piña pizza (Hawaiian)  I have ever had. We are planning to visit her sometime in March. I really loved Nicaragua, and I am very excited to have the chance to return.

Pizza Party!

Grocery shopping is also a necessity here, because only breakfast and dinner are provided by our host families. Somedays I like to go to a small soda for lunch. On Wednesday, Melissa and I met up with two of my friends from Spanish class to eat at La Musa Confusa. It is the cutest little soda with creative decor, wonderful batidos (smoothies made with milk), and sandwiches. However, other days it is just cheaper to make a peanut butter sandwich and some yogurt. We live rather close to Mercado Central del Sur, an outdoor shopping center that includes the first ever McDonald's established outside of the United States and Canada. There is also a pet store, countless shoe and clothing stores, a reasonable grocery store, a bank, and tons of other places to eat. Thursday night, Melissa and I went back to my house to look through Sophia's movie collection. We decided to watch Snow White. Sophia's Disney movies are very useful for practicing Spanish.

On Friday, I went with my group to catch a bus to downtown San José to go to the zoo. The zoo was not nearly as scary as the one I went to in Cairo (the animals were actually in cages). However, I was a little disappointed to see how small a lot of the cages were, and there were a number of animals that certainly did not belong in a small cage in Central America such as the lions. However, it was a beautiful green space located downtown with a great deal of locals. After going to the zoo, we went out to eat and looked around the food market. I had the greatest ice cream ever at this small place within the food market. It seemed pretty popular despite the fact that there only seemed to be one flavor and it was an odd gold/yellow color. I decided to try it anyway. The ice cream was amazing! It was a vanilla flavor mixed with what tasted like pumpkin spice.

We also got a chance to walk around an International bookstore where I bought a book called Mi Primera Biblia. I figured a children's Bible would be a good way to practice my Spanish, and it would be rather useful if I decided to volunteer here or at home in a Spanish-speaking setting. We also looked around a very small portion of the Artisan's Market, but I will definitely have to go back for better look. Afterwards, we walked back to the University where I met up with five friends in order to catch the train to Heredia.

This was my first experience with a train in Costa Rica, and it was much much better than I expected. The cost was only 350 colones (less than a dollar) one way to get to Heredia from San José. Heredia is the capital of the province of Heredia located northeast of San José. Heredia is much smaller than San José and a bit more colonial. It took us a half hour to get there by train, but we unfortunately got off a stop too early. We ended up in the town of Miraflores and had to walk an extra two miles or so to get to Heredia.

Hanging out on the train with Bethany and Rachel

My intercultural communications and competence professor lives in Heredia and had given us directions to get to his house. We went to his house where he served us the most amazing Costa Rican coffee and galletas (cookies). It was really cool to hear all about his life outside of class (He is an activist on the side and is actually related to a former president of Costa Rica). He mentioned at one point that he was proud that two former Costa Rican presidents are currently in jail. He said that it proves that Ticos hold their elected officials accountable for their actions, even the president. This was just another example of how different the professor-student relationship is in Costa Rica.

NICARAGUA!!!

I apologize for the delay for this post, but I have been struggling with uploading the pictures.

I left for Nicaragua around 12 noon on Friday after my Spanish final. It took approximately six hours to get to the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border from San José. We took a smaller bus than the last few trips, because there were only twenty other students in my group. We took the same, scenic road as the previous trip to Tamarindo, passing many ranches, beaches, and smaller towns. We also got to see a number of good examples of Costa Rica's national tree, the Guanacaste tree. We reached the border right before it was about to close. I found it interesting that it was actually much more difficult to get out of Costa Rica than it was to get into Nicaragua, but above all I was very excited to get another stamp in my passport.

After we crossed into Nicaragua, even though it was dusky out, the first thing I noticed were the improved road conditions. I have found from many people I have talked to in Costa Rica that there is a bit of a prejudice between many Ticos and Nicas. A large portion of the population of Costa Rica are Nicaraguan immigrants, many of the women working as maids. Also, there was a small (over-exaggerated in my opinion) conflict at the Nicaragua/ Costa Rica border over land. In fact, some of the tour groups had cancelled their trips due to the "violence". The truth is, there was no violence, and it was perfectly safe to cross into Nicaragua. I have heard a number of Ticos talking about how backward, weird, and dirty Nicaragua and its people were. Again, this was a complete lie. For all the talk about the instability and economic hardships in Nicaragua, they sure seem to keep their cities looking very nice and their roads excellent (much smoother than roads in Costa Rica). 

Our first hotel was located a few blocks away from the central park in Granada, Nicaragua. Granada is the oldest city in Nicaragua. It was never destroyed by war or natural disasters such as the violent eruption of the nearby volcano Masaya or the earthquake that completely destroyed Nicaragua's capital city of Managua. The yellow cathedral, pictured below, is located in Granada. This picture was taken just after sunrise. All of the bright, colonial colored buildings in Granada simply glowed in the sunlight.

This cathedral is the centerpiece of the central park in Granada.
 As the sun was rising, the building seemed to glow.

This building is just another example of the gorgeous architecture in Granada.

We also got to take a horse-carriage tour of Granada. It was a wonderful opportunity to see much of the colonial city and its famous architecture. Our tour guide stopped periodically and let us off to explore some buildings and ruins around the city. Granada was absolutely gorgeous!

