Blogs from Cartago, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 8

It seems to be one of the great laws of the universe that nothing goes as planned. This is not always a bad thing as I have learned in the past and was reminded of a couple weekends ago. The plan was this: Travis and I were going to meet up with a group of teachers from Saint Clare on Friday night to cook dinner and to present a slideshow of pictures from Travis’ trip to the top of Chirripo, Costa Rica’s highest peak at 12,530 ft. Summiting Chirripo is an event that many Costa Ricans spend months training for and then must enter a lottery to obtain permits. So Travis and I went to the market after school to pick up the groceries we were going to use to make the food. Everything was going ... read more

Well, it’s been just about two weeks since I arrived here in Costa Rica and everything is going great. I have been enjoying my time at Saint Clare very much. I spent most of my classroom time last week observing my two cooperating teachers, Alexandra and Rebecca. Both were originally biologists who found that they enjoyed teaching science just as much as they like doing research. They are both excellent teachers as well as great mentors. Today was my first day of teaching and it was somewhat on the fly. Alexandra wasn’t feeling well so she had me take over the class. It was so much fun. The students here often have a lot of energy, some might say too much, but if you can harness that energy the classroom just lights up. I had all ... read more

OK, so I guess we will have one more blog post before we go. This is about my (Steve's) trip to Cerro Chirripo - the tallest peak in Costa Rica. I and 2 of my friends here in Costa Rica (Kilon from North Carolina and John from England) decided to do the adventure together - without wives and children. The trip began with a 4-plus hour drive to the town of San Gerardo de Rivas. This included waiting for 30 minutes at a dead stop while road crews worked on cleaning up from landslides a few days earlier. The town is located in a green valley shadowed on all sides by steep hills, with the beautiful roaring Rio Chirripo running through it. Before dinner, we left 2 big backpacks loaded with sleeping bags, extra clothes, and ... read more

Hier die Neuigkeiten von unseren letzten Tage in Costa Rica: Golfito Golfito liegt im Sueden des Landes an der Pazifikkueste. Mit dem Auto ist diese Gegend einfach zu bereisen. Der Ort selbst ist touristisch wenig attraktiv und so machten wir Ausfluege ins Umland. Zuerst besuchten wir, wie wir schon in unserem letzten Eintrag anklingen liessen, Pavones. Dort befindet sich - hier muessen wir etwas richtig stellen - die zweitlaengste linksbrechende Welle der Welt. Leider koennen wir euch unseren Ritt auf der Welle nicht zeigen, da dieser Computer keinen USB-Anschluss hat. Nach dieser Aufregung entspannten wir an der traumhaften Playa de Zancudo. Um nicht auf halbem Weg zu diesem Strand liegen zu bleiben, mussten wir eine Tankstelle finden. Schwierig in der Einoede. Aber hier kann man Benzin auch im Supermarkt kaufen! Die Verkaeuferin zapft das Benzin aus ... read more

Hello All! On Yesterday and the day before I rented a bicycle for the afternoon. On Tuesday I went to Tapanti National Park which was a really tough uphill bike ride and got to see some of the mountains and the river that flows into Orosi. I went with a girl I met from Colorado who was studying spanish this week. On Wednesday we did another killer ride to the Ujarras Ruins which I had seen before but wanted to ride past some places that I had only visited with a driver. On both days we had great weather and I got a lot of sun, even with lots of sunscreen. Today is my last full day. I had classes in the morning and I had a nice lunch with my pal, Karen, from Colorado. Then ... read more