no more blogs about costa rica after this one. thanks for reading, i had a great time in costa rica!  right now im at the airport in CR.  it's 5.30am.  i get into houston texas aroun 11.30.  then i i head back home to oregon getting in around 6.30pm to be picked up by a group of friends.  i will be staying at their house in portland tonight, then the parents will pick me up the next day.  goood bye!

avocados

my last week here, i haven't written too much, i've been up to a lot lately. it's nice being isolated out in the foothills of Chirripo.  i finished my 3 week spanish course and started my week long massage course to finish up my trip in Costa Rica.  the cacao ceremony was very interesting, drinking pure chocolate... i can't really describe it through words.  movie nights at the yoga dojo, playing guitar and singing at Amrta, reading about raw food (i've been eating very raw lately and like it a lot) going to the farmers market getting a hefty supply of fruits and vegies for the week... im doing great.  i am ready to return back to the states though.  i need people that i know.  and i am ready for another 4 months of sunshine.  i have 5 more days here and it feels like people are fighting over me, wanting me to have dinner with them, play music, and watch movies.  the sense of community out in that pocket within the hills is amazing, truly amazing people.  someday i will come back to this place during a trip through central and south america (skipping mexico and panama). i don't know what more to say, i would rather talk to you in person at a family reunion, over coffee or run into you somewhere, and tell you how satisfied i am after taking a year off from going to school and taking this trip, getting away from everyone and everything im used to.  

so this is like my last two weeks in Costa Rica, it has been great, i've learned a lot about myself and had some amazing experiences.  getting away from everyone and everything was a great move on my part.  right now i am two weeks in on this farm that i am staying at, New Dawn.  it great there, i am the only student there right now and sleep in a bamboo cabin.  this is how my day usually goes...  wake up at 7.00am. drink "the special blend" tea and eat a light breakfast (papaya smootie with bananas and oats).  i then work in the garden for a bout two hours-- helping my teachers turn compost, pick the weeds and help with any bamboo construction that Ed needs.  i get a break around 10am--drink another smoothie--then help with any additional work till lunch is served around 11ish.  Jessica, my spanish teacher, is a great cook.  she makes the best salads fresh from the garden.  after lunch, 12pm, i usually go down to the river bank and spend 2 hours tanning and doing my spanish homework. sunscreen of choice... AD-spf 15 mixed with blended carrots that i buy at the market.  spanish class usually starts around 2pm... so i go to that.  spanish is going well, im getting my language wheel rolling again, the first week we zipped through book one and this coming week we're going to cram-in book number two.  im taking three weeks of spanish and the last week i am going to take a swedish massage and acupressure class.  spanish class ends at 4.  i eat the leftovers from lunch then i go up to the Yoga Dojo and finish the night with a movie with Noe and the wwoofers there--getting back to bed comfortably at 10pm.  

some other things i've been up to... i made a carrot cake the other day.  i have been going to the farmers market every thursday (this week i bought 3 papayas, 7 avocados, 2 melons, carrots, peanut butter and mangoes).  i am going to help noe brew some oatmeal stout this coming week.  tomorrow i am going to a cacao ceremony, where we spend the day grinding cacao and preparing it into a cup of liquified chocolaty goodness.  still debating the chirripo hike (tallest peak in CR).  this coming sunday im going to make a body smoothie from papayas, avocados and aloe and smear it all over my body and lay on some warm rock by the river.  then to finish sunday off, the farm right next to new dawn has a cob oven and we're going to make pesto pizza.

sha-bam!

then im off in a plane heading to texas, then to OREGON! see you in MAY

Some Pictures

above is a mural in Puerto Limon                                  below is a picture of buttercup

above is a caribbean restaurant that i went to in Cahuita.  i had this shrimp, coconut-milk and rice spicy soup.  very good

                                                                                        below is a white-faced capuchin, these little guys were very comfortable with all the tourists around, not such a good thing i guess...

me in Cahuita's free national park. 
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aight... the "kah-reeb"

so the first place i went to on the caribbean was Parismina (population 400). this place is only accesable by boat and is known for their turltle saving program called ASTOP. so the first night i was there i volunteered and paid $15 to walk on the beach at night for 4 hours searching for leatherbacks laying eggs. i didn't see any, also to mention the fact that it is peak season for the leatherbacks. but it was still fun walking up and down the coast. the next day i took a tour with a local who takes you out on his boat and shows you some wildlife. saw some crocs, a couple sloths, monkeys, lizards and lot's and lot's of birds. the tour took about 3 hours and costed me 20ish dollars. it was fun. the next day after that, i decided to leave the small town and headed south for Cahuita. this was a nice town. more tourists...but more things to do. the first thing i did was the sloth sanctuary, which i had to take a taxi to. it was amazing! i watched a funny video about sloths, got to meet some and pet them in their cages and (the highlight) holding buttercup the first sloth that they rescued. buttercup hangs out on the patio in a wicker-chair. she is a three toed sloth and when our guide was introducing her, i asked if i could hold her. he said that he usually doesn't let the visitors hold buttercup, but since i was one of two in the small group, he picked buttercup up by her hands and lifted her to me. her legs wrapped around my stomach and i was holding a sloth. i got tons of pictures of this place! i'll post them when i get a chance. the next day i went to the Cahuita national park. it was free but i donated rougly 2 bucks. it was a long trail the followed the coastline. i saw two eyelash vipers, howler monkeys, white-faced capuchin monkeys, tons of small lizards, some sloths, an agotti, and a racoon. it was a really nice walk. i got really close to the white faced capuchins (i'll post the photos...). now i am in Panama on the Bocas del Toros isands. it's really nice here, different than costa rica. i have a tour set up tomorrow to go snorkling with dolphins! really excited! everythings going fine, i have three ish nights here then im going back to Alajuela to pack for my month long spanish course in San isidro del General. pura vida!

