Guatecate

I made it to Guatemala! I'm so glad to be here, it's a lot different from Costa Rica and reminds me of Mexico. Me and Lauren's first stop was Guatemala City which was very commercialized, lots of fast food joints, malls, and American companies. The guy we stayed with, Ricardo, was very friendly and everything worked out perfectly with him. He works for Frito Lay and when I asked about his wife, he told us they were kind of separated and were probably going to get a divorce. So we could tell he was pretty lonely and I was glad we were there to give him some entertainment. The first night he took us on a night tour around Guatemala City when there weren't a lot of people and traffic. We went up to this hilltop lookout too so we could see the city from above. Then he took us out to dinner at a Mexican place. He was so nice and couldn't stop talking about traveling, American culture, Guatemalan people, etc. We stayed two nights there and were sad to leave him. Our first couch surfing experience was a huge success, both Ricardo and Lauren and I were glad everything worked out.

After we left Ricardo, we came to Antigua, which we heard was super touristy but a point of departure for the other places we want to visit. It's not that touristy here (we were prepared for your typical ignorant, embarrassing gringos), so we were pleasantly surprised to see mainly a lot of Europeans who were there taking classes at the many Spanish schools here. The cobblestoned streets, antique ruins, horse carts and costumed indigenous people selling any item you can imagine on the street all reminded me of San Cristobol in Mexico or Trinidad, Cuba. We've just been in awe walking around the town, with all of the shops, restaurants, and people to gawk at, it's been quite entertaining. We walked through a pretty big market yesterday, but it wasn't as big as the one I went to with my mom in San Jose. While meandering around today, we happend upon a group of elementary school aged kids having band practice on the street. They were all girls (except for one boy playing a drum, strange) and were quite good, accompanied by some dancing and baton-twirling-very impressive. Today we walked up Cerro de la Cruz, a little hill with a great view of the city at the top. There used to be a lot of robberies on that trail so they started having Antigua tourism police acompanying tourists twice daily up there. So we went to their office to potentially meet up with other tourists to do the walk up there, but there were no others so Lauren and I were personally escorted by both a male and female police officer on the 45 minute or so walk to the look out. The officers were pretty chummy with each other and made it clear this was not their idea of a fun little walk, so Lauren and I set the pace and walked out ahead of them. We had to stop multiple times to wait for them to catch up, but at the end of the day, it was nice to feel a little important and have our own little police escort service with us.

There's a volcano that is close by that we were thinking of hiking, but we're kind of volcano-ed out, having spent many weeks doing programs that involved volcanoes in Costa Rica. So we're going to give ourselves a little time before we attack any more of them here in Guatemala. For now, me and Lauren are telling ourselves we're on vacation and we don't need to push ourselves too much, haha. Tomorrow we're off to Lake Atitlan, which has various little towns surrounding it as well as volcanoes, of course.

Leaving Costa Rica

My last couple weeks in Costa Rica were really nice, especially without having to work. The rest of my time with my mom, and later with my stepdad and stepsister, was really nice and relaxing. Though I had to play the part of tour guide and translator (especially when we got pulled over by the cops for speeding as we were making our way back from Manuel Antonio to San Jose for their flight-I was not the one driving by the way, it was my mom. And yes, luckily we managed to finagle our way out of getting a ticket), I was still glad that they came. After they left on Friday, I came back to San Jose and a bunch of the other guides were still around and our manager planned a trip to go rafting in a town where the language program was, Turrialba, which is 2 hours from San Jose. So about 25 of us went there Saturday. It was a long day though, the bus got us at 6:30 a.m. and we didn't get back until around 8 at night. But it was the best time I've had rafting yet. That was my 3rd time on that river and the water level was perfect. That combined with the fact that we went without kids and I was in the front made it ace.

So now, I'm definitely ready to leave San Jose and Costa Rica. I'm leaving for Guatemala with my friend Lauren today! I'm so excited. We're arriving at the Guatemala City airport later tonight and we're going to couch surf! Maybe I should explain: couchsurfing is the practice of connecting with people all over the world and instead of having to pay for a place to stay, people offer up their couches, spare bedrooms, whatever space they have for you to stay there. The web site makes it super safe because people have to be referred and verified that they've had good couch surfing experiences. The guy who we're staying with is married and has been all over the world couch surfing. I'm sure many people are concerned right now and still don't think it's all that safe. But I have friends who've done and I've talked to various people about it and I think it'll be ok and I'm comfortable with it. I just can't wait to truly start traveling now!

