Panama - Bocas del Toro

Last weekend was spent in Panama, and I would have to say, that it was my favorite weekend of traveling that I have had here thus far! Under the Costa Rican law, Americans are given a three-month visa. In order to renew your visa, you must leave the country for at least three days before your three months is up – or you may never be able to leave! My visa was renewed the first time when I went back to the states for a few weeks. This semester I will be here for more than a three-month stretch, which means it was necessary to leave for a few days! Being “forced” to go to Panama, was definitely not suffering! It was an incredible weekend!

This trip was unfortunately not included in my tuition like the other trips have been. Therefore, I had a choice: Go with ISA, or go independently with some of the students in my program and save about $200 dollars. The better choice seems like the independent trip, but I opted to go with ISA, something that I did not regret even for a second! Going with ISA saved me for having to stay in a sketchy hostel, plan any of the details, find transportation, and also saved me from having to travel and spend the weekend with the constant and crazy “party fest” (the majority of the students in my program are hard-core partiers… so independent trips with them means putting up with a weekend full of alcohol and other substances and everything that comes along with those types of crazy parties…). Most importantly, it saved me from having to cross the boarder alone!

Bright and early Friday morning (5:30am) we left ULACIT. Only a few students from my program decided to go with ISA, so the trip was also opened up to students from Veritas. Veritas is ISA’s other campus here in San Jose. There are about 65 students studying there, as compared to the 18 in my group. They are located in a different part of town and most of them are just beginning their Spanish studies; therefore, we had never met any of them before the trip. Between the two campuses, we had a total of 20 students traveling to Panama. This was great! Not only did this allow everyone to have two seats on the bus, but also it was really easy to meet the other students and allowed for a very “tranquillo” weekend! The bus ride was about 7 hours, but it went by super quick. I really enjoyed meeting the Veratas students. Two Veritas students and I particularly hit it off. We realized on the bus that we were all Christians. Being in this environment (being one of a few Christians studying in my program) makes me especially excited when I meet another Christian! I spent almost the whole weekend with these girls and it was so encouraging! God really blessed the weekend in this way because I also got to share a hotel room with my beautiful friend Lauren, another strong Christian. Which meant that for the first time since coming here, I spent the entire weekend with strong Christian women!

Crossing the boarder was so sketchy! I was so glad that ISA took care of all the paper work! We had to have five copies of our passports, our actual passport, and a copy of ourflight information. Ania, our ISA staff representative, was tense the entire time we were there. She ran around from office to office, jumping through all of the hoops for us. Finally, after about an hour of filling out forms and going to different offices, we were cleared. A large river separated Panama and Costa Rica. The bridge connecting the countries was THE worst bridge I have every seen! Let me tell you, it would certainly NOT pass U.S. inspections! It was actually an old railroad track. Between the tracks were open holes leading to the raging river below! On both sides of the tracks were planks of wood to walk on… but if you weren’t careful, you would trip and fall about 40 feet into the quickly moving waters below! We crossed it very slowly…

After driving in the bus for a few more hours we had to switch to water taxies. We rode the water taxies for about 40 minutes until we arrived at the islands of Bocas del Toro. A.k.a. Paradise! I loved everything about Bocas del Toro! The Panamanians were friendly, the currency was U.S. dollars, the food and souvenirs were cheap, the roads were clean and without holes, the houses and buildings were all painted bright vibrant colors, the weather was perfect, and the beaches were absolutely incredible! Our hotel was in the center of the main island – close to everything! Lauren and I had a lot of fun being roommates for the weekend and encouraging each other in our faiths. Shelby, one of the two girls from Veratas that I mentioned, turned out to be my twin! Not only do we look a lot alike, but also we had a lot in common. She is also studying nursing, loves Jesus, and we have had a lot of similar life experiences. I enjoyed hanging out with these women so much!

Saturday morning we took a water taxi to a near-by private island. On the way we spotted dolphins jumping out of the water! Unfortunately I didn’t get very good pictures of them, but it was very cool! The private island was breath-takingly beautiful! It was like we had hopped into a screen-saver or other marketable beach picture! The sand was white and the water was calm without any waves. The colors were incredible. The water started out crystal clear and then gradually faded into deeper shades of blue, as it got deeper.

