Viaje con David!! Part 2

Monteverde and Playa Conchal

The next day, David and I took the public boat across Lake Arenal to get to Monteverde, the famous Cloud Forest (aka Level 3 in SuperMario Brothers right Travis?). The view leaving Arenal was sweet and the boat ride was well worth it.

Monteverde, much to David's liking, was cooler and not nearly as humid. We checked into our second hostel, bought a loaf of bread, Nutella and guayaba jelly and had lunch. That afternoon we signed up for a Canopy Tour, aka ziplining! There are a good 5 or 6 companies in town, so after weighing our options, we decided on the one, the only, Extremo Canopy Tour! It sure was extreme. As if the 14 regular ziplines weren't enough, we got thrown a few surprises.

The first was a 50 ft rappel down a gigantic tree. We dropped down so fast I could smell the rope burning against the metal piece on my harness. The second was a Tarzan Swing. High up on a platform, we attached our harnesses to a rope that hung from a distant tree and swung through the air like Tarzan. The guides purposely leave you with slack in the rope so you don't start your swing right away, rather you free fall for half a second first! It was a huge rush of energy. Not quite the same rush as bungee jumping though :) Lastly, instead of hanging normally in a sitting position for the last zipline, we flipped our harness to our backs, added a chest harness, hung up our feet, and went flying through the air Superman style for almost an entire kilometer! What topped it all off was we were up SO high in the cloud forest that most of our time on the cable was in complete fog!! At times you could see parts of the ground far beneath you. But you honestly can't get any closer to flying than this (still being attached to something, that is). It was such an awesome experience.

The next morning we took a bus to Sardinal, caught a bus going to Liberia, and finally our last bus got us to Playa Flamingo. I made a friend with a 3 year old on the last bus :)

We relaxed at Playa Flamingo for a while...

but our ultimate goal was to find the famous but secluded Playa Conchal. We ended up walking a few kilometers to the small beach town Brasilito where we decided to spend the night. Let me just say, as far as transportation and lodging went, I only planned our trip up to Monteverde. It was different (and nice) for a change to figure things out as we went. We found a hotel right on the beach that had AIR CONDITIONING. I have to tell you it was the first room I'd stayed at in months that had A/C. David was in heaven and I was in shock.

With a good amount of daylight left, we set out to find this Playa Conchal. I've yet to tell you why it was our ultimate destination. Well, simply put, Conchal basically means shelly. Usually you go to sandy beaches. Playa Conchal didn't have sand. Instead, all you saw, all you felt, all there was...were shells! Soft, polished dime-sized sea shells lined this beach from top to bottom. No matter how far down we tried to dig we only found shells. And, since the shells are lighter in color than sand, sunlight hits the water with more clarity giving the ocean a crystal clear blue appearance. Amazing.

Furthermore, it was kind of scary at first because the shells just DROP out from under you no more than 10 feet from the shore. The shore gets deep fast due to the shells somehow. Plus, when each wave recedes, some weird effect makes you get sucked out into the ocean and pushed toward the shore by the next wave at the same time! Even weirder! For hours, David and I laid in just enough water to let the waves carry us effortlessly up and down the shore. Incredible. Everyone must experience this. So go to Conchal on your next vacation :) Besides, David's got all the Conchal pictures so I guess you'll have either find him or go there yourself!

Other pictures:
More to come soon!

Viaje con David!! Part 1

What seems like forever ago was really only last month. David "Boo" Gonzales came to visit!!! I met him at the airport and talked a taxi driver, who let David borrow his cell phone to call me, out of taking a taxi all the way to San Pedro. 80 cent bus ride > $30 taxi ride.

After checking into the small but cozy Hotel St. Pierre, we walked to the Jazz Cafe where we listened to a local band play. They had 3 trombones, a few singers, percussionists, a bassist and a keyboardist. People danced all night to their music and man, have I mentioned that everyone in Costa Rica knows how to dance? And I'm not just talking about standing with a girl and swaying, I'm talking dance. Salsa, Merengue, Swing, etc. It was fun to watch and I wish I remembered more from my summer salsa class with Kassy to bust out some moves.

Anyways, David had the next day to himself to explore San Jose while I attended classes. That night we went to the bar Reventados to watch the Suns vs. Lakers game. We lost to a ridiculous Kobe airball that Artest managed to salvage for a bucket. What? I'm not bitter...

The next day we woke up early and went to the Arenal bus stop in San Jose. But before we stepped on the bus, we had an hour and a half to kill. We made good use of our time/money and bought backpacks - bigger backpacks than our already-stuffed school backpacks . Now these backpacks were not anywhere close to good quality. The lady selling them across the street only charged $19 for each one. She insisted on helping us stuff our school packs into our new packs. David's fit just fine, and mine did too, but once I picked mine up, rrrrrriiippp...there went the mesh lining at the top of the pack. 2 minutes later...David hears a rrrrrrriiippp from his pack, too. So back at the bus station, still with plenty of time on our hands, we decide not only to sew the rips (yes, I had needle and thread with me) but I also decided to return my pack for another. The backpack lady didn't notice my stitching (I'm that good haha) and I got a bigger and better pack in exchange. This time, a Puma!

