Wow what a weekend I had!!

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Hi friends! Hope everyone had a great weekend!

I had a 3 day weekend because yesterday in Costa Rica, it is El Dia de Independencia (Independence Day)! Like our 4th of July, Costa Rica gained their independence from Spain on September 15, 1821! Which of course means, no school and no work! More about my celebrations later, but first WOW did I have one interesting weekend so here it goes...

Thursday — Espanol Exam, I passed once again with flying colors 😊 I really am getting into this whole Spanish Language! I really hope to get fluent in Spanish by the time my 3 months is over. Then Lauren & I went to Grecia, a cute small town like 15 minutes from Carrillos. We did some shopping, bought some snacks for the weekend, and had a coffee break too.

Friday — Spanish Class in the morning, but since Monday was a holiday, some kids from a nearby school came to do their traditional Spanish Dances for us. Another group of kids sang some songs. Both groups were very good and so cute! Then right after school, 8 other people and myself left for our weekend adventure, and the story begins..... 😊

First, of all I learned an important lessons this weekend: It is not a good idea to go hiking to see waterfalls in a dress & flip flops! yikes!

So we decided to go to Montezuma Beach. Montezuma is about 5 hours away, but it is in the Nicoya Peninsula, meaning we had to take a ferry to get there. The first bus we took was from our school to Alajuela, then we caught a bus from Alajuela to San Jose. The next bus we had to take went from San Jose to Montezuma. We thought it left at 2:30pm, but it left at 4:00pm so we had to wait for around 2 hours. Finally at 6:30 we got to the ferry to take us across the river. It was a 810 colones, around $1.50 - soo cheap! The ferry was an hour ride and then we got off and back on our bus. Another 45 minutes went by before we stopped in a little town and had to switch busses once more. Finally at 9:45pm we arrived in Montezuma only to find things looked much different than we though. Regardless ,we went to the hotel we were going to stay at only to find the rooms with little more than 4 walls, bunk beds, and a door. (They were only $15 per night.) After all of the girls protested that we were not staying there in fear of getting a disease. We left and went to find another place to stay.... Just down the road was El Toucan, and only $10 per person per night. Even though it was cheaper it was very clean though. It resembled dorm rooms and reminded me of my lovely freshman year dorm rooms. We decided to go ahead and stay there for both nights. The town consisted of 5-6 restaurants, 2 mini supermarkets, a broken ATM, 15 or more hotels, and a couple of other stores! We were all decided to go to bed and wake up early to see what the beach had in store for us!

I woke up very early to the sound of chickens and couldn’t fall back to sleep so Lauren and I decided to get up and do some exploring before the others woke up. It was an overcast day, but very humid! The beach was very rocky, but the water was cool and we were sure it would we be a great day to work on our tans! After breakfast at El Sano Banano (*The Healthy Banana), which was very delicious, we were off to the beach! After walking for an hour through the jungle and such we explored a lot of the beach. The sun came out and the temperature rose just as the tide did. Before we knew it the waves were perfect for surfing and the locals were definitely out surfing. One thing I noticed right away was the fact that there were hardly any people on the beach which made it really remote and fun! I mean maybe 10 other people beside our group! It was a very remote part of Costa Rica that we were at! At about 2 pm, “the 3 boys” of our group had enough of laying out on the beach and we ready for our next adventure. With some negotiating, we decided to go find the Montezuma Waterfalls. First we had to hike back to town since the waterfalls were on the other side. Still in our swimsuits and bookbags, we began the hike. Only 10 minutes down the road, we found the trail and the sign that read: “Montezuma Waterfalls, Be Careful, Many people have died here.” Yikes! We decided of course to continue on our journey to see the 2 water falls. We had to hike/climb through the woods and on rocks to see the first part of the waterfall, which was just primarily a pool of water perfect for swimming and where many people came to cool off from the hot sun! About 10 minutes into our hike we saw some other people going the same direction and a local guy helping them get there. We joined their group, but 4 people got scared and turned around. The 5 brave souls (including myself!) Had no idea what they were getting themselves into... :S

2.5 hours later we hiked/climbed/walked around and saw the 2 most gorgeous waterfalls! The were stunning! I got some great pictures too! Thankfully the local guy that helped us was awesome and did this trail many times a day with people. He was so good at climbing and even wore no shoes. I had my flip flops and my dress still on, which was most definitely not a smart idea, but had I known that I was going to be hiking I would have dressed differently! At one point, we were at the top of this 300 foot waterfall and we had to cross this small section on rocks which was flowing with water. Just as I stepped down on the rock, my flip flop slipped off of my foot and plunged into the water below!! The local guy, quickly threw off his bag and jumped all the way down to the bottom to try to retrieve my shoe! Before he jumped I of course, said “No Importa” (which means, its not important or don’t worry about it). He came so close to getting my shoe, but the water was rushing very fast and it was swept away! For the remainder of the hike I only had 1 shoe and of course it was the dirtiest, muddiest part of the hike! Eww!

Finally, we were back and now even more tired, but we couldn’t believe the amazing hike that we just had! We couldn’t wait to tell the others what had just happened! After some much needed showers, we headed off to go eat at a great pizza place!

The next morning we left at 8 AM to return home and finally at 5pm I was back! What a great weekend, but I was so tired!

Monday — Dia de Indpendencia! I went with my host family to Alajuela to see their parades! It consisted of all kinds of kids from the schools in Alajuela. Some students played the drums, others carried flags, and other girls had batons! There were so many people there, but it was fun to be able to spend a holiday here! Today is back to school for a short week of 4 days and I’m already planning for next weekend!

Thanks for reading and hope you all have a great week!

xo -Courtney

p.s... Lo Siento, I dont have my pictures of this weekend, but soon I will post them!

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