On Sunday we went to playa de las estrellas (star-fish beach!). This beach was on the same island as our hotel, so we took a bus as far as we could and then walked the rest of the way. The walk was absolutely delightful! We walked along the shore and through little forests of palm trees. It was as if we had discovered a little secret because the beaches were not crowded with tourists like they seem to be everywhere else in the world. We knew we had reached starfish beach when we started spotting little red and orange starfish in the water! This was my first starfish experience, and I learned a lot. The most important thing to know is that the starfish cannot be out of the water longer than a minute otherwise they will die! This did not stop us from picking them up or from taking pictures. We were very careful. We held them under the water to look at them and to take pictures we lifted them out for a few seconds, snapped our pictures, and dropped them back under. Their arms move like stiff worms. I left my hand under the belly side of one of them for a few seconds and he uncovered his suction-cup like tentacles and stuck them to my hand! At first I thought this was really cool… until I started feeling something scrubbing my hand, which I imagined to be his tongue priming my fingers for dinner (ok, that’s most likely not what was going on, but nonetheless, I didn’t like it!). This started to freak me out so I tried to pull my hand away, but I couldn’t! His tentacles were tightly glued to my hand and I couldn’t break loose! I started getting a little panicky until a large wave crashed on us and broke my hand free! Needless to say, I didn’t try laying my hand on any more of their bellies! All of the starfish were unique. Some were teeny-tiny and others were extremely large. Some were a pinkish beige color and others were deep orange or red. They were so fascinating!

I was sad when Monday morning came and it was time to leave! For a great ending to an incredible weekend, a few of us woke-up early to watch the sun rise. Everything in the town was still and quite and it felt as though we were the only ones there. We found a dock with a perfect view of the horizon. We sat on the dock in the darkness, waiting for the sun. Gradually the water and the sky started changing colors as the sun began to rise. It took about thirty minutes for it to completely rise, but in the meantime, we enjoyed God’s artwork of colors! Although I was able to get some good pictures, they don’t capture the full beauty of this sunrise! It was like God had allowed us to see a little bit of his work in action, and let me tell you, He is talented! Imagine how many sunsets and sunrises God makes everyday, all over the world! How many of them go unnoticed? How many of them have I witnessed? Not many. I will always remember this one.The trip home was uneventful. We passed over the boarder, back to Costa Rica, smoothly without any problems. Bocas del Toro is listed as one of the top ten most romantic places in the world and a common honeymoon location. I can see why! I’ve never seen such tropical beauty! Our visas were renewed and now I’m good to go until I go home (7 weeks from tomorrow!). My visa wasn’t the only thing that was renewed in Panama; I came away from the weekend feeling renewed in every other way as well – spiritually, mentally, and physically. It was a weekend full of encouragement, excitement, new friendships, adventure, new experiences, rest, and beauty.

** Monday is November first, which means that I will be done with my facebook fast October! Be expecting an overload of pictures, including the rest of my pictures from Panama!**

Un encuentro de toda la vida

Composition number two: check!

Today I turned in my second composition for my advanced grammar class. I thought my last composition was top notch, especially after having my Tico mom proof-read it for me, however, I was sadly mistaken. After turning it in, I received it back full of red marks circling little things like adjective and noun agreement and other tedious mistakes. Each composition is 10% of my grade... so this time I decided to go to extreme measures. Yup, I consulted an expert, no, a Spanish super-hero... yes, my cousin Jessica, a native Spanish speaker (we are talking Spain Spanish here.... the real deal), a Spanish major, and current Spanish teacher. After much correcting on her part, I confidently turned-in my second spanish essay. This one is about meeting Winnie three years ago. For those of you who don't know, Winnie lives in Kenya and was my World Vision sponsor child. When I was sixteen I had the opportunity of a life time! I was able to meet Winnie when I traveled to Kenya on a mission trip with Southeast. It was an experience that will forever be listed in my "top ten"... one I will never forget. My Spanish essay retells the story. I have posted it below for my blog readers who can read Spanish (I'd say that consists of about 1% of the people who read this blog... haha). : ]


Un encuentro de toda la vida (The meeting of a life-time)

¿Ha tenido alguna vez una experiencia tan increíble que usted tiene que pensar a sí mismo si fue real o solamente un sueño? Cuando tenía dieciséis años, tuve una experiencia como esta. Tuve la oportunidad de conocer a Winnie, una niña que patrocino. Fue una oportunidad muy increíble porque ella vive en Kenya y yo jamás pensé que tendría la oportunidad a conocerla.