The Carib and Panama plans

this is me with volcan Arenal and a disgusting beard.  !update! i finally had enough of it, and bought a razor, i feel younger and have way more confidence. 

above is the Celestial River that has a natural chemical that turns the water greenish-blue. very cool

below is Lake Arenal at sunset.  

so i have roughly 2 weeks before i start my month long one on one spanish course in San Isidro.  goin' to the Carib to see Parque Nacional Tortuguero and the Sloth Sanctuary and check out anything else that i see...  hopefully all that will take place in a week or less.  then i need to get out of the country because my 90 day visa is up.  so im going to go to Panama and see the canal.  i only have to stay there for a couple days, then i am allowed back into Costa Rica.  i think i will go straight to San Isidro after all that and stay there for a month.  that's the plan for now. i was thinking about going straight through Panama and going into Columbia but that would take too much time and cost way to much.  i have heard so many good things about Columbia, and i know all you people reading this are saying "Columbia is the most dangerous place right now behind the middle east, there are drug lords and guns... etc."   well every single person that i've talked to here has said that when they were in Columbia, it was a beautiful country, the people were very nice and it was safe.  Columbia was dangerous years ago, and i'm sure some remote (let me repeat "re-mote") parts of the country still have ex-guerilla fighters, but they're out there in the mountains.  i have been looking at some Spanish schools in Columbia, and im thinking about studying abroad there, or somewhere else in south america. chile maybe.

right now i am at a country club near San Jose sipping Imperial and i just ordered a hamburger (my first one since... i can't remember, but i couldn't resist).  i guess i can say "life is good."

Arenal Stories.

La Fortuna.  i finally saw the volcano without all those clouds during the day!  i had a great view of it also because my hotel was right in front of it all.  i sat outside my room reading Welcome to the Monkey House and glancing up here and there as the mass of clouds were slowly being lifted by the heat of the day.  i finally just dropped the book and watched the last bit evaporated--and there it was the shy volcano, Volcan Arenal.  it's a perfect looking volcano--it's a cone--it's like if you handed a piece of paper to a kindergardener and said "draw a volcano," it would look like that.  perfect.  though you couldn't see any of the lava--you had to go to the other side to see that.  so i booked a tour with mr. lava lava man, who has been doing tours to the volcano for ten years.  this cost me $15 dollars, very cheap considering some of the tours doing the exact same thing were going for $25-35.  he took us to a thermal pool that was free and more natural and full of ticos (not tourists :) ), a lot of the thermal pools in la fortuna have Las Vegan sprinkled all over them complete with water slides, mayan temples and roman pillars and cost a lot...... i'll go for the free and natural pools thank you very much.  after two hours of soaking, he took us to Arenal Lake at sunset.  beautiful!  then to the back side of the volcano to see lava.  it was dark, there were lots of people, the top of the volcano was covered with clouds... where's the lava?  we waited and waited then finally a small rumble and red-hot boulders came tumbling down the side along with a a little lava.  it was soo far away and soo dark i couldn't get any good pictures, sorry!  and almost every 5 minutes, another eruption would go and more lava rocks would come down.  it was pretty cool, i have never seen lava before.  i was expecting a river of lava and lots of fire..

  the next day i went to this place called ecocentre denues or something very close to that, and it offered a path that had many plants and animals to see.  i saw lot's of exotic plants as my ankles were fresh food for the mosquitos (i forgot the deet).  i came to a mesh dome that had a butterfly exhibit. wow.  there were so many of those things flying around. they had many of the famous blue morphos and tons more to see.  after that i walked around a lagoon that had caimans (similar to an alligator?) but i didn't see any.  i was told that there were sleeping sloths in the trees and i was always looking up to spot one, and here i did.  there was this grey sloth hanging onto a tree, sleeping about 3 meters away from me.  very funny animal, it moved a little when i threw a rock at him (just kidding).  they remind me of muppets.  i carried on and went to this frog house, where there were these tiny little red and blue poison dart frogs.  i got some good close up pics of them.  there were other frogs in there but they were hiding (nocturnal).  at the end of the trail there was this guinea pig type thing but with longer legs. i ended up following him around for a while.  all in all i enjoyed myself even though i had many itchy bug bites around my ankles.  the following day (my last day) i got up early to go see the La Fortuna waterfall.  the water is supposed to be a vibrant blueish-green color from some natural chemical ( i don't know).  it took me about an hour and a half to get there in the hot and humid weather, i was soaking in my own sweat when i reached the park.  i took a dip in the cold water watched the waterfall and soon enough i had to head back to Fortuna to catch my bus to Alajuela.  great experiences in La Fortuna.  Now... i just got an email back from Ed (the bamboo guy) and i will head down to san isidro to take a month long spanish course with his wife.  that start the first monday of april.  before that--because i have two-ish weeks to do anything--i am going to go over to the Caribbean Coast and see that side of Costa Rica.  it's supposed to rain a lot even in the dry season and have lots of mosquitos (i have started my anti-malarial drugs).  should be interesting if i get any of the drugs side affects which i hope i don't get.  that's that, see you all in the summer time where the living's easy.