Climbed a mountain and got on a plane: The conclusion to Costa Rica.

Well, the mangoes never ripened. They got close, and we ate lots of green mangoes with salt, but I never got the perfectly Costa Rican ripened mango that I had been dreaming of for months. That just means that I will have to return.

But hey! We made it to the top of Cerro Chirripó! This second time we bought tickets in advanced, I took my ecology final a day early, and bused to the trailhead to check in at the ranger station in San Gerardo. We didn’t want to pay to stay in a hostel and we had to get back home to study for finales, so we left San Ramón Friday morning at 6:30 am, got our tickets, rested for a few hours in a restaurant, and started hiking that night at 8:30 pm.

Hiking through the night made things go by quickly, but we also had a really hard time trying keep our eyes open. It was pretty cold, and we not bring enough clothes for how cold it was. By the time we finished the first 12 miles, and made it to the top at 5:15 am for the sunrise, we were wearing trash bags to try and keep our selves just a bit warmer.

The best part was that my good friend and hiking partner Sam turned 20 on our way up to the top of Chirripó. I brought a slice of cake to the top, and some other hikers sang “feliz cumpleaños” when they found out it was her birthday. Because we had a bus to catch, we headed back down the mountain as fast as our knees would let us, and at one point Sam resorted to walking backwards down the hill to give them a break. We made it just in time, took the three different buses necessary to get back home, and ate dinner with our families.

Next couple of days: finales

We all said goodbye, got on our respective planes, and I headed to San Francisco.

 I kept forgetting and speaking Spanish to all the officials in the airport, and was asked if I lost a bet because of my short hair. Other than that having a hard time letting go Spanish, I have not experienced the culture shock that I was warned about, and have been doing pretty well. I spent a week in Cali with my family hiking, beach walking, and celebrating my parents’ 25^th anniversary.

I then got onto a greyhound, and I am back in Idaho for my summer job and school in the fall.

It was a fantastic 9 months.

Ciao, Costa Rica

Nos Vemos

1 and 2/3 Mountains

These past two weeks (last month, I am finishing this much later) have been filled with burning quads, incredible views, and goods times on the mountain.

Our first adventure was when Josie and I went to the Island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua, Nicaragua. The island has two volcanoes, Maderas and Concepción.  Concepción was about 300 meters higher than Maderas, but it seriously looked twice as big, and for a while I doubted whether we could do it. We left at five with our guide, 19 year old Rafino, who was wearing jeans and shoes that we tied back together with my extra shoelace.

The biggest challenge of hiking Concepcion was supposed to be the exposed 2/3 of the mountain and the sun that just beats down on you. We had the luck of being inside of a cloud the entire time, and it was quite cool and even chilly at the top. Our path was an old lava flow, so we were rock scrambling for most of the time or climbing up very, very steep pathways.  A lot of the scenery was made up of small shrubs, wild flowers, and poor man’s umbrella. It was quite lovely.

After 3.5 hours, we made it to the top of Concepción. It was like we stepped into a hurricane with wind strong enough that we were afraid of losing our balance and being blown into the crater. It was also a bit disconcerting that the rocks we were standing on were hot from the steam and sulfur underneath us. Not knowing exactly how far underneath us was the worrisome part. We did not get the spectacular view of the whole lake and the island, but it was way too cold to stay up there and try to wait for things to clear up.

Thus started our descent that took an hour longer than our ascent, and resulted in our walking like crazy people for about a week afterwards. The rest of Nicaragua was wonderful and we stayed at a hippy farm hostel with organic stone fire pizza nights.

The next weekend Josie, Alison, and I jumped on a bus after class and went to San Gerardo, the gateway to Chirripó. Chirripó is the highest point in Costa Rica at 3,820m, and the trail is 48km round trip. Most people do it in three days, and we had to do it in 1 to make it back to class on Monday. Tickets are also required but this would mean we would have to miss class on Friday, and we had friends who had no problem getting to the top without a ticket.