Durante toda mi vida, he tenido un amor por las misiones Cristianas y por los niños, especialmente los que están empobrecidos en otros países. Por eso, cuando tenía quince años, comencé a patrocinar a Winnie. Al principio, Winnie solo tenía seis años y estaba infectada por la SIDA. Pagué treinta dólares cada mes para que pudiese tener una educación, comida sana, agua potable, y asistencia medica. ¡Me encantaba ayudarla! Winnie y yo nos enviábamos cartas para conocernos. Esto continuó durante casi un año hasta que recibí la oportunidad de viajar a Kenya con mi iglesia por dos semanas en una viaje misionero. Estaba tan emocionada de tener esta oportunidad – ¡sería mi primer viaje fuera de los Estados Unidos!

Al principio pensé que no iba a poder visitar a Winnie, porque iba a estar en una zona diferente del país. Pero, mi madre llamó a la organización y pidió si sería posible. Aunque fue un proceso largo y complicado y había muchos obstáculos, al final solucionamos todos los detalles. ¡Quedamos en que sí, conocería a Winnie en persona! Fue un milagro. El plan era que la organización traería a Winnie y a su madre a mi hotel y nos reunimos por una hora. Sería una oportunidad extraordinaria para Winnie también porque ella dormiría en el hotel durante una noche, y sería una experiencia muy diferente para ella porque su familia era muy pobre.

Yo estaba tan ilusionada con esta reunión y pasé mucho tiempo preparándome durante muchas semanas. Mi abuelita cosió un bolso para Winnie que tenía tela de dibujos de animales y su nombre bordado en ello. Le compré una muñeca negra que podía llorar y venía con varios trajes. También le compré tela para su madre. ¡Por fin, el día llegó! ¡La mañana después de llegar a Kenya conocí a Winnie y a su madre! Ellas no podían hablar ingles, entonces, tuvimos que hablar por medio de un intérprete.

Winnie había estado tan emocionada que su madre me dijo que ella no había podido dormir la noche anterior. Era tan amable y un poco tímida. Cuando yo les dí sus regalos, ¡estaban muy sorprendidas y agradecidas! Winnie nunca había tenido su propia muñeca y especialmente no una como esa muñeca. ¡Cuando la muñeca comenzó a llorar, ella no sabía que el ruido venía de la muñeca! Entonces, nos preguntó, “¿Donde está el bebe que está llorando?”. ¡Cuando se dio cuenta que era su propia muñeca, no podía parar de reír! ¡Ellas no se lo podían creer que la muñeca venía con varios trajes, porque la mayoría de la gente en Kenya no tiene tantos trajes! A su madre también le encantó las telas. Ella puso la tela sobre la mesa para verla todo. Y cuando Winnie recibió su bolso con su propio nombre bordado, estaba muy feliz.

Después de recibir sus regalos, hablamos sobre nuestras vidas. Ellas me dijeron como eran sus vidas. Aprendí que Winnie era la más pequeña de una familia grande y su tarea favorita era llevar el agua a la casa. Ella estaba en el primer grado y estaba aprendiendo a leer. Con mi dinero y el dinero de otros patrocinadores en sus comunidades, su comunidad tenía educación para los niños, comida, y otros desarrollos. Por ejemplo, construyeron una maquina para convertir el agua sucio a agua potable. Sus vidas eran muy diferentes que la mía. Pero mi apoyo mensual las ayudaba tener un nivel de vida mejor. Las dos estaban muy agradecidas. A mi me encantó conocerlas y me lo pasé muy bien. Tomamos unas fotos juntas y todavía las tengo en mi habitación. Veo las fotos cada día y me recuerdan a Winnie y oro por ella.

