This weekend, we packed up early on Saturday morning and headed north to Arenal in the Alajuela district. Some of the girls brough backpacks and duffel bags--even though this was only a 2-day, 1-night excursion. Honestly, ladies?! Really. The bus ride over was pretty uneventful. Oh, except one guy took a dump in the bus. And one girl threw up a lot. But aside from that... :
We stopped first at a giant red church that was made entirely out of metal in Grecia, Costa Rica--there were birds nbesting in all the chandeliers on the inside, and a really cool park out front. Our next stop was the Sarchi Artists' Cooperative (mum! dad! we DID go there!) where we took our pictures next to the largest ox cart in the world. It strikes me as really funny that, of all the Guinness World Records to break, they would choose the biggest ox cart. Do what you know, man.
For lunch we stopped at a steakhouse...right at the foot of Arenal Volcano. I got my picture taken on the back of a giant cement bull with a ladder up one side of it. Tourism is everywhere! We ate lunch in the glorious humidity and watched the point of Arenal emerge (which is apparently a pretty rare occurence because of the rain, clouds, and smoke that usually surround it).
After lunch we went ziplining. I don't believe I have ever had such exhilarating fun in my life. My parents and sister did it when they were here last semester, but it's such a different experience doing it than just hearing about it. We harnessed up (and I got a double pulley to go even faster!), then trekked at a literally 60 degree angle up the side of the mountain to get to the first platform. I never really realized how out of shape I am until that moment. Here are some statistics: there were 12 ziplines. Some of them are 300 meters high. 10 guys got stuck in the middle. 4 girls cried. I saw 1 turkey (?). It rained 0 times...which sucks because I wore my fleece-ish lined raincoat the. Entire. Time. Better safe than sorry? More like, better faint from heat exhaustion at 300 meters above a raging waterfall of death.
After ziplining we got on horses. This felt like a random turn of events; in fact, I'm fairly certain that the horses were just pulled from the rainforest. They definitely weren't trained AT ALL. No one died, though, which is a good outcome.
Baldi Hot Springs was our next stop, which was awesome. We had dinner there, a buffet, then swam (the logic of "all you can eat, then swim" escapes me). The springs were gorgeous--it's kinda a resort, with 3 wet bars (though drinks are $10 each!) and pools ranging from coldish to comfy to boiling. Then we found the waterslides :) One was really fast, one was really slow, and one was really painful. I will only say that it ended badly.
On the way back from Baldi we stopped to see the volcano at night! I saw one sliver of lava snake out of one corner of the crater's mouth, and that's it....but they sell postcards that illustrate buckets and buckets o' liquid hot magma pouring of it, so it MUST be true!
On Sunday morning I woke up more sore than I have ever been in my life! The hiking, the ab crunching, the holding on for dear life when a strap on my harness broke (yes, indeed, it did), the neck cramps from falling asleep in a position I thought unassumable to mankind, and the near-concussing action of that damned waterslide all used their forces against me to make me rue the day I was born...or at least yesterday. We had breakfast at the hotel, then bussed to La Fortuna waterfall where we hiked 600 m down to the falls, swam in the foam underneath it (SO COLD compared to the hot springs!), fed frogs to piranhas (I did not partake in this, but attempted to feed them my fingertips instead, which in retrospect was a disaster waiting to happen), then hiked back up. I wish i could say the hike back up was a breeze and that I did the whole thing while carrying on a conversation with my neighbor. In reality, I'm just going to leave it at this: it was the exact opposite.
I bought one of those cool wrap tapestry things, partially because it had birds on it, and partially because I only brought one outit that had already seen me sweat bullets in a ski jacket in a rainforest canopy AND ride horses AND sleep for hours in a bus...so I was starting to stink. Obviously. Literally, people would not sit next to me on the bus. Haha, more room for me :)
We stopped at a rope swing on the way back from La Fortuna where we made fools of ourselves in deep water. One guy, who can't swim, swung from the rope and landed almost on top of the goggled guy who was there to help push him to shore. Fun times :P
We got back to the hotel and laid in the sun for an hour while our lunch was being prepared. I saw 4 separate landslides down the sides of Arenal--it was so bizarre because you could hear them before you could see them, then all you saw was layers of dust and concentric cirlces where boulders were falling and leaving pockmarks on Arenal's skin. It was awesome. Lunch was (brace yourself) heart of palm salad, grilled sea bass, coconut flan, and strawberry juice. :) Everyone popped a dramamine so we could sleep on the bus, then headed back south. On the way back we stopped for guava, which comes in a seedpod the size of my arm. You suck the white meat off the seed, and Percy compares it to "putting a white mouse in your mouth." Thanks, Percy. We also tried yucca bread, which is awesome, and pariña (i think), which is like a giant hard crusty pancake that you eat with molasses. Yum.
The change of climate from Heredia to Alajuela really messed with my head--I haven't felt this lethargic since November. I need to perk up, though, because we have 3 dance lessons, a cooking class, a jewelry class, an opera, a trip to Cafe Britt, and a 3-day, 2-night beach trip planned for this week...not to mention 5 classes and an exam. Ugh! Wish me luck.
Also, a shoutout.
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