My First Class Went Fairly Well! :)

Well, I've been here for almost three whole days now, and I love it!

My stomach is allowing me to finally happily eat, and I just had a gorgeous plate of salad and green beans. :) The green beans are from the garden, so I'm glad I ate some.

This morning I went for an hour kayak ride, and saw some magpie jays and other birds I've seen on my travels. There were also several men fishing, and a few kids swimming.

After that, I had some breakfast, and we had our first class at 9am. It went on longer than expected, all the way until about noon. I started to teach them Black Socks, and we went over some verbs, and read The Rainbow Fish, and then went over some words around the Hacienda.

I need to prep for my next class, so I'll update again later!

New Friends, New Places

Well, in addition to having several gorgeous rooms for conventional guests, there are dorms here for budget travelers. Staying in them I have already and will be meeting many, many people from all over the world.

Dinah and I met Susie, a German who is passing through here on her travels. We went for a walk to look for someone selling bananas yesterday. Haha, I learned weeks ago that they are 'los bananos.' I can see now that Alvaro was right when there would be people for me to explore with here. :)

Well, I can at least start to tell you a bit about Haciena Merida. It once produced coffee, and there are train tracks and a few ruins of the building where they proccessed the coffee that remain. I'll have to be exploring those at some point, because I should be able to recognize some of the components now. :)

I can rent a kayak for the length of my stay for $15, and as soon as my stomach settles I'm going to head out in one. :) I will not forget after this that you do not eat things where people touch your food with their hands, as sanitation is not the best here. Hopefully I'll be working on that with the kids here. I got some ideas for children's books this morning, and perhaps we can come up with some good ones to sell as fundraisers or something.

It seems that I'll pretty much have to work with whatever I can grab from the internet, and whatever is already here or can be purchased nearby, as shipping things that have any value can be difficult with customs.

As for the food here, it is AWESOME! I had some porridge for a late breakfast yesterday, and it was whole grain oatmeal with granola, cinnamon, and some other yummy things. There is also a dinner buffet most nights, and I had lots of vegetables (with many of them from the garden here!) and rice and beans, and a little bit of pork that they purchase nearby. This morning I had a gorgeous vegetarian omelette, some home-made brown bread, and some avocado and tomato. They grow green beans, passion fruit, coconuts, eggplants, lettuce, basil, corn, tomatoes, 'lemon oranges,' mint (anyone have any good recipes for mint? They have lots here!), bananas, and soon some fruit and cashews. They take food scraps and compost them for the garden, too. Dinah, Susie, and I learned how to make tortillas yesterday! They're ground cornmeal and water, and then we learned how to make them into their circular flat shape. Haha, I made a fairly circular one, but then took a few tries to learn how to place them on the stove to cook! Yay, inertia... it works much better than trying to drop it with your fingers. Instead you place two flat hands, palms up, under the tortilla then pull your hands apart to drop the tortilla on the stove.

We also met Fiona the donkey, and learned about how they are trying to reduce the amount of garbage on the island and reduce water usage at the hotel.

Hmm, we're talking to Alvaro right now, about how there is an excess of avocadoes and mangoes right now. So I'm going to go look up ideas for perhaps freezing guacamole or avocado, and maybe some mango preserves for yummy souveneirs. If anyone has ideas, please let me know!

Finally Made it to Hacienda Merida!

My trip yesterday was reeaaallyyy loooooonnnnngggggg. I got up at 2:30AM at a hotel that Luis, our driver, found near San Jose. The owner set me up a taxi to the station, and I bought a ticket to the border (la frontera) from the first place that opened, as the other bus might not have had room, and left later. I was traveling by myself at first, but ended up meeting an Australian, Mike, who was visiting Nicaragua as a break from teaching English in Costa Rica. We figured out how to get through the long line to depart from Costa Rica (it's Mother's Day here tomorrow, so everyone was coming here to visit Mom!), went down the road to where someone checked our bags, another person checked our passports, we went to Nicaraguan customs, and then we changed some money, found a bathroom, and got something to eat. We went outside what looked like a gate to get to the bus to Rivas, and another person checked our passports and we paid an entry fee to Nicaragua. The bus was pretty cool, as there were people selling food, and I met a Nicaraguan Chemistry teacher who was practicing her English with me. Hopefully she'll check out Dr. Jim's Chemistry Magic Show on Youtube and her students can learn some more chemistry from that. :)