Nunca olvidaré a este viaje y esta experiencia. Solo fue una hora, pero todavía puedo recordarlo como si fuera ayer. Esta reunión profundizó nuestra relación. Antes, ella solo era una foto y un nombre quien necesitaba mi dinero cada mes. Pero después, todo era real. Después, sentí que ella era la niña de mi corazón y también mi amiga. Sus problemas y su vida eran reales e importantes. Desde ese viaje en adelante, continuamos de enviar cartas. Hablamos de esa experiencia con frecuencia. Para siempre apreciaré al recuerdo del día en que conocí a Winnie.

Sunny days and sweet little reminders

Today has been absolutely beautiful! The clouds finally let-up for more than a few hours in this dreaded rainy season, and it feels like spring. All day the sun has been shining and a sweet cool breeze has been blowing. The birds are singing and the air is crisp. Distance (or absence) really does encourage affection, not just with relationships, but also with little things like sunny days! It rains like clock work every day during the rainy season, so a day like today is like a little taste of heaven! I sat outside this afternoon while I worked on some homework and the glory of the day reminded me of how much God loves me. He is so beyond incredible and His love is unexplainable and so undeserved; yet He gives it anyways, even when we don't receive it... He still gives it. Later on I turned on my itunes music and one of the first songs that came on was one I've never heard before entitled: "Your Love is Better Than Life" by Eden's Bridge. I immediately recognized the reference from Psalm 63. You may recall from one of my earlier posts that Psalm 63 is my study abroad psalm for this semester (the title of my blog is actually a reference to this Psalm). It's come to mean a lot to me. This little song again reminded me of God's love and how sweet His presence is. Thank you God for sunny days and for sweet little reminders. Here are the lyrics:

In the shadow of Your wings
My soul clings to You
Through the watches of the night
I will remember You
Because You are my help
And Your right hand upholds me

And Your love is better than life

For I have beheld You in the sanctuary
And I have seen Your power and Your glory
And I will praise Your name
And I will lift my hands

Because Your love is better than life
Because Your love is better than life
Because Your love is better than life

Back in middleschool...

Do you remember that awkward stage of life known as middle school? Yes, that time in your life when you started developing a strange fascination for the opposite sex, which stood in complete contradiction to that earth shattering reality from elementary school that they all have cooties? A middle-schooler must wrestle with this inner controversy over the course of three years, until he/she finally discovers the truth regarding that strange species. Most of us make it out of these awkward years with a healthy appreciation for the opposite sex. We (hopefully) master the fine skill of relating to and interacting with that once cootie infested species.

As I learned yesterday, not everyone made it out of middle school mastering those skills…

Seeing as how there are no Starbucks in Costa Rica, I went to the next best thing: Taco Bell, to get some studying done after church. I picked a table, spread-out my books and note-cards, and tuned-out the rest of the world as I studied for my “Advanced Oral and Written Expression” midterm. After about an hour of this, I began to notice the two men sitting a few tables away from me - two ticos who looked to be my age. I picked-up on the fact that I was becoming a focal point at their table. I could feel them staring at me; however, since coming to Costa Rica, this is nothing new. I seem to have a big sign on my forehead that says: GRINGA (Spanish term for White American girl), because EVERYWHERE I go I attract unwanted attention (maybe it's the blond hair, blue eyes, pail skin, or my terrible accent... I don't know...). As this was nothing new, I ignored the stares. A few minutes later, I noticed both of them get up. One of them walked past me and out of Taco Bell. The other followed behind him and dropped a receipt on my notes as he said in English with his heavy Spanish accent: “Mi friend want me give this to you”. I waited until they had both left Taco Bell to fully examine the receipt and this is what I found: I felt like I was in middle school all over again. Back to those awkward years when you don’t have enough courage to talk to that special someone so you get your friend to do it for you! Needless to say, I won’t be calling Pablo!

Lately...

