Rafting, Volcano, Independence Day and other Tidbits

Hello friends and family! Sorry for being such a slow blogger. Here are a few highlights from the past three weeks:

Rafting
Two Saturdays ago I went rafting with a group of nine other exchange students from my program in a region called Turrialba. We caught a bus from Heredia to San José at 6:00ish in the morning, took a taxi from that bus stop to another bus station, took another bus for about an hour to Turrialba, where a guy from the company we signed up with took us in another smaller bus for about a forty minute ride mostly on a bumpy dirt road to the river. There, we split into two boats. I was in one with five other girls and a guide, and then the other raft had three of our girls, one of our guys, a Mexican guy and girl and the Tican guide. They gave us helmets, paddles and lifejackets, showed us a few techniques and off we went. It was a beautiful sunny morning, so in between rapids we would chat with the guide, watch bright blue “morpha” butterflies fly around or gaze at the greenery all around us. The rapids were pretty epic. We charged some class three and even class four rapids! Sometimes, if we were going over a rough rapid, the guide would tell us all to sit down in the bottom of the raft, instead of on the side where you normally sit when you paddle. On one of the class four rapids he yelled, “Get down!” so we all got inside. But then the raft filled with water and everyone, including the guide fell out! When I came above water I looked back and saw the guide crawling back in the raft, but I just kept floating along nearby my friend Ashli, holding onto my paddle and keeping my feet up, like they told us to, so that they wouldn’t get caught on a rock on the bottom. There were guys in single kayaks who’d been cruising alongside us, so at that point, one of them came up and was telling us to swim to the left, away from the current, but it was so strong that we couldn’t really do anything but literally go with the flow. Before I knew it, I was being heaved out of the water by David, the guy from our group and the Mexican guy who were in the other raft. They saved three of us, our guide saved the other three and everyone ended up safely back in our raft. One of the girls lost a paddle, but we ended up retrieving that, too, when it floated past our raft. I wasn’t really scared the whole time – I just kept telling myself, “Stay calm. You surf. You’ve been held under before. You can handle this. God’s is in control.” Everyone was completely fine and we all laughed about it afterwards. No one fell out after that. We stopped on a riverbank shortly after that for lunch, had sandwiches and fruit and relaxed a bit, and then hopped back in the raft for about another hour of paddling. There was one really cool part where we went through a ravine of sorts that was enclosed on the right and left with mountains and a suspension bridge crossing overhead. At that point the guide let us all (well he kind of made us) get out of the raft and just float on our backs for a while. It was soooo nice. A professional photographer had been following us down the river taking pictures, so all the girls in my raft split the cost of a picture cd. My face came out pretty hilarious in all of them – super intense and focused and embarrassing…you’ll have to see for yourself. We were very sleepy on the bus ride home.

Group Excursion to Volcán Poás and la Catarata de la Paz
This past Saturday we had an official ISEP (International Student Exchange Program) excursion to a volcano called Poás and a waterfall garden called La Paz. I guess we really lucked out in seeing a clear view of the volcano, because my host dad told me later that it's usually completed clouded over. He said he's been at least twice, but never seen it. We took a short hike to a lookout above the crater and watched smoke spume out of it. It was awesome! Then we took another short hike through a pretty forest to a lagoon, which was a bright blue color. After that we got back on the bus and went to La Paz and had a lot of lunch! The resort at the gardens is so nice!
It had a cute jungley theme, so even going into the bathrooms made you feel like you stepped right into Swiss Family Robinson. The Gardens had much more than waterfalls and plants. It was more like a zoo of Costa Rican wildlife. We went through a butterfly house, saw monkeys, went into the bird house, a reptile house and rainforest frog house. It was all amazing, but I think the bird house was my favorite because I got to hold a tucan on my shoulder! The frogs were pretty cool, too though. After La Paz, Ivelina took us to a souvenir shop and a restaurant where we got strawberry smoothies and dessert. We were stuffed, but it was so good!