We slept in the hostel for 5 hours before we got up at 2:30 am and started our hike. There were actually quite a few people hiking when we got up, but we soon left behind and got to enjoy the clear sky and wonderful stars in silence. Of course the entire time we knew that a guard could find us at anytime and make us turn around (I actually had no idea what they would do to us). We sang a lot, and enjoyed the AMAZING scenery.

At km marker 12, about 2/3 of the way, we were caught by a guard on horseback who didn’t believe our lame excuse that we didn’t know about the tickets, and sent us back. We sat in the trail a bit of the way back and pouted for about 15 minutes before heading back down the mountain. 

And we saw a queztal, which was life goal for me!

We actually had the idea that we would rest all day, actually buy tickets, and then hike back up that same night. However, by the time we made it down, our screaming knees said no freaking way were we turning around and doing it again.

We made it back to our hostel and ended up having a wonderful time singing old folk songs and playing the guitar with some of the people staying there.

Since I am writing this a couple weeks later I can now say that I bought tickets for Chirripó for my last weekend here, made an arrangement with my professor to take my final early, and my friend Sam and I are headed up to see the sunrise from the top of Chirripó. She will turn 20 on the mountain, I will be saying goodbye to Costa Rica after 9 months, and we will be on the highest mountain in Costa Rica. I think it might be a bit emotional up there. 

Watching Mangoes Grow

We have a big, wonderful mango tree in our backyard, and I have watching the mangos grow and noting how long they have until ready to eat. This is both a sad and exciting activity. 

Exciting because eating mangos makes my heart sing, and being able to walk barefoot into my backyard (while carefully avoiding the dog poop) and pick my own mango sounds like heaven. On the other hand, the riper those mangos become, the fewer days I have until departure. This is sad.

I am super lucky that I have so many wonderful things awaiting me in the US that I am not dreading leaving Costa Rica, but I am not wishing the days to go by faster by any means. I have been reading a lot of Thich Nhat Hanh’s the Miracle of Mindfulness (sent by my wonderful grandparents), and have been doing well at living one day at a time. That being said, time to cram in as many adventures as possible into my month and a half left!!!!!

Last week my parents came to Costa Rica for a week and we hiked through Corcovado National Park (most biodiversity place in the world) for three days. It was one of the best trips that I have ever been on, both for the nature and for the wonderful company. Costa Rica showed itself off shamelessly with the amazing and helpful people we met during the week and with the amount of once in a lifetime plants and animals that we saw. I am going to rely on my dad emailing out the official list of what we saw, and I will post it when I have it as well.

Louis, our guide in Corcovado was just about the happiest person I have ever met in my life, and he could also see the most impossibly small and obscure things hidden in a jungle of leaves. After Corcovado we went to Drake Bay, and did a night insect walk with a brilliant entomologist couple.  We saw a Red eye tree frog, which is something I have wanted to see since I saw it’s red eyes and smiling face on the front of Ranger Rick magazine.  

Anteater at Corcovado

After Drake we bused to San Ramon and my America family met my Costa Rica family. Of course they loved each other, and what I thought would be a short visit for coffee turned into hours and hours of talking, laughing and storytelling. This was quite exhausting actually because my real mother Cindy would turn to me and tell me some super long explaining of chemical soil composition, and then I would turn to my host family and try my best to explain using fly ash to fertilize farmer’s fields. It was great, and I was so happy to be able to practice that much Spanish.

We stayed at a hostel on a farm outside of San Ramon, and got to be really good friends with the owners Viron and Eilyn. Eilyn cooked us traditional Costa Rican dinner and breakfast, and my dad is dead set on cooking like a Costa Rican now by eating mainly rice and beans for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Once tasted, no one can resist Gallo Pinto.

On Monday I stuck them on a bus, told the bus driver that the two gringos had to get off at the airport but they didn’t know where it was, waved goodbye, and then headed to class. Thanks mom and dad for such a great time!

