Zipping around

This was one exciting weekend! Friday afternoon we took the road to Monteverde and on the way got stopped for a half hour. Costa Rica has been having its worst rain in 100 years the past few weeks and a lot of people in the rural areas have lost their homes. Many roads have been overrun by mudslides, and the road to Monteverde was no exception. The last hour or so was all dirt roads (really down and dirty dirt roads: not just gravel, but stones, rocks and the occasional boulder). Naturally, in places they were muddy and cut up pretty badly. I'm glad we have expert drivers like Jerry, our Intercultura tour guide, to shuttle us around. Jerry is a funny guy and you can tell he really enjoys taking students out on these excursions. There were five others: Lillian is from North Carolina, Luc and his wife Celine from Montréal, and Nathan and his sister Alison from Oregon. Lillian is the spitting image of southern hospitality with several grown-up kids, though none of them have yet sired grandchildren for her. Luc and Celine are pleasant though a bit more reserved. Nathan and Alison are as different as brother and sister can be: Nathan lives life big; he looks a bit imposing but is a really cool and personable guy. Alison is a bit shy and hasn't even had her first day of Spanish class yet, so we had to speak mostly English with her. Nathan flew in with her to help her get settled in; he flies back on Monday to take his mid-terms on Tuesday.

After doing a little bar-hopping on Friday night, we got up yesterday morning and went straight to business at Monteverde Extremo canopy. Unfortunately, Celine had to sit this one and the rest of the tour out as she was suffering from a fractured wrist and a fit of what we believed to be altitude sickness. It was my first time ever ziplining, speeding down a metal cable hundreds of feet above the forest floor. Of the five of us, Lillian and Alison were the most scared but after the first zipline were flying high; unfortunately, Lillian had to drop out not because of the ziplining but because of all the hiking we had to do between ziplines. We ran into a big group of the same college students we met at the bar the previous night. It was a huge gringo tourist party the entire morning. The Extremo guides were extremely helpful and friendly, taking the time to know our names and talking us through each step of the tour. We flew across probably 15 ziplines, went down a rappeling line and dangled on a Tarzan swing. The Tarzan swing is a bit scary for the first half-second as you jump off the platform into free-fall, but once the rope catches you, the feeling of swinging back and forth through the trees is exhilarating. It was a great way to spend the morning.


In the afternoon, we took a short boat ride to Arenal. Although it's considered an active volcano, we didn't see any lava while we were there, since it was cloudy and we couldn't see the top. We trekked through the rainforest around Arenal late in the afternoon. Except for Lillian who had to take the bunny route, it was a quick 30-minute hike to the vista point. The scenery was lush and beautiful, though it was so cloudy that those beautiful images one dreams about of sun peeking through the treetops were nowhere to be found. Rain, on the other hand, was in abundance! We hiked up the hill as fast as we could; I was glad I brought my raincoat. We met Jerry and Lillian at the end of the trail and the six of us hopped on the van to Baldi hot springs. The hot water, bar drinks and surprise water slide were nice after a long day of ziplining and hiking.


We spent the night at the Jardines Arenal Hotel. It's a small, mom-and-pop lodge surrounded by beautifully tended gardens. The proprietors Walter and Blanca were extremely friendly. All of us had dinner together in the covered patio in back of the hotel. The food they cooked for us was incredible (I had tenderloin gargonzola) and they really took the time to make sure we felt comfortable. It looks so unassuming from the road but it's definitely a place I'd consider if I ever make my way through Arenal again.


This afternoon Jerry dropped Lillian and I off at San Ramón to catch the Empresa Alfaro bus to Sámara. For an intercity bus stop it was little more than a small covered bench on the side of the road. We got on and it was standing room only. We saw Eva, one of the students who was also transferring from Heredia, and Manuela, a Swiss miss who was just starting her Spanish immersion experience. The extra company was good, but since we hadn't had time to get lunch I was dreading the prospect of standing for four hours on a bus twisting over the winding roads of the Continental Divide. Fortunately, we had a lunch stop and we were able to get off and stretch our legs. I munched down some flat-bread tortillas and sausage, then we hopped back on the bus for the second half of the journey. I spent most of the time doing standing catnaps with my head against the overhead bin. Thankfully, after an hour, enough people had gotten off the bus for Lillian and I to sit down.

About an hour after that, we finally arrived in Sámara. Finding the school was a bit of an adventure as it's right on the beach in front of a bunch of other buildings. The campus is beautiful with a courtyard facing the ocean. We met Sofia, a country-hopping volunteer from Belgium who eventually came to Sámara last December, started working at Intercultura as a French and German teacher and never left. (Having a Tico boyfriend kind of keeps her firmly rooted here, too.) She took us on a short tour of Sámara. It's a small, rural, mellow town that reminds me a lot of Maasin, a fishing village in the Philippines I visited about ten years ago. It's definitely a world away from Heredia.