After the bus ride to Rivas, Mike headed to San Juan del Sur, and I got a taxi from Rivas to San Jorge, where the ferries to the island leave from. I asked the guy for his papers, and told him why I was so paranoid (some international girls from Camp Ma-He-Tu were once trapped in a taxi for a little bit while the driver saw they had more money and wanted it), and why I agreed on a price and held that much money in hand before getting in the taxi. He was cool, though; he's 24 and lives nearby, and apparently likes light-skinned, green or blue-eyed girls... I'm getting used to people flirting a lot in Central America.

I found out where the ferries leave from, and got on the boat, waiting for a little bit before we left. Someone on the boad had a baby parrot, and I wanted to say something about how they're so often stolen from the wild, and didn't know how best to start a conversation. :sigh: The reason why many gorgeous birds are disappearing is because a combination of habitat destruction and people stealing babies right out of their nests for the illegal pet trade. RAWR!!! There are signs up here about not buying birds from people, but I'd like to figure out what kind of educational program might help.

Once we got across the lake on the boat (Oh my gosh, the view of both volcanoes covered in clouds was AWESOME!!), I met another traveler, Dina, from Norway! She was going to Hacienda Merida, too, so we both took the public bus (which was about 50 cents) across the island. I had to stand for most of the ride, and it was REEAALLLY long and crowded, though, so I was beat by the time we arrived.

I met Alvaro, and got my dorm key and showered and went to bed. Not before petting one of the dogs, though, and being informed that they carry over 60 diseases to humans here.... Sooo I won't be petting the dogs anymore :(

Well, I start classes on Monday, so it's time to pull together my plans for the first lesson!

El Fin De La Clase (The end of class)

He cumplido el viaje porcion de mi clase, y mañana yo voy a ir a Nicaragua. He conocido a muchas personas amables e interesantes. Me gusta el pais de Costa Rica. (Disculpe, yo no tengo los acentos en esta computadora). Solo necesito escribir un ensayo, y cumplira toda la clase.

Yo quiero mencionar algunas personas y cosas buenas y interesantes. En Heredia, una parte de la ciudad cerca del capital, San Jose, yo conoci a mucha gente muy amable. Habia el anciano quien tiene una artesania cerca del Hotel America, quien nos regalo muchas cositas, y abrazos como un abuelo. Hay Roberto y Oliver, quien me regalaron algo para convertir de la tarjeta en mi camera a USB para ayudarme poner fotos en este sitio: !muchisimas gracias a Oliver y Roberto! Pueden ver que lo me sirve bien.

Luis, tu eres lo mejor conductor que yo he visto en toda mi vida. Ni aun puedes conducir bien y evitar los perros y otros animales (y otros automoviles), tu conoces tu pais y el gente bien. Muchisimas gracias por todo, y te voy a recomendar a todos mis amigos quien quieren visitar a Costa Rica.

Mucho Gusto!

Y claro, la gente de Costa Rica. Nadie podria decirme que importante a la gente de Costa Rica es el ambiente. Parece que hay mas programas aqui para reciclar, compostar, y ayudar a la planeta que yo podria imaginar. Yo espero que yo y los otros estudiantes en la clase pueden ayudar a los E. E. U. U. y todos los otros paises posible ver como hacer negocios que pueden funcionar bien y cuidar el ambiente.

Mañana yo voy a Nicaragua para enseñar ingles a niños en la isla de Ometepe. Espero que yo puedo compartir con ellos como cuidar el ambiente como los Ticos.

Se puede utilizar el traductor de Google para ver muchos de mis puestos en español:

http://translate.google.co.cr/#enes

Check out Google Translator if you´d like to see how well it translated most of the following for you! :)


I've done the trip portion of my class, and tomorrow I'm going to Nicaragua. I have met many kind and interesting people. I like the country of Costa Rica. (Sorry, I have no accents on this computer). I just need to write an essay, and then I will be done with the class.

