So much has happened since the last time I’ve blogged. I can’t believe its already our last week in aptly named Costa Rica!
On Fridays there is only a half day of school, and to make things even more fun, this past Friday the students threw us a thank you party! They organized a scavenger hunt and food and a dance party, and it was the best. I’m really going to miss this ministry and the all people who have invested in us so much during our time here.
So anyhow, right after school/the party, four of us from Regnum Dei and three from Wildflower caught the bus to Heredia…then transferred to the bus for San José…then transferred onto a long distance bus for Quepos/Manuel Antonio…then transferred onto one final local bus to get to Hostel Plinio. It took aproxamentaly forever…okay, eight hours. But thats a really long time when you’re on a bus!! But we got there right before 2200, checked in, some of us got food, and then caught some sleep so we could head to la playa as soon as we could in the morning.
We had an amazing Costa Rican breakfast of pinto de gallo and fruit, caught the bus, and off we were! We paid to get into the park and started walking through humid, lush rainforest. (FTMs, there were some legit memories of being back at B.C!) Within 10 minutes we had seen three sloths, a family of bats, and who knows how many capuchin monkeys. When we got to the beach, we were the first people there, and the view took my breath away! It was kind of a little cove with black volcanic looking rocks all around. The sand was white, the waves blue, there were coconut palms and hermit crabs, pretty much a storybook paradise, but even more beautiful. Words can’t describe it.
Funny story. You can’t buy food in the park, so we brought in PB&J sandwiches in a grocery bag. Shortly after running into the water, we saw raccoons trying to steal the bag! We rescued the unopened food from them, put the bag in my backpack and zipped it shut…little did we know that wasn’t enough to keep them out! No sooner than we were all back in the water we saw them coming back, so Jacob (taking responsibility as our male presence) ran up to try and scare them away. Unfortunately they were too quick, unzipped my backpack, and stole all the food! So we had half pieces of bread and cookies with peanut butter and jam on them. It was great.
We left the park around 1400, cause we heard thunder and knew it was probably going to shower. We found a restaurant and got smoothies and pina coladas and watched the surfers catch waves in the rain, until we decide to rent an umbrella to keep our backpacks dry and go swimming in the storm. It was the coolest thing ever. One of my favorite things about the day. We stayed there until sunset, which wasn’t very beautiful as the rain clouds were in the way, then caught the bus back to our hostel. Unfortunately, the bus didn’t stop at our stop and though we pressed the button next to our seat about 50 times, they didn’t stop until the bottom of a hill about a mile past our hostel. Thankfully, we were prepared at training camp to hike with backpacks! Unfortunately, we weren’t trained to hike up a steep, curvy, dark, wet hill with traffic flying past, honking angrily at the fact we didn’t show up at all. (Mr. dangerous scenario dude from launch who’s name I can’t remember, we came very close to needing to go through those scenarios. Thank you for all you taught us.) We all made it up the hill with no injuries besides a few blisters and some chaffing from wet swimsuits! We were happy. 🙂
Then we took the bus again (there are lots of busses in my story) into Quepos for dinner and ice cream. We had one more adventure coming though! Somehow we missed the 2130 bus by 5 minutes. Tears. So we took taxies to the hostel! We packed up our stuff and caught a few hours of sleep before getting into a (much quicker than the bus) van in order to get back to Zoe in time for church.
Currently I’m sitting in a cafe with my girlfriends, a cappuccino and some chocolate cake figuring out end of the month team finances. (Spoiler alert, we are under budget and going out for dinner!! Praise!) We have one more week here teaching, and then its off (on another flipping bus) to Nicaragua! Thank you to all of you who are following this crazy journey called life!
Love you all!
Hannah