September 13, 2010
Four things worth talking about from today:
1. I had my first Spanish exam, which the teacher had assured us would be “muy, muy fácil,” and it was very, very easy, except for a few tricky things. I think I did well!
2. I finally mustered up the guts to go play with the girls’ soccer team. One girl from my Spanish class named Jennifer, who’s an exchange student as well, has been playing on the team for over a month now, and told me that the coach is very easy-going and really understanding and flexible about attendance at practice and games. So I just went up and introduced myself to the coach, Amelia, and hopped in on the drills. My soccer skills are rusty! I did alright, but definitely need some practice. Another big factor, though, was the fact that since it rains so much, the field was pretty soggy. There were about three mud pits in the half of the field we were playing on so everyone got really muddy, and which you can imagine makes obstacles to avoid where you’re running around. Plus, I don’t have cleats yet, which made it even more slippery in my sneakers! I had fun, though, and met a couple girls on the team who surf! One even told me she has a six-foot short board!
3. I had my “Pablo” class at six, which was good! We studied Galatians, but now we’re moving on to Philippians.
4. I was a total klutz today. I slipped and fell twice and ended up with five separate cuts on my right hand all in one day! The first three scratches appeared on one finger at soccer practice…don’t know how they got there. The first slip was after soccer practice. I had to walk down the hill from the school in the rain to make a bank deposit for a student visa transaction. On the way back I was crossing the McDonald’s drive-through outlet and slipped on a white painted arrow and fell on my left side. A man happened to be crossing at the same and gasped, “Muchacha!” and offered his hand, but I was already up. I scratched my foot a teensy bit and got my pants a little wet, but was fine. Then, at night class I cut another finger trying to close my umbrella. After class, I caught the bus to a stop about five minutes from my house. I walked through this little park right by my house and almost made it back fine, but slipped on a muddy part of the sidewalk right before the stairs that lead down to the street, and fell right on my caboose. I got home and cleaned the mud off of everything and found two more cuts on my right palm from falling. It was a trying day with the rain and mud, but pura vida!

15 de setiembre – Costa Rican Independence Day
Today was Costa Rica’s Independence Day, so for about a week prior to today, when I’ve walked past the central park in the afternoons, I’ve seen some sort of gathering, usually with music and folkloric dancing. All of Heredia has been decked out with Costa Rica flags and colors and coats of arms for a couple weeks now, too. The main celebrations started on Tuesday afternoon of the 14th, with the torch ceremony. It’s kind of like the Olympic torch idea, except it represents Central American independence. The torch is lit in Guatemala and then passes through Honduras and Nicaragua and then finally to San José, Costa Rica, where it is dispersed throughout the other provinces, including Heredia, where it is passed on to various little barrios. I should probably learn the history better, but I’m pretty sure that these four countries share Sept. 15 as their independence day because they were all liberated from Spanish rule around the same time. Please correct me if I’m wrong or feel free to enlighten me on the details!
So, on Tuesday afternoon I had my “Alternative Therapies” class, where I was supposed to give a group presentation that ended up getting postponed to next week since we had an hour-long conversation at the beginning of class and some other students had to finish up older presentations. Then after class, a Tican girl named Andrea, who is one of the two Andreas in my group project, took me to a Colombian ice cream shop about ten minutes from campus where we got “granizados,” which is a cup full of slushy, pieces of fruit, condensed milk, and topped off with a scoop of ice cream. It was delicious, needless to say! I had a really good time talking to Andrea, who is a year older than me, majoring in business administration (I think?) or something along those lines and has a contagious smile! Afterwards we went to the park where the festivities had started. We ate churros (oh yes, more sugar!) and watched some folkloric dancing. I met up with some exchange student friends and Andrea eventually left to go watch the festivities in her town. The big thing of the night was a little mini-parade of “faroles,” which are home-made or store-bought torches, made out of cardboard and decorated with tissue paper, with a candle glued inside it. It’s mostly something that kids are really into, so there were a bunch of families with kids and their lanterns that circled the park for the “parade” of sorts.
The next day (Wednesday), was feriado (holiday), of course, since it was Independence Day. I met with some friends around 7:30 at the park to find a good spot to sit and watch the parade. All of the benches were already taken, so we found a spot on the sidewalk. The sidewalks filled up pretty quickly, too, so it was a good thing we got there early! The parades started around nine and consisted of marching bands, cheerleading squads, flag-holder groups (sorry, I went to a tiny private school, I don’t know the names of these things), dancers, clowns, mimes, etc. The first two and a half hours were elementary students and then finally after about three hours the older student bands came, who were really good, but we were so hot and sweaty that the three of us out of about the ten or so that had started there, got up to get, yes, my second granizado in two days! Although it was hot, I loved the parade and all the different outfits and instruments. I especially liked the portable xylophones that some bands had, which is a typical Costa Rican instrument, and the really good drum bands from high schools.
Today was also the birthday of a friend named Lauren from the exchange program. Her mom had one of our student friends organize a surprise party, so about ten of us showed up at her house with a cake and candles and card and sang her happy birthday in Spanish. She was surprised and it was lots of fun. Her host parents made us lasagna, let us play pool and her dad even played us a few tunes on his guitar as he and his wife sang.