This was the carriage we rode in during our tour of the city.

This is the old hospital that we got to explore during our horse carriage ride. The hospital was in use during the 1800s, but the ruins still stand. Pictured below is just the front of the hospital. It actually extends back a great distance behind the street view. All of the roof is missing, but there are still some stairs leading to the non-existant second floor. A lot of the patient rooms were also still in tact.

These are the ruins of the old hospital.
It was huge and really interesting to explore.

All drinks were sold in plastic baggies,

 and you were given a straw.

This is the old cathedral in Managua. It is no longer in use,
because it sustained significant damage during the earthquake.

We stayed in two different hotels during our stay in Granada. Below is a picture of the inside of the first hotel. From the outside, all of the buildings appear very small. However, after entering through the first part of the building there was often an open air section such as this. In the fountain, there was also a number of turtles. The second hotel we stayed in was located in the central park, and it was very colonial in appearance. For breakfast each morning, we were served Gallo pinto - a rice and beans dish very popular in both Costa Rica and Nicaragua. There was also a special (very salty) Nicaraguan cheese, eggs, bread and different types of marmalade such as pineapple. 

The inside of one of the two hotels.

In Nicaragua, my friend Emily and I decided to visit a Cacao/ Cocoa Factory to learn how to make chocolate the old fashion way. We were with a number of other international tourists. The couple next to us were from Germany and had lived in the United States for a while. There were a few Ticos, Japanese, and other Europeans. We started out listening to an explanation of how Cacao seeds are dispersed and how they were used by the Mayans, Aztecs, and Spanish. We were also given samples of cacao drinks from all three cultures. The Mayan drink was very bitter with only the cacao and cinnamon. The Aztec drink also included chili, so it was rather spicy. The Spanish were the first to include sugar and milk in their drink, it tasted much more like the hot chocolate that I am used to. 

The Cacao tree grows in the tropics. The seed itself cannot be dispersed without the help of animals such as monkeys. The monkeys are attracted to the fallen seed pod by the fleshy, milky fruit that surrounds and protects the cacao seeds. The cacao seeds themselves are rather bitter, even more so than coffee beans, so the monkeys and other animals spit them out. In this way, the seeds are dispersed. In the history of the cacao plant, the fruit itself has never been overly utilized for human consumption. 

We got to help roast the beans over a fire. Then we cracked the beans open to release the actual cacao seed. Afterwards we crushed the beans into a fine powder that was used to make the drinks that we tried. After adding milk and sugar, we were able to create our own chocolate bars. The chocolate tasted a little bit stronger than Hershey's, and the texture of the sugar was more evident. Emily and I added cashews to our chocolate bars. 

Roasting the beans.

Crushing the cacao beans into cocoa powder.

The actual chocolate, this was the stuff we used for the bars.

Emily and I with the finished products of our factory tour.

We also went on a boat tour of some of the 365 islands in Lake Nicaragua. The lake was so large, that they did not know it was a lake until they tasted the water. In fact, the lake is connected to the ocean at one point, so there are several species of sharks living in the lake.  The islands that we explored are a part of an archipelago that was formed by the eruption of the Masaya volcano. The islands are now occupied by rich Nicaraguans, Costa Ricans, Europeans, and Americans. Although many of the islands have human residents, we also went past an island inhabited mostly by spider monkeys. Our guide drove up beside the island and let two of the monkeys on our boat. He warned us to protect our bags, because the monkeys did try to steal our things. The monkey pictured below is named Lucy, she was very friendly and even sat on my lap for a period of time. 

This is the island I want to purchase.

One of the 365 islands in the lake formed by the explosive
 eruption of el volcan Masaya

MONKEYS!!!

You could pretty much see the Masaya volcano from
anywhere in Granada.

We also visited a water volcano. This is the lagoon that was formed after the eruption of this volcano. The lagoon was absolutely enormous, and it was surrounded by a number of beautiful houses. People were also taking advantage of the abundance of wind to sail on the lagoon. There was always a nice breeze in Nicaragua, and we saw two different wind farms while driving in the country. 

This is the lagoon formed by a volcanic eruption.
It was absolutely massive!

We also went zip-lining again! This time we zip-lined over a lake just outside of Managua. In Nicaragua, there were less strict about having cameras, and they also let us try out different zip-lining positions. My favorite was definitely going upside down. There were three lines in all.

The superman way is a bit more daring.

But going upside down was definitely the best!

End of formal Spanish

On Thursday, I made a formal presentation in my Spanish class. On Friday, I took a final exam to mark the end of my formal Spanish courses here in Costa Rica. Due to the exceedingly cost of taking an additional course, I will have to continue to learn and improve my Spanish by conversing with my host family and other Ticos and studying on my own. I was, however, very happy to get a break from the four hours of intensive Spanish. This gives me an extra four hours each day to explore San José and really get to know the culture of Costa Rica. To top it all off, I passed my five credit Spanish course with flying colors :) Immediately after completing my Spanish final on Friday, my group left for an eight hour drive to Granada, Nicaragua.

This is a picture of me and a couple friends from Spanish class.
The tica in the white blouse is my Spanish professor Soledad.