Blogs from Heredia, Costa Rica, Central America Caribbean - page 4

(If you want to see the pictures in a larger format, just click on them!) You may know that the ASU group is studying at CPI-Heredia (Centro Panamericano de Idiomas). Yet we are living in the town of San Joaquin, so you may be a bit curious about the names of places here. Heredia is actually the name of one of the seven provinces of Costa Rica, and it is also the name of a city. San Joaquin is located in the province of Heredia and the city is about a 20-minute bus ride away. Yesterday after classes, we took that bus ride and were introduced to the city of Heredia by our guide, Johnny. (He will be our guide for all major excursions and he is THE BEST!) Yesterday's excursion was part orientation, part tour. ... read more

Tuesday, December 18, 2012 I so wish I could sleep in. Even while on holiday I am up at 6:00am. Instead of running this morning, I took my computer outside on the patio of our room and stared at the ocean water. My princess Cindy slept until 8:00am. Good for her I am jealous. By 9:00am we went to eat breakfast at Mansita, a restaurant here at the hotel and where we ate dinner last evening. We actually sat at the same table as dinner. For breakfast, I ate mostly traditional or western type breakfast. However Cindy took the adventurous route. Here are some of the food items Cindy ate. Buneelos (sweet fritter) Cheese Empanada Cassava Cakes stuffed with meat Granadilla (a fruit where you eat the inside seeds, very yummy by the way) Guanabana (fruit) ... read more

Buenos! Sorry I haven't posted in a while, the last few days have been soooo busy. We were finishing our independent projects. It feels really good to be done! We collected a total of 133 strawberry poison dart frogs for the research. Then we had to prepare a 12 minute presentation and write a 12 page paper - Aye carumba. We did the presentation yesterday and I turned in my paper last night. I feel like I should be more relieved than I am, but maybe thats because we have midterm exams coming up :( So not really much exciting news to report. But after that we go to our homestay! I am definitely excited to get a break from biology. During the homestay all we will be studying is Spanish - and we always have ... read more

Yesterday we visited the Dole banana plantation. Our guide was Carlos. His job title is Public Relations manager or something in that area, but I would consider him an entertainer. He kind of reminded me of the guy at Disneyland who pulled Hailey out of the crowd to come on stage (haha). His main objective was to put on a show for us gringos, however he was surprisingly knowledgeable as well. Apparently he got a master’s degree at Texas Tech for agricultural economics. He also does marketing research for the company. Our tour was informative to some extent. Carlos had obviously done it many times before, and it was clearly rehearsed. He catered to our group specifically, knowing we were studying biology and concerned about the environment. He also was very articulate in the way he ... read more

Hola from La Selva! Sorry for not posting lately, we had no internet in the mountains. It was actually really nice to not worry about email or anything for a few days. So now I’m uploading a few days’ worth of info and pictures! This morning we drove from Ceurici at 3000m elevation to La Selva at 60m elevation. Pretty big change. Today is El Dia de Independencia for Costa Rica, and I was able to see a parade / celebration of people on the way. I thought Beuafort, SC was humid. That is nothing compared to this. It’s 7pm here and I am sitting on my bunk right now in shorts and a t-shirt sweating soooo much. We have a fan in our room which is nice but everybody is constantly sticky. But that is ... read more