I want to mention some great people and things I found interesting. In Heredia, a part of the city near the capital, San Jose, I met many nice people. There was the old man who has a craft shop )known here as an artesania) near the Hotel America, who gave us many little gifts, and hugs as a grandfather would. There are Robert and Oliver, who gave me something to convert the (SD)card from my camera to USB to help me put photos on this site: Many thanks to Oliver and Roberto! I hope they can see that it serves me well.

Luis, you're the best driver I've seen in my entire life. Not only you can drive well and avoid dogs and other animals (and other cars), you know your country and people well (He didn´t just drive, he recommended some REALLY great places and things to do, and helped us get some discounts. :) He also helped me find this hotel!). Thank you so much for everything, and I will recommend you to all my friends who want to visit Costa Rica.

And of course, the people of Costa Rica. Nobody could tell me how important the environment is to the people of Costa Rica. It seems that here there are more programs for recycling, composting, and to help the planet that I could imagine. I hope that I and other students in the class may help U.S. and all other countries we can see how to have businesses that can work well and look after the environment.

Tomorrow I am going to Nicaragua to teach English to children on the island of Ometepe. I hope I can share with them how to care for the environment as the Ticos do.

Cahuita

Well, you´ll notice from now on that I won´t be updating things chronologically. If you´re interested, my trip went: Heredia and Volcan Poas (near San Jose), Santa Rosa (Guanacaste Province), Monteverde, Sarapiqui, Cahuita (Caribbean side), and then back to the capital, San Jose.

We just spent a few days on the gorgeous beaches of Cahuita, a small Afro-Caribbean town on the east coast of Costa Rica.

The first day we wandered the town a bit, and Luis said the National Park´s beach wasn´t far at all, so despite the rain we went there. They were closed, as it´s only patrolled from 6am to 5pm daily, so we walked back through the town.

Unsure of where to go next, we were looking around, and were stopped by an interesting yet polite woman who told us that one way was the white sand beach (the national park), and the other way was the black sand beach. Then she politely asked for some money to eat, and I embarrassedly gave her some coins. Another man asked us if we wanted avocados, and ended up cursing us by the end of the night, because we were all afraid of buying stolen avocados!

Despite a shaky start, we had a great time in this cool little town. That same night we had a great dinner of pizza and fish in cocorico (coconut, yet spicy!) sauce, and a great dessert of crepes with nutella, and someone ordered coconut ice cream, which was AWESOME! We went back to the hotel, El Arrecife (The Reef, in English), and hung out in the hammocks. A mama cat came by, and when I picked her up, I asked her if I could see her kittens. She didn´t show me til the next morning, when I saw all of profe´s children petting them! I was so excited! I´ll add pictures of the little cuties later. :)

I was up early, and the whole class went to the beach, and paid the voluntary, but suggested admission to the park. We got a little talk about this set-up, which I really like. Although the park was once owned by people that lived in it, it was set up so that the fees for the park would only go to improving it, and more importantly, for improving the community surrounding the park. This acts as a bit of compensation for those who no longer own that land. During the talk, we learned that the voluntary fee has been working well, as the locals, who should not have to pay as much, will pay a few hundred colones or so, and visitors are often generous enough to pay more than the suggested donation. They have used the money in the past to make schools and centers for the elderly, and the park is patrolled and well-kept, with showers and changing rooms. They also have some information about the area and wildlife you can see in the park. :)

We all had a great time playing in the water, as the waves weren´t too rough, and there were plenty of sand dollars to pick up and inspect. After we felt we had enough sun, we could hide under the shade of the palm trees and look for howler monkeys, lizards, coconuts, crabs, and lots of leaf cutter ants. Leif and I went back in the afternoon (Oh man, after the sun was a little less intense!) to explore the rest of the trail, and found that it went all the way to where a stream came out, and we continued down the rest of the gorgeous beach.

That evening I had chicken in the cocorico sauce this time, and it was SO good!!! While we were eating, I think we were watching the owner of the restaurant help his daughter set up a stand to sell empanadas to make some money. They speak a mix of English, a native languag, and Spanish, and he spoke to us in English, mostly. As he was preparing he said to us, Well, we all need to live. That seems to be the way of life in this area. You need to make sure you do something to make money to live.

