Hola from Costa Rica!
After traveling on bus for most of yesterday we made it. But before we got here we did some awesome things at Parque Mederas. We helped the family to build the kiln for Tyler and even got to try our hands at spinning a pot on the foot powered wheel, its a lot harder than it looks or sounds. Before we left we even got to see the kiln in action as it glowed red and smoked all day firing pots. We also volunteered at Barrio Plantas, an NGO in San Juan del Sur that an american started a few years back. At Barrio Plantas kids come after school to learn English, classes taught entirely in English, paint, glue dream catchers and glitter together and salsa dance with hips that do not lie. We helped out in classes on two afternoons entertaining them during recess and refereeing glue usage in art class, as well as trying our rythm during the dance class. We also headed to an adult education school and each of us took on a student for an hour and worked at teaching the students English. We all have a much deeper appreciation for our Spanish teachers and the ESL teachers around the states, English is hard! Not to mention that we all speak in slang normally anyway and most of our words have two meanings depending on spelling, or at least multiple pronounciations depending on which bit of the states were from. But it was a totally awesome experience that we all enjoyed.
Wednesday we embraced our last day in Nicaragua and headed off zip-lining! It was absolutely fantastic! We strapped into our harnesses, buckled our helmets, pulled on our leather – please slow me down!- gloves and headed to the top of the 17 seperate lines. It was amazing zooming across the wires and being treated to amazing views of the ocean and San Juan del Sur. We even saw a sloth in a tree next to a path near the wires. By the time we got to the last line and finished our foray with almost flying, we all wanted to do it again. Instead of hopping back on the lines though, we had another amazing meal from Tyler and spent the afternoon catching the last waves surfing and sunning on the beach. That night we threw a prom for those missing it at home. It was a great excuse to scrub up in the shower and dig through our bags for clothes smelling faintly better than average and possibly even making us look like our former US selves. Needless to say it was a riot and we even included those awkward prom photos in front of the amazing Parque Mederas sunset. Yesterday we crossed the border, with customs line even more ridiculous than in an airport – if you can believe it- but we finally made it to our awesome hostel in San Jose, Costa Rica. We spent the day shopping and relaxing, working up to another long bus ride tomorrow to our turtle project near the Panama boarder. Were all super excited to walk the beachs and save some eggs!
Trivia for the week
– the zip line we flew down is one of the longest in Nicaragua, over 2 km
-the people in Costa Rica call themselves Ticos
-Ticos call San Jose, Chepe
– San Jose houses over one third of all Costa Ricans