Since I last wrote, I took a weekend trip to Tortuguero, had a day off and thus went to the beach for a day, and… well, life has gotten much busier with school (I’ve had at least one test every week for the last few weeks….ugg)! Next week is midterms (that means I’m halfway through the semester! Can you believe it?!). I have two midterms, and two presentations to give! One of my presentations is about the U.S. dollar and it’s affect on the world economy… I had no idea how big of a topic that was until I just started looking up information today… needless to say, I’m already looking forward to next weekend! Don’t be surprised if you don’t hear from me for a while… my schedule for this week has one theme: study, work, study, work, go to class. Then on Friday I am leaving for Panama for four days to renew my visa!

Besides being very occupied with school, life has been pretty sweet lately. Not being on facebook has been food for my soul. I don’t have oodles of free time as a result of this, but my time is spent differently. I’ve been doing my homework in a public location in my house and thus I’ve been spending a lot more time with the people in my life. And overall, I’ve really been here, not just physically, but mentally. My relationship with my host mom has slowly been deepening, and I’ve been having much more meaningful conversations with my host family and friends. I’ve also been running more, going to bed at a consistent time, waking up early, and even doing some fun things in the community like taking dance classes! (Yes, you read that correctly, I am taking dance lessons… two hours a week of “popular Latin-American dance”. This has been quite the experience and strangely, I’m really enjoying it! After about a month, I’m beginning to be able to shake my hips a little bit more like a Latino….haha)

God is doing some awesome things lately. I’ve always had a heart for missions and for evangelism, but I’ve never really actively expressed this outside of mission trips. For once in my life, I have more non-Christian friends than Christian friends. God has been teaching me so much through this. He has been showing me how to be His ambassador. It’s easy to feel pressure that I need to be “saving” everyone. But only God can open their eyes. This simple, but profound truth is very freeing. However, at the same time, I still have a job to do. I need to be the hands and feet of Jesus. I need to take advantage of every opportunity to talk about Him and to actively show His love to others. I don’t always do a good job of this. It’s been challenging at times. I’m realizing how important it is to follow the scripture that says:

“But in your hearts set apart Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.” – 1 Peter 3:15

I’m not always prepared to give an answer. I’ve specifically been challenged to memorize more scripture, particularly scripture pertaining to salvation. That way I will be able to share the truth through scripture. My prayer has been that God will help me to see people the way that he sees them, to love them the way that He loves them, and to recognize the voice of the Holy Spirit and to obey Him. The coolest thing is that God has been opening up the door for many such opportunities. There are several people that He’s placed in my life who are searching for Christ, even if they don’t yet know it. I know that God is tugging on their hearts because usually they are the ones who begin the conversations about God. I don’t want to give any more details beyond that for the sake of their privacy. But please join me in praying for some ripe harvest. Pray that God will open their eyes spiritually and that they will come to a saving knowledge of Jesus Christ and begin a relationship with Him. : )

As exciting as it is to truly be on a mission field here in Costa Rica, it’s also very draining. I miss true Christian fellowship so much. Being the only girl here who doesn’t drink get’s rather old. This week God has convicted me of caring too much about what other people think. Here is the verse that He’s been impressing on my heart:

“Am I now trying to win the approval of men, or of God? Or am I trying to please men? If I were still trying to please men, I would not be a servant of Christ.” – Galatians 1:10

Wow, that’s been challenging. This week that verse has been popping into my head a lot. I’ve been spending a lot of time with the 18 Americans in my group. We’ve traveled somewhere almost every weekend and they will continue to travel every weekend for the rest of the semester. I really do love the people in my group. They have become good friends of mine, and I do enjoy spending time with them. However, without knowing it, I’ve felt a lot of pressure to have to hangout with them all the time and to have to do the things that they are doing. Although I love spending time with them, that’s not why I came here and it really does wear me down sometimes. Anytime that you hangout with the same group of people for extended amounts of time, they can start to press each other’s buttons. I’ve found myself getting inwardly frustrated with some of the people in my group and sometimes offended at things that they say. This verse has been freeing because I’ve realized that I don’t need to be the life of the party or even part of the party! Should I get offended if people think I’m a grandma and make somewhat rude comments about me every once and awhile? Nope. I’m trying to have an un-offendable spirit, as my mom would say, and to only care about what God thinks, and not what others think.