Enough Excitement for the Whole Week

My mom finally arrived on Tuesdsay! After 3 days of sea kayaking, sleeping on the ground, peeing in the jungle, and cold showers, I was so ready to drop off the girls from my final group with Rustic and relax by the pool at a nice hotel with my mom. Though sea kayaking was cool, it wasn't exactly what I (or any of the girls for that matter) was expecting. We were actually in a gulf so it wasn't rough kayaking, just long and boring at times. My arms were burning after the first 15 minutes, no joke. But I had to put on a smile and positive attitude for the girls, who were fairing far worse than myself. They were not ready for the camping part of the trip either, especially in the rain. But we made roughed it and made it through with some good times like: learning how to properly open a coconut and make coconut candy; drink fresh lemon grass tea from natural lemon grass we found in the wild; visit an animal sanctuary with various types of monkeys (a spider monkey climbed on me and actually sat on my shoulders!), birds, and other animals that were being nurtured and cared for until they were ready to be released into the wild; and see dolphins jumping in the water from a distance. Everyone was thrilled to get back to civilization, but we got to experience a part of Costa Rica that not many other people get to.

So when my mom came, we explored San Jose a bit, but the city is not one of Latin America's finest, so after hitting up a couple of museums and a market, we went back to the hotel and relaxed. We got a rental car yesterday so today we set off for the Poas Volcano, which I had been to back when I came here with my high school 6 years ago, but barely remembered it. We got our fill of excitement within the first 10 minutes of setting out on our journey to the volcano when while merging onto the highway I "grazed" a police vehicle. I say graze because my mother claims I hit it, but we were barely nudged by the police car because I slammed on the breaks when it came into my lane. Back at home this would have been a ticket and a half, but the police officers just came over and made sure we and the car were ok, and sped off within 5 minutes. Pura vida! (Costa Rican saying for basically everything: awesome, great, thanks, cool, etc).

So despite that minor set back, we got to the volcano pretty early, but when we tried to see the massive crater and lagoon that the volcano is known for we were hugely let down because of the damn early morning fog. We took a 30 minute walk to one of the volcano's other, not as cool lagoons, and then decided to give this crater a second shot. Luckily, the fog had cleared and the view was amazing! Just like I had remembered it.

After the volcano we went to some la Paz Waterfall Gardens, which consist of 6 waterfalls and different animal houses. There were hummingbirds, monkeys, butterflies, birds, frogs, etc. It was cool, but after seeing all of those things in the wild, it felt fake and wasn't as good as the real deal. But the waterfalls were pretty cool. Oh, and they didn't top the sloth we saw hanging from a telephone wire on the way to the gardens! Amazing, it was probably only 15 feet up!

Since it was only around 2 pm and we still had half a day left when we finished there, we decided to give a the Cafe Britt coffee tour a try. Our handy guide book said there were only 3 tours offered throughout the day and they're during high season (we're in the low tourist season now), but being the apparent optimist that I am, I thought they would somehow be able to arrange a special tour just for us when we arrived. After going in the complete opposite direction and 15 kilmoters out of the way, we finally made it to the coffee place and no, of course there were no tours, there was but just one a day, at 11 a.m., though the gift shop was open until 5 p.m. and would we like to browse through there. Of course we would. At least there was free chocolate and coffee.

Two hours (when it should have only taken 30 minutes) and a half a dozen u-turns later, we finally arrived, exhausted and sore (the hikes to the volcano and waterfalls was rough!), to our hotel. Tomorrow we get to have more adventures through the twisty-turning roads and unmarked highways of Costa Rica to pick up my stepdad and stepsister at the airport! Pura vida!

Almost Done in Costa Rica

At the end of June I started noticing that I was writing email after email to various friends and family telling them more or less the same thing of my adventures/experiences in Costa Rica. The idea of a blog occurred to me but I really haven't gotten a chance to sit down and create once until now. So even though I'm down to my last couple of weeks in Costa Rica, I figured I could start this now and continue it throughout my trip through Central America.