Last week I went the Costa Rica national soccer game against Paraguay. I really haven’t felt so part of Costa Rica before as when we were screaming for what looked like a possible goal, or doing the wave with the whole stadium.

This upcoming week we have another week-long break, and I am going to Nicaragua with my friend Josie. We really have no plans, reservations, or ideas, but there is big volcano that needs climbing, and we have a tent. Sounds like a good week.

Here is a small list of lessons that I have been filing away, but wanted to write down before I forget.

1.      1) When choosing a place to live make sure you know if it is illegal for large trucks to use Jake brakes. If they aren’t allowed to, that’s good, but make sure you research how affective is your local police force. If Jake breaks are allowed, never buy a house that is on a downward slope or anywhere near a stop sign. If you do, you will never sleep.

2.      2) If you ever need a conversation starter in a Latin American country, bring up medicinal medicine. You will through away all your pills and start eating oregano and ginger, and you will experience some fierce cultural pride.

3.      3) It is best to just close your eyes and not watch how the bus driver or taxi driver is navigating traffic.

Also, I shaved my head two weeks ago, sort of on a whim, but also something that I have wanting to do for a long time. Pura Vida!

Costa Rica Catch Up

Well, this week I had my midterms, and this is my first blog for Costa Rica, so I am obviously really behind. This will be a brief over view of what has been going on.

When I arrived back in Costa Rica, I found out that we had completely changed out campus locations from the University of Costa Rica to a small branch in town of the University of San Jose. This is a teeny campus that is shared with an elementary school. My host sister Mariana actually goes to this school, and we wave to each other during breaks.

Not to complain, but this was a pretty crappy move. We don't have a library, and I think there is one computer you can use in a room somewhere. We lost our Spanish/English club with the university students, and we can barely hear our teachers over screaming kids.
However, I still get to wake up to sunrises that look like this, so I am content with everything, even screaming children...who wants to learn about direct objects anyways.

 A couple of weeks ago we went to Manual Antonio, a small biological reserve on the beach. It is mainly known for it's monkey and sloths, and we saw plenty of those. We brought tents, ate beans out of a can, and free camped that night on the beach. Lots of floating on our backs in the ocean at night trying to remember the constellations that people have so diligently taught me many times, and I still can't find them.

 My friend Josie and I did a weekend of surfing in Joca, and I feel like I might have finally made some progress in my surfing skills. It must have been the lack of a 5mm wet suit. Other adventures included visiting Rio Celeste, a brilliantly blue and stinky sulfur river, and judging a food competition to help students practice their english. The didn't understand the concept of "taste" testing, and almost every table (there were many) had huge dishes of food for us to try. Of course we had to try them all, and I don't think I have ever eaten more food in my life.

 Costa Rica has been experiencing one of the coldest summers that they have ever had. We have blustery days with some clouds almost every day. I LOVE IT, and my host mom leaves the house with a giant coat. I will take wind and clouds over suffocating heat every time. The coast is still blisteringly hot, and it is such a relief to come back to coolness after a long weekend of constant sweating.

 A few friends and I took a walk on her family's farm, and we were surprised by this mama sloth and her tiny baby. I had always heard that sloths can be dangerous, but never had thought out it until I was close enough to see the fish hooks in this thing's hands'. Advice: don't mess with sloths, they look like they could cut you in half.

 Went fruit shopping with my host dad. This picture does not include the fruit in the fridge or on the other counter. The whole time he kept getting things put in plastic bags, and I would change the bags for ones that I already had, and run over to return them to the vendor. He would just laugh and as I kept telling everyone that I already had bags that I wanted to reuse. They think I am  a wierdo.

We had a nice weekend going to the local waterfalls and jumping of the cliffs. This is Josie (my friend who goes to the University of Idaho, and who studied at Taylor Ranch as well!!!) making the leap

This weekend is my birthday weekend, and we are taking a whole class trip to the Arenal Volcano hot springs and waterfalls. Then...my parents come the next week! Seven months has been a long time, and I am so excited to see them!

