La mejor semana!

I know I've said this before but it's really true-every weekend here gets better and better. Except not anymore because this past weekend I am 100% sure can not be topped.

Last week was a really fun week. I think we are all starting to get freaked out about how soon we are leaving (less than 3 weeks! Gasp!) so we are trying to enjoy every moment of being here. We went out a few times last week, culminating in going dancing Thursday night which was, as always, a blast.

Then came the weekend that we have been planning for months!!! Danielle, Austin, Jade, me, and Patrick & Julian, our 2 new friends from Austria and Australia, left Friday for Mastatal, a small, secluded and completely undeveloped little farming town of about 80 people, 3 hours away from San Jose. It was by far the most beautiful place I have been to in Costa Rica, probably because it is so incredibly undeveloped (my Tico friends in Heredia had never even heard of it). Just nature being nature with some cows thrown in.

The only street in Mastatal

So many people envision Costa Rica as just being one big expanse of beach and resorts, myself included before coming here. While there is that presence, Costa Rica is so so so much richer than that. Not too many people think of this when they think of Costa Rica:

Que linda!

We were in Mastatal to volunteer for the weekend at La Iguana Chocolate, a cacao farm that produces their own chocolate. It is run by an incredibly sweet Tico family, and relies completely on volunteers to function. They fed us 3 delicious meals + 4 pieces of chocolate a day (with vegan brownies one night!!!!!!!!!!) in exchange for helping them with the process. Right now they were preparing for the rainy season so while the girls helped shell Cacao beans, the boys dug some trenches to soak up the rain.

Volunteer area

View from the shower!!

Cacao beans ready for being shelled

Hard at work peeling cacao beans

Cacao pod growing-I learned so much about the chocolate making process!

To be honest, we only really put in about 2 hours of volunteer work. There were a lot of volunteers this past weekend, about 15 of us from all around the world, and not too much work to be done, plus on Sundays they don't work. So instead they showed us alll around the area. Throughout the weekend, we went on 3 absolutely magnificent hikes to different rivers, waterfalls, amazing views, etc etc, all of which have barely been affected by humans. Like I said, most beautiful part of Costa Rica I have been to.

Everyone at Iguana Chocolate was awesome, from the volunteers to the Tico family to the Mastatal locals. They took us out one night (about a 20 minute uphill walk to the nearest bar) where I got to practice my Spanish skills with Juan Luis, the Tico padre of La Iguana. I actually spoke in Spanish a lot this weekend-I am almost done my Spanish studies here so it was very reassuring to know that I can carry on some conversations.

Some of the volunteers-repping the US, Austria, Australia, Spain & France! 

Mikael and I-this kid was so ADD but so funny

By Sunday, we decided we weren't ready to leave so we decided to skip class Monday and stick around. So glad we did!

Volunteering at la Iguana Chocolate reminded me so much of Ionia (the place I WWOOFed at last summer in Alaska). I really, really, really didn't want to leave. But I am very certain I will return some day. I even talked to one of the sons there, Jorge, about sometime coming back to be the volunteer coordinator there.  The whole weekend I was seething with envy of Stephanie, the current volunteer coordinator.


17 more days! What!?


I can not belieeeeve how soon I am going to be back in the states. While this freaks me out in every way, I am beginning to feel ready to come home. I am coming off about 4 or 5 absolutely incredible weeks, some of the best of my life, so I feel a little as though my work here is done for the time being. While I have big plans to come back to Central/South America in the next few years (either to WWOOF, teach English, travel, or a mix), I am missing all of my friends and family a lot and can not wait to see everyone again.


Before I leave, I will make a list of things about Costa Rica that I will miss (it will be a long list), but here are some things I miss about home:

-Friends/Family
-Food. Today was Panera. Yesterday was Busboy's and Poets. What I wouldn't do for some tempeh...and really for anything other than rice and beans. Oh and Chai lattes. And anything my mom makes. And my Dad's/Linda's portobello mushroom burgers. And Chipotle (but I have big plans to cover that one during my Dallas layover) Mmmmmmm.....
-Being able to drive places any time I want
-Friends/Family
-The Food Network
-Not being whistled/hollered at every second I am moving/not inside
-Not being afraid of cockroaches every time I open any door in my house
-Actually there aren't too many things I miss but friends and family take up a very very big section of my heart so it's a big deal!

PANAMA! and this week

Hi everyone! I am procrastinating a looot of homework and thought I would update on my Spring Break in Panama and this past week which were both wonderful!!