So with that being said, I decided to break away from everyone else and stay here in San José for the weekend! I’m one of the only ones in the group who didn’t go to the beach and I have absolutely no regrets. I just got back from spending the evening with my friends Shannon and Melissa (two of my good friends from this summer). Spending time with them was truly a breath of fresh air! I had so much fun. One of their tico friends came along, so we spent the evening talking about missions, life, God, school, and the like – mainly in Spanish! My plan from now on is to do very little traveling, even if that does remove me from my group of friends somewhat, and instead to spend time with people here in San Jose. I love traveling... LOVE it. And I have thoroughly enjoyed the traveling that I have done. I've had so many adventures and amazing once-in-a-life-time opportunities. But I think I've done enough of that for now. I'm not saying that I won't be doing any more traveling, but I will be doing less. I want to get involved, spend more time with my friends from the institute, find more locals to get involved with, and most importantly, speak more Spanish! That is why I came here after all!

After God convicted me of this early in the week, and I decided to make some changes in my outlook here as well as the way I spend my time, He blessed me with an incredible opportunity! When I was here this summer I met a missionary at the institute who gave me the number of one of his good friends here in San José, a woman who is a missionary nurse. I didn’t call her because I was about to go home and then I forgot to call her when I got here, until this week. Finally on Wednesday I called her and explained who I was and asked her if she would ever have any opportunities for me to volunteer or shadow her. She was so enthusiastic and kind! We talked for a while and she told me about some of the things that she does here. She does prenatal appointments once a week and is going to let me come to those and help her in any way I can! She is even moving her appointment days from Tuesdays to Fridays (my day off) so that I will be able to come! She also takes occasional trips to indigenous areas and said that if it ever fits with my schedule she would love for me to come on some of those! The crazy thing is that her daughter goes to school with and knows my best friend Ellie! She was so sweet that she even invited me to come over and have Thanksgiving with her family if I want to. I can’t tell you how excited I am about this! This is why I am here! I would rather be involved with this, over traveling to beaches in Costa Rica any day! For a while I’ve really wanted to do something medical to start getting my hands wet and to make sure that I’m on the right career path. So being able to volunteer with a missionary nurse and thus incorporate Jesus, medical stuff, and Spanish all in one... couldn’t be any more perfect! I’m not sure when I am going to start volunteering with her, she has to get back to me about some dates, but I will be sure to post updates when they come! God is so so so good. His blessings are never ending. : )

And thus, life is slowly changing for me here in Costa Rica. I have officially been here for a total of over three months… I’m settling in and making this my life, it’s becoming more and more like home – my home away from home. And it is Oh so sweet. : )

Here are some pictures of what I've been up to lately!

This was in Tortuguero on the beach.Tortuguero is like an island off of the coast of Costa Rica which is famous for it's turtle breading. It is a protected area where turtles come for months every year to lay their eggs on the beach. Visitors to the park can try their luck at spotting a turtle laying her eggs or possibly seeing the eggs hatch and watching the little hatch-lings scurry to the water. Unfortunately, October is when the turtle seasons begins to end and thus we didn't end-up seeing any turtles... bummer! But we were able to go on an early morning canal tour and we saw lots of other cool animals in their natural habitats like monkeys, crocodiles, lizards, cool exotic birds, etc. Here is a picture of part of the canals. This is Justin and I on our way to Tortuguero. We took a bus part of the way there and then the last 1.5 hours was by boat! SWEET!

Here is a picture of some cute little girls who befriended us while we were there. The one in the middle was extremely friendly... haha!So...early! Here is a picture of Lauren and I at 5:30a.m. This was the beginning of our canal tour. As they say here in spanish: fue vale la pena (it was worth the pain!)This is my precious new Tico friend! She and I are displaying the new 20,000 colones bill (equivalent to about $40...). SO MUCH MONEY! : )CHRISTMAS!!! All the stores here are beginning to bring out their Christmas products! This definitely seems early to me, but when you don't have Thanksgiving, why not prolong this wonderful season! : )

Manuel Antonio

This past week one of my homework assignments was to keep a journal in Spanish every day for one week. This consisted of a lot of writing and thus, I haven’t wanted to do any more writing for my blog! I handed in my journal today, which means I’m now free to write for fun!! So here is a long over-due entry about Manuel Antonio, the beach that we went to this past weekend.

