Independence Day Weekend

I arrived back in site just in time for Independence Day weekend.  On Saturday, I ran with my school in a torch run where we went to the main road that leads into our community and were passed a flame that we carried into our community.  The kids were excited and next year I’ll actually know how long of a run I’ve gotten myself into.

 

One of my little third graders followed me home because he was curious as to where I lived, so we sat on my porch and after 5 minutes of small talk in Spanish (that’s always my limit with my students. IF you want to hang around for longer, I’m going to start teaching you English), we started going over colors and sadly he could only remember "blue."  An hour and a half later, we were still playing “I Spy, “ but hey, after that hour and a half the kid could name every color in English so I’ll consider it a worthwhile afternoon.

Later that night was a parade of farolas (I thiiiiink that’s how it’s spelt) which are basically lanterns.  I was super glad this was actually happening in my community and not just defaulting to going to Santa Cruz.  The community gathered at the pulperia near my house and we walked to the school roughly on the other side of town.  It was an especially great night because as I walked up and down the crowd of people, I knew over half of the faces and that was simply a great feeling.  I commented on my student’s creative homemade lanterns and introduced myself to some parents and all in all, it was a fantastic night.

Not the greatest pic, but you get the idea...

My Directora

The next day was off to Santa Cruz to watch the parade and boy, I don’t think those kids could have walked any slower.  My family & I purposely arrived an hour late and it was stillllllll quite a long ordeal.  It was great to watch though and even better to watch with other PCVs with whom you could discuss some of the more scandalous dancing outfits (Pictured below).

Referenced ridiculous outfits. 

The day ended with turkey sandwichs at the Mitchell’s house & a James Bond movie.  Then it was back to site to get ready for school the next day….oh wait. Nope.  No school the next day because of course we all need to rest from the parade…

The Mitchell Movie Theater

Corcovado...getting our asses kicked by nature.

Corcovado.  Where to even begin.  The morning after VACTail, 6 of us headed on down to OSA (where I went for tech week many months ago) to stay with a PCV in Puerto Jimenez.  After about a 9 hour bus ride down, we headed out to eat one last real meal & stock up on groceries for Corcovado.  5am the next morning…we were off.

Happy & clean before the adventure began...

Corcovado is a National Park on the Osa Peninsula in southwestern Costa Rica & encompasses an area of 425 square kilometers (263 square miles).  It is widely considered the crown jewel in the extensive system of national parks and biological reserves spread across the country. National Geographic has called it “the most biologically intense place on Earth in terms of the biodiversity.”

As a reminder, I live way up North & West near the dot that says Tamarindo....

Tapir!

The park conserves the largest primary forest on the American Pacific coastline and one of the few remaining sizable areas of lowland tropical rain forests in the world.  Corcovado is home to a sizable population of the endangered Baird’s Tapir (check, saw it) and even a small population of the very rare Harpy Eagle. The park’s rivers and lagoons are home to populations of both the American crocodile and Spectacled Caiman, along with Bull sharks.  Corcovado is also on e of the final strongholds of the Jaguar within Central America and several other felines are also present, including Ocelot, Margay, Jaguarundi, and Puma.  All four Costa Rican monkey species can be seen within the park, including the endangered Central American Squirrel Monkey, White-faced Capuchin, Mantled Howler, and Geoffroy’s Spider Monkey (check, check, check, & check…saw them all).   Poison dart frogs and several species of snake (including the venomous Fer-de-Lance and Bushmaster) are also common within the park.

Did that sound like a Wikipedia article?  Cause it was…

The journey began with a 3km walk on the beach just to reach the entrance to the park.  We took some photos, washed the sand off our feet, filled up our water bottles, and thankfully started walking in the jungle-ish area compared to the beach with the sun beating down on us.  After walking roughly 15km more, in the shade of the jungle, in the blistering sun on the beach, over fields of rocks that I still can’t believe no one sprained their ankles on, & through many streams & rivers, we finally arrived at our destination [pictured below].  It felt fantastic to take off our soggy boats, eat a delicious tuna dinner, and collapse into our tents to sleep.  The lodge only turns on the electricity from 6pm-8pm, but no worries, we were all passed out by 7…

Monday was spent going on a few hikes around the park (which was so much better sin packs on our backs) and unsuccessfully looking for sharks and crocs.  We did see some gorgeous birds & just general beautiful scenery and it was another day of tuna sandwiches and bean tortillas.  We were slightly more awake that night, which was good since we had to pack up all our stuff for our 4:30am departure the following morning.

Scoping out the river we have to cross the next morning...

That next morning was when the fun really started.  We gathered everything up by headlamp, laced up our boots, and headed out for the major obstacle of the day – the river.  When we crossed the river coming in, the water only came up to my shorts.  Now, however, we had to cross at high tide, and the water was now at our chests as we carried our packs over our heads.  It was quite the experience but all went well and we continued on for the next 15km-ish with sore feet and I suppose just general soreness.  I’m glad I went, but, I don’t think you could pay me to do it again.

Below are some pics of the journey...

Guan Pride

Everyone needs a hand at some point

We made it.

IST

So happy to see Luna again!

Since I had to head to San Jose for IST, I took the opportunity to head in a few days earlier to visit two volunteers in Copey (about 2 hours outside of San Jose) & to visit my training host family. It was great to be in Copey and see another site (that is coldddddddd, so jealous) and catch up with friends.  Also great, being back with my training host family.  I loved that it was such a big deal that I was there visiting, but at the same time, it wasn’t.  I was greeted by giant hugs and fresh baked pastries as we sat around the breakfast bar having cafecito and catching up.  The new volunteer who is staying there came back later that night and it was great to get to know him and hear how training was going (while being so thankful that that chapter of my PC experience is over).  The night ended with watching the Proposal in Spanish with my host brother & sister and it just felt great to be back at my second home.  The next day I hung around watching tv and using their internet

I missed this...so much.

while Spanish class was going on for the newbies.  I got to catch up with 

my old Spanish teacher & after an amazing lunch (I think I almost forgot 

how good a cook my host mom was) it was off to San Jose for IST.

In Service Training (IST) is a week when you get back together with your training group after being in site for 3 months for basically, some more training.  We had 2 more Spanish classes, a medical session mainly about dengue, a safety & security session, a talk about resiliency and we all presented our CASAs which was basically this project that we had all been “working on for the 3 months in site” where we collected information about our site such as population, social concerns, organizational structure, etc.  Basically it boiled down to a slideshow of pictures of everyone’s sites and it was super interesting to see where everyone is living these days.

IST was held at a fantastic hotel in San Jose that had comfortable beds, hot water, AND air-conditioning.  Those luxurious amenities plus my Tico 25 family made it quite a great week.  After the sessions we usually splurged on delicious food like hamburgers with actual Heinz ketchup (trust me, you’d miss it too if you didn’t have it) & we even found a pizza place with buffalo chicken pizza, so of course I was on cloud nine.  The week cumulated in VACTail when we welcomed the new group of trainees, Tico 26, and I must say I had much more fun than at our VACTail since this time around I actually knew most of the PCVs there and it was a great opportunity to catch up with friends from the southern part of the country and ones I just generally don’t get a chance to see.

Fun fact: PCVs love receiving supplies from medical 

 Our training room

Heinz Ketchup <3 

Training Host Family Siblings!

Me (Tico 25), Chris (Tico 26), Haley (Tico 24)