This is Kate. I have posted some video above. The first is of Casa Gavilon, the remote research station from where Nick (Scotland), Andrew (New Zeland), and I were working for a few days. The second is a little bit of the main road from Cloudbridge to town. We were headed to the Chirripo National Park trailhead to get to the next valley over where our Spanish teacher lives when we walked passed Erik's house, the Cloudbridge Reserve manager. The third video is taken on the trail to Los Angeles, the small village where our Spanish teacher lives. We had already [View Full Entry]

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This is Kate. So... I have been at Cloudbridge for 1 week. It has been an interesting experience so far. I finally got acclimatized and also used to hiking in my rubber boots, although my feet are still covered in medical tape & bandaids because of blisters. For awhile my quadrocepts were so sore it was difficult to walk, but that has passed and the soreness has moved on to my gluts... me bum. Nick, our new volunteer, arrived this past Sunday. He is from Scotland and we've been getting along great. I am glad there is someone here who I [View Full Entry]

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This is Kate. It is my 4th day at Cloudbridge. Yesterday, I went on my first hike with Andrew and Tom. Both are experienced hikers, and were going quite fast. Our first little hike was to the hydro-source behind Tom's house. There was somewhat of a path there through the forest. He wanted to show us where he was making his hydroelectricity and also point out where Andrew might want to get some samples. I was wearing a ballcap, and on the way there my head had a very intimate meeting with the trunk of a tree that had fallen across [View Full Entry]

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This is Kate. We packed up the car on Saturday morning and were headed to San Isidro. The drive up was nice, and we stopped in Dominical to get some snacks and check out the beach/waves. Then we climbed the winding mountain roads for about an hour. Overall, it took us about 3 hours to get there with the stop. We arrived and found our hotel, a backpacker staple. It was called Hotel Chirripo and was right in the center of town, across from the big church. San Isidro looked like a bigger Quepos immediately. You could tell it was a [View Full Entry]

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This is Kate. I put pictures up on the first entry about Carolyn's visit, so you should check them out! So... traveling to La Fortuna was very scenic. There were dramatic valley views as we climbed the hills. Once we were near, there was a mist around us. It felt like we were heading into the clouds! We arrived in the afternoon and it was a misty day indeed. We didn't have anywhere to stay, so we walked around a bit and eventually came to Gringo Pete's, a cheap youth hostel that looked fun. It was purple! Also, only $6 per [View Full Entry]

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This is Kate. It's pouring rain again. I got home in the nic of time. Today was somewhat uneventful. We had some people check out this morning, so I got up to clean their room and bathroom while Eric was surfing. Before that we had a hankering for pancakes, but did not have any pancake mix, so I created something out of flour, egg, sugar and bits of pineapple. It was pretty good. Sort of crepe-pancakes. While Eric was gone, I searched for jobs again. Yesterday I applied for an online job as an online organizer for an environmental group. It [View Full Entry]

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This is Kate. As many of you know, my good friend Carolyn came down for a visit. She stayed July 14 - 22. The morning of July 14, I got up early because I had to get ready for the bus... Carolyn was coming. I decided I would ride up to San Jose to meet her and help her get back down to Quepos. The bus was off at 9:45am. It is such a nice ride going from Quepos to San Jose. Although it does take 4 hours, there are some beautiful views of the valleys and hills along the way. [View Full Entry]

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This is Kate. So, I found out today that I did not get the internship in the Osa doing sea turtle conservation work. I was really looking forward to that, but the man in charge said it was a tough decision and 2 other people who had lots of experience working with sea turtles got it. Oh well. I do have my work at the Cloudbridge Reserve to look forward to, and now I would be able to stay longer up there. However, I would not want to stay too long because Eric is not coming with me. I originally planned [View Full Entry]

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This is Kate. So, as many of you probably know, Eric and I are coming back to NC June 22 - July 4. We are coming back due to my grandma's failing health. She is very special to me and we have been close ever since I was small. We used to spend many holidays at her house in Durham and she even took Meg and I on road trips and watched us when our parents were away. I have always been able to talk to her about anything, and I used to love asking her about her younger live in [View Full Entry]

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This is Kate. Just want to say in the beginning that the pictures don't really line up with the text and most of them are at the bottom of the page. Also, some of the pics and video are in night-vision because my video camera doesn't have a light. I will be putting the videos up later because I am still trying to figure out the best way to do it. So... our trip this past weekend was quite interesting. We went to visit a native Costa Rican tribe, the Barucans. My private Spanish teacher, Omar, is Barucan and was the [View Full Entry]

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