The next day, we went to the black sand beach near Limon. We had a great time, as Profe (if you haven´t figured it out by now, that´s short for professor) found us a guy to take us out on the reef snorkeling. Jane, Leif and I went with him, and he wanted $5 each for a guided tour. I paid another $6 for renting a snorkel, mask, and flippers nearby, and we walked out to where we swam to the reef. It was great, because we saw a few different kinds of coral, lots of gorgeous fish, he caught a few lobsters to show us and we saw even more, and I even swam under a tunnel in the reef. He didn´t catch any lobster that he could sell, though, as they´re regulated in Costa Rica and must be a certain size. He was talking about what a shame it is that they overfished them in Panama, and also about how everyone needs to work together to keep the beach clean. He seemed like a really cool guy.

That night we had dinner at the hotel, which Profe set up for us, complete with Caribbean rice and beans, yummy chicken, and a calypso band! We had a great time eating, dancing, and hanging out on our last night together on the trip.

The next morning a couple of us got up bright and early for another beach walk, and then played with the cats. I was happy that George bought some cat food, because mama cat was looking pretty thin!

We went to a pineapple plantation after leaving Cahuita, and it´s a farm called Ojo de Agua. They sell pineapples to Del Monte, so they´re often the ones we eat up in Potsdam! We learned that pineapples are related to some of the epiphytes we found on the trees in the forest, and that they grow from the ground! I had already known that, but it was pretty darn cool to see a whole plantation. We also saw how they wash and pack them, and then how they core and cut them up to be dried. The guides told us that they are required to make sure that none of their pesticides go into the river, so they have a system set up so that the water for the pineapples seeps into the ground, so it is filtered there before it gets to the river. We also tasted the best pinapples we´ve ever eaten! Nom nom. :)

Monteverde

After traveling to Monteverde, we took a quick romp up the hill from our hotel, El Viandante, to a HUGE climbing tree. Strangler fig trees are just like climbing a ladder, and this one went over two stories up.

We climbed up inside the tree, which was hollow in the middle, and had a lot of interconnected branches. It was really cool. I only went about 12 feet up, as I get scared of heights sometimes. Leif went up as far as he would fit, though, where the tree started to curve and go a little more horizontal than vertical. It was a lot of fun, although you can see from the picture, I'm in hikers, which are not built for climbing.
Haha, the whole way up, I was wishing Dad had come with us, because he would love this tree. He told me about how he used to climb up a water tower, and this we certainly not as high, but definitely as cool.

Further up the mountains, epiphytes grow on trees like this, and a whole new ecosystem can start on one of these. We saw some covered in other plants, and they have to be great places for animals to go.

After that, we bought a watermelon, some juice, and an avocado for dinner. Nom nom. Another night we bought queso tipico (Costa Rica's most common cheese at meals) and a restaurant made us some homemade tortillas! We had breakfast for dinner. :) Delicious.

Monteverde Cloud Forest

Well, I spent the last few days catching up on our travels in Santa Rosa, which is in the Guanacaste Region of Costa Rica. Now I'll have to catch up on Monteverde. A few days ago we got on the bus again to travel to the Monteverde Cloud Forest. Wow, the ride up the mountains was gorgeous.

For a little background on the area, the Monteverde Cloud Forest has several reserve areas on mountaintops, and these were either made by the Quakers (more about them in the next post) to preserve watershed, and more recently with money collected by children in the US and Europe. Monteverde's mountaintops are made up of tropical moist forest, which means there are a lot of tall trees, and tons of epiphytes (plants that grow on trees) , and clouds surrounding the mountaintops much of the time. It is a gorgeous place, with many brightly colored flowers, insects, and birds.
This first video is in a lower range of the Children's forest, and although it is not the best, you can hear something that sounds a bit like a squeaky door hinge. That is a glass bird call. We heard a LOT of these sounds throughout the cloud forest.



We saw toucanettes, and many other birds, and were even able to hear a quetzal call.

The fern trees in the forest are huge, and a great sight to see.

There are huge strangler fig trees that grow around other trees (yes, and kill them), but then they leave a hollowed out network of branches that intertwine, making climbing them easy. I got to see a heliconia plant, which has really pretty flowers that hummingbirds pollinate.