NOT.

Well, the bus ride was crazy. Going up hills around sharp corners passing semi-trucks is just another day for a Tico bus driver. But we eventually made it to Arenal safely. After checking into the same hostel I stayed at back in March, we walked around town a while and caught a nice view of the volcano before dusk.

Later that night we met up with 2 girls from Colorado and went on a night tour to see Volcano Arenal. It was awesome!! Our guide Ivan got us there just in time to see lava flow down the side of the volcano. Being super dark and having only a mediocre camera, this is all I picked up of the lava:

But trust me, it really was cool! We saw bright streaks of lava flowing down half the volcano; Ivan told us we were lucky. Ivan, in fact, decided the four of us were more than his usual group of tourists. We spoke Spanish with him, took pictures together, cracked jokes, and cranked the tunes in the car to and from the volcano. So after the tour, he took us to a natural hot springs. He brought a handful of candles, too, so we lit the place up and chilled in a natural hot springs that not many people know about! He showed us the place where 2 rivers meet - one river with hot water and the other with cold, so standing right at the juncture felt really neat. There was also a small cascade over a ledge that opened up into a pool, and under the cascade there was a small cave under which we swam. Other than finding a dead frog in there, it was pretty awesome.

The next day, we got up early to go to La Fortuna Waterfalls, which is arguably the most beautiful waterfall in Costa Rica. It was stunning:

My camera couldn't even capture all 215 feet of it! Next, we had planned to take a boat across the gorgeous Lake Arenal, but to our dismay the only available boats at the time were privately owned and would have cost us $70 a person. So, we headed back to the waterfall area to hike a trail to Cerro Chato, a dormant volcano that now has a crater lake. It was an extremely steep climb, but equally extreme in its beauty.



As with anywhere you go, it's hard to capture the entire feel of the place in just one picture. But again, trust me that swimming in a 300 x 300ft volcanic crater lake was an amazing experience and one of my favorite places I've visited so far. True, the hike was a pain, and we had mosquitoes and flies attacking us nonstop the entire trek, pero valió la pena :)

Tomorrow: Monteverde and Conchal!

Clases y: la tica

As I am finishing mid-terms, my friends are finishing their finals. And yesterday, we all GRADUATED from college! Before getting into my Costa Rica stories, it's definitely worth mentioning graduation. Surprisingly, I wasn't too bummed about missing the ceremonies and festivities. I know it's a big deal for most people, but it's not the end of my education. What I look forward to more than anything, academically speaking, is graduating from optometry school, so that will be the time to really get hyped up for completing my schooling.

Handball is going really well. Last Monday during the scrimmages I scored 8 of the 11 goals throughout class. You see, I can anticipate the other team's passes, so once the ball's in my hands it's just me and the goalkeeper. I'm fast, what can I say? :)

Music appreciation is fun. We've watched more operas in class and even part of the movie Amadeus. Last week, I gave my presentation over my favorite music, and thanks to Kassy's presentation ideas, the class loved it! First I played the song "The Haunting" by Anberlin which might be my favorite song ever. Then I explained marching band to them because from what I found out from talking to previous ticos, they don't know what it is. They know about bands that march in parades, but I made sure to tell them about how high school marching band competitions, marching band performances during football games, and Band Day are an entirely different world. So, after playing a quick clip of Led Zeppelin's "Black Dog", I showed them Part 1 to the Pride of Arizona's Band Day performance that matched Zeppelin's original tune. I figured I'd choose a song they would know, and they knew this one. Lastly, I showed them a YouTube video of Man Overboard playing with Less Than Jake, explaining how I play trumpet and piano in a Tucson ska band. A few students were really impressed that we played with LTJ.

My literature and film class is also going well. In fact, I was super nervous for my HOUR long INDIVIDUAL presentation that I had to give, but it actually went fairly smoothly. I had to discuss the themes in the movie "Fire". I made a powerpoint and a worksheet with discussion questions for the class, so time flew by. Plus, we got deep into a few discussions that resulted in my presentation lasting not 60 but 80 minutes! Yikes! I'd never done anything like that, let alone in Spanish!

My dialectology class, as I now call it, continues to be challenging. We had our first partial exam last week and I'll find out how I did on Wednesday...

Linguistics has been smooth sailing. Our overall grade is just a mid-term and a final, so obviously I wanted to study a lot for the mid-term. And of course, being the linguistics major that I am and having taken a few linguistics courses, I already knew the International Phonetic Alphabet pretty well. We had to know IPA symbols for the test so I worked up the nerve to ask the girl who sits in front of me if she wanted to study. I got a big "Sí sí! Me encantaría!" So we exchanged phone numbers and studied at 7:00 later that week. Good thing she clarified am/pm because I was totally thinking pm...darn ticos and their early morningness, haha. Turns out she schooled me on the test: 93% to my 85%.

ouch...

Anyways, we've been texting a lot (oh...didn't mention I have a cell phone yet did I? :) well I do) and are going to have lunch on Tuesday after class. Woo hoo!

Next post - the beautiful beaches and rain forests of Mal País