Lilaura

The day after Thanksgiving, I decided to take advantage of one of my last weekends here in Costa Rica and adventure to Montezuma. Definitely one of the best decisions I've ever made. Helen, Adele, Drew, and I left Friday morning at 5:00am for the 6:00am bus in San Jose, three buses, a ferry, and 6 and half hours later, we arrived in the beautiful town of Montezuma. Before I move on, I have to comment on the final bus ride where a drunk, homeless guy sat on the floor right next to where I was standing (the bus was packed).. He smelled horrible but was hilarious as he pulled out his radio and decided to translate English songs into Spanish. The downside was he kept scootching closer to me, and I was essentially backed into a ... read more

It has been almost a month since I last blogged. Time has been flying by, so sorry I slacked. This post is going to be a combination of two weekends in La Fortuna; one consisting of a few of us staying in Maria's (our program director's) house, and one trip with the whole group and 9 professors from the States who came to tour Sol's Study Abroad program. Maria's house: Nneka, Gina, Anna, Helen, and I took a trip up to Maria's house the first weekend of November. The five of us stayed in a little granny unit next to Maria and her boyfriend's house on a dairy farm!! Maria's boyfriend Jorge Pablo runs the dairy farm with his brother and let's just say I got to experience the best cereal and milk of my life. ... read more

On October 14th, at 3:30 am, I left with my group for Nicaragua! Because we had to leave so early, some of the girls in our group and I decided to take advantage of Ladies Night and pull an all nighter. We went to La Birreria to see some good old shirtless male dancing, and this time I have pictures to show for it haha. Unfortunately the crowd was a little lame, so we didn't make it until 3:00, instead I went home at one, showered, slept for an hour, and then got picked up to go to the bus station in San Jose. It was a nine hour bus ride to Granada, Nicaragua, but so worth it. Crossing the border was a bit of a pain, but all in all things went well. Maria, our ... read more

It has been yet another eventful week here in the magical Costa Rica! On Friday I took advantage of a free day and headed to the beach with my friend Helen. We got up at 6:00am and took a two hour bus from San Jose to a beach called Punta Leona, about twenty minutes north of Jaco. When we arrived we found a little place for breakfast called Soda Nimar which had the best gallo pinto and jugo de piña I've had yet! After breakfast we called a cab to drive us to the beach and we ended up venturing through this gorgeous jungle on a little dirt road and winding up at this small, pretty much empty beach called Playa Blanca. It wasn't the beach we had intended to visit but we were pleased with ... read more

Yesterday I embarked on my first river rafting adventure! Our group left Heredia at 6:00am for the Pacuare River in Limon, on the Caribbean side of the Country. On our way we stopped and had breakfast in this beautiful restaurant overlooking a canyon. The view was one of the best I've seen here yet. After a traditional breakfast of gallo pinto, fruit, and coffee, we headed down a very rocky, windy road toward the Pacuare River. Once we made it there our group divided into two rafts of five. My group included Rachel, Gina, Nneka, and Helen, and our awesome tour guide Luis. We named our team "Guapas con Luis," and of the rafts, ours was definitely the loudest when it came to screaming in the rapids. So far, river rafting is the coolest thing I've ... read more