To give you all an update, I'm currently working for a company called Rustic Pathways as a guide. Rustic offers 1-2 week language, travel/adventure, and community service-based programsin various countries to high school kids. I'm like their counselor, and have worked on the language program, in which kids live with local families, take Spanish classes for half the day, and then do activities the other half, and the volcanoes and rainforest program where kids stay at this amazing base house and do community service and adventure activities.

Right now, I am on a program called Heart of the Jungle that travels with kids for 2 weeks throughout the Osa Peninsula of Costa Rica doing community service and experiencing the jungle! We have 16 girls this session and there are 3 of us guides total. It can be stressful and some patience is definitely necessary, but I've really enjoyed myself. We taught English a couple of days at a local elementary school, painted schools, and cleaned up a beach. As for adventure activities, we rappeled down a 150 ft waterfall, (which really wasn't that terrifying, though one girl did stop in the middle crying and refusing to continue and had to be coerced down) and climbed a 60 ft tree with roots and trunks everywhere (it reminded me of those wacky walking and talking trees from Lord of the Rings). We've gotten to see so much cool wildlife, like a ton of monkeys (white-faced, howler, squirrel, spider monkeys), toucans, iguanas, poison dart frogs, coatis (mix between an anteater and a raccoon), butterflies, and lots and lots of snakes and bugs.

At one place that we stayed at on the beach we encountered a Terciopelo or fer-de-lance snake, one of the most poisonous snakes in Costa Rica. It was devouring a huge toad whole and was probably 10 feet away from where we were eating. It was insane! The chef came out and killed it by stabbing it with 2 long sticks and then smashing it repeatedly. We then saw the same type of snake while playing in a waterfall after a 7 hour hike (yes 7 hrs! it was totally worth it, we saw a ton of animals, but I was grateful to finally come to this cool waterfall, sans the sleeping, ready to pounce snake) . This one was even closer and one of the girls pointed it out. When they all asked if it was poisonous I was just like "nahhh, don't worry, it's just sleeping" while in my head I was freaking out just a little, as we were in the middle of NOWHERE and I was definitely not prepared to helicopter out one of 15 year old, naive as hell girls.

Yesterday we visited a sustainable hotel that makes its own gas by way of the following process: the composted garbage gets fed to a pig and the poop from said pig is transfered to this HORRIFIC SMELLING area where it is covered by a tarp and the solids sink to the bottom while the gas fumes from the poop get filtered out through a tube and voila, there you have methane gas that the employees use for cooking their meals (they do not use this gas for cooking guests' meals and I can't help but be suspicious as to why not...). But the hotel also uses solar power, salt water pools, bungalows made from local trees and leaves, and properly labeled fridges with 4 doors instead of 2 so less energy is wasted when you have to reach in to grab one little thing. They give guests reusable water bottles so they don't have to buy 10,000 plastic water bottles during their stay just to have water. The rates for the hotel are through the roof, but it was cool to see that those places exist to not only make guests feel good about themselves, but to educate them about the environment and community too, so it's a bit of a learning experience too.

Tomorrow we leave for a 3 day sea kayaking trip that'll wrap up our 2 week journey! I'm super excited, and hope that it doesn't get ruined by foul weather and even fouler moods. No, but really, the girls have been good for the most part. They had no idea what they were getting themselves into when they signed up because this is a brand new program this year, so I have to give them a little credit. When I'm done with them on Tuesday, my mom is coming into Costa Rica for 10 days so I'm pumped for that too. We're going to spend some time in San Jose, though CR'S capital is a bit of a dump, so we won't be spending too long there. Then we're heading to the beach-Manuel Antonio- because contrary to popular belief, spending a whole summer in Costa Rica does not guarantee beaches and bronzed bods; just in this past week I've gotten more sun that I had all summer working on language or volcanoes!

After my mom leaves, I'm leaving for Guatemala (I think) with Cait, a friend from AU, and 2 other friends that we met while working here. We're working our way down Central America in a month, but I'm sureeee our plans will change and we'll have to push our flights back. Seeing as we don't even have flights for Guatemala yet, which I think we're planning on leaving for at the end of August, we're kind of in the traveler's mindset and will just play it be ear...