I think my favorite part, other than the awesomness of the variety of plants in the forest, was seeing at least four different kinds of hummingbirds. The best part about hummingbirds is that their feathers are iridescent, which means that they shimmer and have different colors depending on how light hits them. The Children's Eternal Forest Reserve has an area where hummingbirds flock to eat, and you can see many of them interacting with each other. I have never seen this, and it was quite a show.



Here is a picture of a strangler fig tree covered in epiphytes.


Heliconia flowers.

Strangler fig roots.

Picture of the group in the forest. The trees are TALLLLLL!!!!



This butterfly's wings are see-through!

When a big tree falls, it will take down several others with it, creating a clearing like this, which is a chance for new trees to spring up.

Agricultural Farm Visit

In Guanacaste, we visited an educational farm that is run by an agricultural school. If you go to this school, you can study to be an agricultural engineer, learning to produce food in a more environmentally, socially, and economically friendly way.
I think the most important thing that I learned, as a consumer, is that most sugar takes a big toll on the environment and the people that harvest it. The cheapest sugar you buy has the biggest social and environmental effect, and we learned why during this visit.
In order to harvest sugarcane, the product you see the gentleman (our guide at the farm) holding, many harvesters will burn the field to make the sugarcane easier to harvest. This reduces the amount of effort and also the amount of waste that the harvesters have to worry about. The part that he is holding is the only part of the plant that is used. There are many leaves that are waste. Also, harvesting sugarcane from a freshly burned field can be difficult and dangerous, as sometimes the canes of sugar are still hot, and the harvesters will get covered in the soot from the burnt leaves.
So the people who work here are experimenting with different kinds of sugarcane plants, and also different methods of harvesting it to try to reduce the social and environmental impacts of harvesting sugarcane.

The next thing to note about sugar, is that although white sugar is the sweetest, it takes the most processing, and therefore has the greatest environmental impact. Also, raw sugar, or brown sugar (which both take less processing) will still have the molasses, which gives a nice flavor. :)
We also learned about harvesting mangoes, and while we were in the fields, I felt like I was in an apple orchard. We were allowed to pick mangoes right off the trees and eat them, and man were they delicious!!! :) Apparently there is a process that involves heating them before they are exported to kill fruit flies, and it changes the taste of the fruit.

Mangoes apparently bloom whenever they feel like it, and the managers will apply certain chemicals to try to convince the trees to flower, so they will produce fruit at the time when it will be most economical to harvest them.

Finally, we looked at some rice fields. Rice needs to be floated in order to grow, so it needs a lot of water to produce. In addition, there is a lot of nutritious (fertilized) waste water after growing rice, which is often flowed through lagoons filled with another crop that can be sold for market before the water is released into local waterways. I think this may be where my paper grows. I asked about it, and right now they grow lettuce and another crop, because they can sell it. If they were able to sell it, algae would be a viable option. This is where algae biodiesel fits in. If we get a marked for the biodiesel, they can grow it and make some money off that, too.

I also learned about an alternative to composting, one that involves some kind of fungus or microorganisms to break down food and plant materials. It sounded pretty cool.

The Squirrels of Costa Rica

Well, if any of you know me at all, you know that I find squirrels really amusing. That being said, I've been able to photograph two that look distinct from each other so far.
The first I found in the city of Heredia, in the park near our hotel, the Hotel America. There is a beautiful church there, with a garden right next to it, and I had to jump up and run over to this little guy when I saw him.
The picture doesn't quite do him justice, but he's thin and gray with a little reddish near his tummy.

The next squirrel we saw was at Volcan Poas. He was incredibly friendly, looking for food from all of us. He seemed either a bit chubbier or a bit fluffier, I'm not sure which. :) He was right at the overlook for the volcano, where I took the picture of the plumes of vapors.
This second picture here is of Cory, one of the guys on the trip, trying to get the squirrel to come visit him. :)

The Beautiful Tropical Dry Forest in Guanacaste

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Oh, my goodness, there are so many animals in the tropical dry forest! I'd only heard about rain forests, but the dry forest has so many animals! I'm going to post lots of pictures here. :)

We went on a number of day and night hikes, and both kinds were awesome. I didn't take any pictures at night, because it wouldn't do the animals justice, but we saw lots of frogs and toads on the roads into the park, and also a cool bird that might be called a whippoorwill. It flies around at night, landing on the ground, and has big brown eyes. It's a brown bird, and flies up and then back down in short bursts, and has been known to trick people into going into the forest. We also saw the largest toad in the world, the marine toad, and I got to feel a tree frog's feet. :) We also saw two kinds of scorpions, one being a whip scorpion.