Panama
We went to Bocas del Toro, Panama, a group of islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama, not too far from the Costa Rica border.  The Panama-Costa Rica border is this super old bridge that you feel dangerously close to falling through the whole time you are walking it. Sketch!

But Ray Lewis was crossing the border with me so I felt safe

This Panamanian guy had no idea what he was wearing

Bocas was beautiful. We spent most of our time on one of the more secluded islands, Isla Bastimientos.

Day 1: Hike!
We went on this pretty long and pretty difficult but amazingly beautiful hike through the jungle and beaches to the highest point of the island. At the top there is a Finnish woman who runs a chocolate and coffee farm. We bought vegan chocolate coconut truffles that were the most delicious thing I could have eaten after 3 hours of hiking in the muddy jungle. Next to her property there is this restaurant where this European guy cooks you Thai food from local organic vegetables. He only charged us $10 each for 2 amazingly delicious courses and a coconut cocktail!

The beginning of the hike

Delicious truffles!

View from the Thai restaurant

Danielle and I with our free cocktails!

Day 2: Kayaking and snorkeling
Our hostel was awesome (and only 7.50 a night!) and had all of these activities that we could sign up for. We decided to do the kayaking and snorkeling tour that went through the mangroves and to this really small Panamanian village on the island. Eating at the village was really cool because we were able to support the local economy there and it was really interesting to see how the Panamanians live. Panama is a lot poorer than Costa Rica and there are a lot more small villages like that.
The kayak trip was a tonn of fun and snorkeling was sooooooo cool!! We saw so many cool marine communities and sweet fish! Such a good day!

Our kayak group!

Kayaking through mangroves

The restaurant that we ate at in the small village

Starfish!

Touching this cool jiggly sea thing

Day 3: Bike ride to caves!
We changed location to go to the main Bocas island for the final 2 days of the trip. The main Bocas island is a little more touristy but very cool. When we got there, we rented bikes and went on this long beautiful (and hilly!) bike ride up to this cool cave. We didn't go too far into the cave because the bats were flying at our faces and we were not into that. At one point during the bike ride, it started pouring down rain which was really really really cool.

At the entrance to the cave

Later that night we went out. The bars in Bocas are so cool. They all have big holes in the middle of their decks where you can swim around, and one that we went to had a swing where you could swing into the ocean! Awesome.

Day 4: Playa Estrella

Our last full day in Panama we went to Playa Estrella, or Starfish Beach. We got some sun there and snorkeled a bit. There were so many starfish in the ocean, it was awesome!!

Panama is a desktop background

After we left Panama, Danielle and I spent a couple of days in Puerto Viejo, the Caribbean beach town in Costa Rica that we went to on our first weekend. Since it was Semana Santa, all the Ticos were spending their vacation there! It was so different from the first time we were there and it was almost all foreigners. 

This past week

This past week in Heredia has been so much fun! It's not always a blast here but this week certainly was. Wednesday was independence day so we didn't have class, so Tuesday we all went out downtown to celebrate Kate's birthday. It was super fun. And then Wednesday we went to an international soccer game-Costa Rica vs. Honderus!! It was awesome! There were a lot more people than la liga game we went to a couple months ago and the crowd was loco.

Saturday morning, me, Danielle, Catherine, and 2 guys we met in Puerto Viejo from Europe/Australia went to the Braulio Carrillo national park, which is the closest park to San Jose.

Some history on the Braulio Carrillo National Park: Before the 70s, the only road that went from the Pacific side to the Caribbean side was a really long road that went along the south side of Costa Rica, along the Panama border. The government wanted to build a road that would cut through the center of the country, but that would involve destructing a lot of natural forest habitat. Environmental lobbyists agreed to let the road be built, but on the condition that all of the area around the road remain protected-no turning it into agricultural land. So Braulio Carrillo is this giaaaant protected area of a million different kinds of habitats, however there is a highway that goes straight through it. 

There are a few hiking areas in the park, and we spent the day hiking around. It was unbelievably beautiful, probably the prettiest hike we have done in Costa Rica. So green and untouched and different and absolutely full of life. The noises of the birds and insects were so loud, it sounded like someone was playing  "jungle sounds" sleep music on full blast.

This tree was giant!!!

El rio sucio: The river is colored this way because of deposits from volcanic minerals

Next weekend=WWOOFing on a chocolate farm!! Can not wait =)

Pura Vida!