List of things I am very grateful for today

1. Spontaneous ice cream runs with friends between study sessions

2. Listening to the Costa Rica national anthem playing on the news in the mornings

3. That I have made it 21 years in this world, so many good things have filled those years. holy cow!

Wrapping up Peru, Photos

 Colca Canyon

 Rocks :)

 Arequipa, the white city

Great Peruvian friends

 How I felt when I walked through the door of my house.

Wrapping up Peru

The day we climbed down from Machu Picchu, we headed out to make our way back to Cusco one last time. It was another round of harrowing vans and buses, and the way back was way worse for some reason. We made it back to Cusco, and stayed for a day before heading to Arequipa.

Arequipa is known as the white city because its buildings are made from white volcanic stone. We decided to do a two day hike of Colca Canyon which was a couple of hours away from Arequipa. We took at 3 am bus from Arequipa to the Canyon, and started out hike.

“Slicing through the High Andes like a giant fissure for more than 100km, Colca is the world's second deepest canyon, approximately 3,400m at its deepest point -- a shade shallower that the nearby Cotahuasi Canyon and nearly twice as deep as the US' Grand Canyon”

-taken from internet.

The first day of the hike consisted of going down one side of the canyon all the way the floor to where there was an oasis that most people stayed at over night. We wanted to do out trip in less days, so after getting more water at the oasis, we hiked all the way back up the other side, missed the turn-off to the trail we were supposed to take, and ended up hitching a ride back down part of the mountain in a truck. It turned out the trail had been taken out by a landslide.

We finally made it back down the canyon to a small hostel where we stayed in a room for 3 dollars, and then started back up the other side of the canyon the next morning. Three hours later we made it back into town where we took a bus back to Arequipa.

For the rest of our time in Arequipa we toured a monastery, ate traditional food (Christina ate alpaca steak), and wandered the city. We took another night bus back to Lima, where we would have three days before heading back to Costa Rica. We spent our time in Lima with friends that we had met around Peru, and it was a really wonderful time…the calm before the storm.

We got to the airport in Lima three hours early, only to find out that they were not going to let us onto the plane to go to Panama because we didn’t have bus tickets to leave Panama. The reason we didn’t have tickets was because the bus company told us we couldn’t buy tickets a month and half in advance and that we could just buy them when we got back to Panama. Lies.

They didn’t have a phone number, we couldn’t buy them online, and the other bus company’s website wasn’t working. We could be more tickets from the airline and the cancel them, but that was going to include $100 of fees, and we would have had to wander downtown Panama City at night looking for their “cancelation office” which wasn’t in the airport.

Instead, I found Christina working furiously on her phone, and I found out that she was making fake bus confirmation tickets that said we were leaving Panama for Costa Rica. By that time, our plane was almost leaving, so we sprinted to check-in, out fake tickets passed inspection, and then we sprinted from one end of the airport all the way to the other to find out gate.

No one else even looked at our tickets, and we made it out of the Panama Airport, and back to the bus station to buy our tickets to get back into Costa Rica. Naturally, there were no tickets back to Costa Rica until the next week. Same with the other company, but before we had a heart attack, we found a bus that would drop us off at the border, and then we would have to find another bus to San Jose.

Bus to Panama/Costa Rica Border (7 hours)> wait at border (7 hours)>bus back to San Jose, Costa Rica (8 hours)> Bus to San Ramon (1.5 hours)> HOME!!!

We made it, and then the next day had three hour advanced Spanish class.

There is the conclusion of our Peru trip.

Machu Picchu Photos

 

 Gate in front of Hauyna Picchu. No. I didn't spell it wrong, there are multiple ways of spelling it.

 Cloudy view from Huayna Picchu

 Machu Picchu!

Mountains of the Sacred Valley.