Apparently my professor, Tom Langen, is the world's expert on the magpie jay, which we learned has interesting social habits. A group of females will all help raise the young of one lead female. They're gorgeous birds, and we first saw one flying back and forth across the road as we entered the park.

During the day time, we were about to see agoutis, which are the small brown mammals you can see in the picture. They look about the size of a house cat, and run around eating. We saw a bird that reminded us of a turkey, but was black with a red neck. We saw several big iguanas, and a bunch of little lizards. We also caught a gecko! :)

There are so many birds! We also saw two snakes, one venemous that someone had killed, and another that looked black and white and reminded me of checkerboards.

We saw a number of deer in the park, and also, coaties!!! :) (Pronounced co-aa-teee, here they call them pisote. :) ) I saw them in Iguazu, Argentina last year, and they were scavengers there, but not here. :) We also got to see two kinds of monkeys!!!! Above I posted a picture of a white faced monkey, and we also got to see howler monkeys. :) With that white-faced monkey, that's another animal from my ceramic piece! Whoo! :)

I was on my first volcano!!!
It was SO awesome, because when we were going up the mountain, it was really misty because it´s a cloud forest, I think. When we got up there, though, we were worried because it was so cloudy we couldn´t see the crater of the volcano!!!
Hehe, it was funny, though. There was a guy there, and I asked him in Spanish if he worked there, and he said yes, so I told him ¨The clouds are going to part and we´re going to see everything.¨ He just smiled and maybe laughed a little, and I continued looking around.

I kept asking for it, and gracias a Dios, the clouds blew away! We got to see the whole crater, complete with acid lake and plumes of vapor or smoke coming out of the lake!!! :)

I think from now on I´ll post pictures after text. I think it´ll be easier. We shall see.
At the coffee tour, there was a butterfly tent!!! I got to see the big blue butterfly that´s on my ceramic piece. :) If you are unaware, I´ve wanted to go to Costa Rica for years. Now I´m looking for as many of the animals on the ceramic piece I made when I couldn´t go as I can.

We had a great drive around the mountains, and there are not as many rocks in them as in New York. There is a major problem with erosion on all the mountain roads here. They also have a lot of earth quakes, which contributes to the destruction of the roads.

Exploring Heredia

Good morning, we have pictures!

Yesterday was our first full day here in Heredia, Costa Rica, which is a city in between two sets of mountains.

We wandered a bit in the morning, changing money at the bank (the exchange rate is about 535 colones for every $1), and exploring nearby shops and an indoor market. We found a great artesan shop, with all kinds of wooden carvings, furniture, and plates. As you'll see in the following picture, Zem bought a water coconut, and several of us tried it, and it was sweet and delicious.



We also bought some mangoes and passion fruit. Leif and I ended up at a pastry shop, where we tried something called 'oreja' which is Spanish for 'ear.' By the size of it, the whole name should have been elephant ear, because it was a large crispy piece of sugary dough that appeared fried. After that we found another market, which had little shops that served food inside. This is what we had (fajitas de pollo, casado), which was chicken cooked with onions and bell peppers, chayote (that green chopped squash), rice, beans, pasta salad, and plantanos maduros (those yummy ripe, sweet fried plantains again! :) )

Well, sorry about the weird order of the pictures. The top picture is of passion fruit, which I was surprised to find had a squishy middle that reminded me of pomegranate, because you suck on the seeds to get the fruit you eat off them. I'm not actually all that fond of it, as it's such a messy process. :) I'll stick to drinking the juice.

The sun is shining in Costa Rica!

Greetings from Central America! We have arrived in Costa Rica. :)

We arrived late last night, and will be going exploring shortly. :)

I had papaya, watermelon, gallo pinto (fried rice and beans) for breakfast, and fried plaintains ´maduros´ which are ripe and sweet. Nom nom.

I´ll update more later, hopefully after I buy an SD card reader so I can upload pictures!

[As you can see, I have uploaded pictures of breakfast! I also added a picture of the view from the hotel in the morning]