Ojo de Agua y Santa Ana

Fact: it is simply unrealistic to travel every single weekend. And it wasn't me who realized this. Rather, it was my host mom. We actually spent one Friday exploring Santa Ana, an area west of San José, to show me an alternative to the beach, to visit a family member, and basically just to have fun. First, we went to a famous river in Costa Rica called Salitral. The river has a special mineral in it, saltpeter. I even tried some of the water at a fancy fountain and it was definitely full of minerals. Yum...

We then went to her relative's house/office that is close to the river. Her sister-in-law Maritza is a orthodontist, and the building in which her practice is located is also part of her house. It's a small but neat setup: only two dental chairs but there's a narrow outdoor walkway that leads to the garage and the rest of the two-story house.

Later, we went to a Multiplaza which was basically a gigantic, American-like mall. We really only went there to eat lunch (first fast food I've had since I've been here: yeah Subway!) but we ended up walking around and checking out the stores, too. As I inattentively descended down an escalator, Yami said one word to me that lit up my eyes like never before: "Mira". I looked, and I saw a piano. A baby Yahama grand just inside the glass windows to a music store. I booked it down that escalator, hurriedly asked an employee if I could play it, sat down at the bench, closed my eyes and felt those sweet, sweet keys under my long-awaiting fingers. I played through 3 old tunes that were the firsts to come to mind before I felt it was time to say goodbye...for now. I'm determined to come back with my sheet music and play for hours over one of my super-busy fines de semanas :)

We also visited a water park called Ojo de Agua. It gets its name (Eye of Water in English) from the large hole in the ground that gushes out 5,000 gallons of water a minute. It has a few Olympic size swimming pools with 3 and 5 meter diving platforms, a waterfall, a small lake for kayaking, a golf range, soccer fields, a playground, and more. I thought to myself, this would indeed be fun to spend a day here with some friends...so I did:

The famous Ojo de Agua

A few ducks on the lake.

Yeah. That's me there in the middle. What, you guys don't remember what I look like? It hasn't been that long has it? Haha, I actually snapped this photo; that's my friend Jordan in the middle. I did go under that waterfall though. And MAN! I've never felt so ALIVE in my LIFE!! An intense brick wall of cold water hits you so hard it takes the breath out of you. SO ridiculous!

The water in the pools was also FREEZING. I probably jumped off the diving platforms 10 times but only stayed in the water for 2 minutes total. And regardless of the afternoon rain that cut our fun short by half an hour, we had an awesome time.

Topics for next post: classes, teaching and ticas :)

PanamaMalPaisTicasExamenes ahh I'm behind!!

¡Buenas noches mi familia y amigos! Disculpame por no pegar una entrada más temprano. Entonces, a sus delicias, yo tengo fotos para ustedes ver y cuentos (en inglés) para ustedes leer. ¡Disfruten!

Panamá

Now, you may be wondering, for those that actually remembered where I left off, that I was about to tell you about the hike out of Sirena Ranger Station. So why title this section Panamá? Simply put, this story is too complicated, too full of STUFF to be writing it in an internet journal. Besides, it's just not as exciting that way! So I have instead decided that it will be my pleasure to fully describe my thrilling, dangerous, graphic adventure to each and every one of you in person. Now that got your attention, didn't it?

Panamá was beautiful. Incredibly so. It was a looong trip getting to the town of Boquete, too. First, from Puerto Jiménez I took a boat across the Golfo Dulce to Golfito. It was a nice, relaxing ride but we sure were moving fast. Before departure I snapped a sweet picture of a pelican:

Golfito is known to be a rough, sketchy town, so naturally I was only there for 2 minutes. Just enough time to get off the boat and hop on the first bus to the border of Panamá. The bus was more packed than I'd ever seen - I was sandwiched, standing in the aisle, between an old guy with bad breath and a fat teenager without a shirt. Luckily the ride only lasted 3 hours...

The process of crossing the border wasn't too bad. I had to get stamped out of Costa Rica and get stamped into Panamá. The buses in Panamá were so different than in Costa Rica. In fact, if my friend in Dos Brazos Steve Prchal hadn't told me about the buses I might still be looking for them. They are basically big plain-colored vans. But air-conditioned thank goodness! That sure was a nice surprise. Not to mention the fare was cheap.

View from the 'bus':

I arrived in San José de David (people just call it David) that afternoon and took yet another bus to my final destination, Boquete. Boquete is close to Volcán Barú, so as you can imagine, it's high in elevation. The Boquete bus was a regular school bus (still cheap), but without being equipped with any special features, we chugged up that mountain at a snail's pace. I literally could have ran alongside our bus at some points.

Boquete was a beautiful mountainous town. Colder than I expected but very refreshing. I checked into my hostal called Mamallena and woke up early the next morning pumped to see some Quetzals. So now you know why I chose to go to Panamá in the first place. I heard about this trail called Sendero Los Quetzales which ranks among the top trails in ALL of Central America. After another 2 buses and a taxi ride, I reached the trail head for my Quetzal adventure. Here are a few pictures of the trail:





The first hour I saw some small forest birds but nothing special. I was a little bummed, especially after spending 20 minutes at the sign that said "Habitat de Quetzales" with my neck strained looking up into the canopies. Well, turns out it wasn't till I hit some lower elevation that I saw them:

Let's just say it was 100% worth the trip. Even if the pictures are a little grainy. I saw a male courting a female; he would fly in little circles around her and show off. I saw the unmistakable silhouette of a male high up in the sky as he belted out his song to the forest. I saw a group of 3 females searching for fruits near the forest floor (rare because they usually spend their time high up in the canopies, hence the grainy photos). Just an awesome, awesome hike.

Back to Boquete I went and enjoyed the quiet life of my hostel. The next morning I checked out, took the 5am school bus to David, another bus to the border, and begged my way onto a bus to take me to San José. Another in-person story there, if you must hear it :)

Next update: Check back Tuesday night same time for more!

Update

Dear all:
I know it must be torture not knowing when I'm posting next, so I'm promising you all a new, substantial blog by 9 pm AZ time Monday, May 10. I've been super busy with school...lately I've been studying for two midterms and preparing a gigantic presentation, and on top of that I'm just swamped with making travel plans, haha. Mal Pais this weekend!

Pura Vida,

Andy