The first night started off with a little bit of an adventure… We arrived on Friday around 4:30. Our hotel was right on the beach! So of course the first thing that we did, was to check it out. It was incredible, as you can see from the pictures. Moriah and I decided to go for a nice walk along the shore and to explore the town while we waited for dinner. We walked as far as we could go and enjoyed the beauty of the water, the sand, the forest along the shore and the rock formations. Then we walked through the town and looked in some of the tourist shops. About forty minutes later we could tell that the sun was getting ready to set, so we headed back to the hotel. We walked along the shore, looking for the hotel, but we couldn’t find it. About ten minutes later, the sun was completely set and everything was dark. As we continued to walk, the lights from the town and the hotels along the shore began to diminish. There was no one on the beach, and we were starting to get a little worried. We continued to walk, but still found nothing that looked familiar. Along the shoreline was a tropical forest and anyone could easily hide him or herself along the brush in the dark and pop out at us. After almost walking along the entire shore, we decided that it wasn’t safe and that we should go up to the road and try to find the hotel that way. We were getting more and more scared. We hadn’t even been there for a few hours and already we were lost. We didn’t know the name of the hotel, any numbers to call, and we were without a male – two American girls lost in a beach town at night is not a good combo! I started to pray out loud: Lord, please keep us safe and lead us to the hotel! We couldn’t ask anyone for direction, because then they would know that we were lost and could easily take advantage of us. We tried our best to pretend like we weren’t lost. It took us awhile to find the street, but we felt a lot better once we did! There were more light and more people. We passed a lot of sketchy, creepy men, but thankfully we didn’t have any problems. We remembered that our program director had told us that the hotel was next to a gay bar, and we remembered what the bar looked like, so this became our landmark. Manuel Antonio was very populated by homosexuals, so at least if we were going to get attacked it would be by a woman ; ) FINALLY we found the gay bar and our hotel! What a relief! However, our relief didn’t last too long as we quickly realized that the gate was locked and we had no way of getting in. We called out for someone to come help us, but no one came. We talked through our options and decided that the only solution was to climb the fence. So that’s what we did! Moriah and I helped each other get up and over the fence and finally we were safe and sound inside the hotel! At dinner we recounted this story to our program director and she told us that about twenty feet away from the gate was another gate into the hotel that was unlocked.......... will I ever outgrow my blond moments???

Saturday was spent on the beach, soaking up the sun! I faithfully applied and reapplied sun block and successfully avoided sunburn! The only thing that I burnt were my eyelids… I never thought to put any there! Sunday morning we woke-up early and went to the Monte Verde national park. It was like an animal and nature reserve that you had to pay to enter. Inside was a jungle that we hiked through and eventually found an incredible beach! We were really excited to discover a monkey playing on a tree at the beach. At first we thought he was really cute, but after a little while we discovered that his “cuteness” was just a cover-up for his expert robbing skills! He was determined that we had bananas in our bags and he was not going to give-up easy. He carefully watched us and the minute that we looked away, he leaped from the tree onto our bags and started throwing everything out that wasn’t food! On his first attempt, I saw him before he was able to take the bag up to his tree and ran over to get him out of our stuff. Defeated, he ran back to his tree, but he was visibly angry! His angry face and his attempts to poop on us evidenced this! A little while later a woman walked by the tree with a backpack on and he leaped onto her back and tried to open it up! He provided quite the entertainment!

We saw many other animals in the park such as a hanging sloth, huge rodent looking animals, ginormous lizards, and beach raccoons. I was sad when we had to leave and wished I could have spent more time there! Around noon we packed-up our bags and headed back to San Jose. This trip marked the end of our group excursions… meaning that from now on I’ll have to do my own planning and pay for any traveling ☹ But I’m thankful for the incredible trips that we have had!





I would write more about what has been going on this week, but sadly I have to go finish studying for a huge grammar test tomorrow (ewe yuck! I hate grammar!). I'm posting lots of pictures in this entry since I can't post them on facebook! More to come soon! Tengan buenas suenas!