Discovery tour - Day 2, adventures in the river and jungle

We went up quite early, took showers (there were like four showers for twenty persons...) ate gallo pinto and pancakes for breakfast and then got ready to go rafting. We jumped into the bus that would take us to Rio Chirripo (Aka rio susio - dirty river, it's called that because the water is yellow. It comes from Irazu volcano where we went on camp and therefore it has a lot of minerals that makes it look all yellow and dirty.) and listened to our guide talking about everything and nothing all the way there. We got ready, put on our lifevests and helmets, grabbed a paddle and teamed up. Every team had its own guide and together with the guide we went down into a boat. After some safety instructions for what to do WHEN you fall into the water we went out on the river. It was one of those unforgettable moments where just everything is perfect. Some people fell out of their boats, but my team was so good that not one of us did. We stopped one time to jump from a thing and down into the river and once to swim in the river and to eat fruit. It all went so fast and before we knew it we were going away from Rio Chirripo.

 All wet, and dirty, we went into the bus again to go to a place to get changed and then we went into the bus another time to go to the canyoping place. When we got there we first had a delicious lunch (rice and beans, tropical fruits and chicken) and then while we were waiting to do the canopy we spotted sloths, red frogs, and a spider that is not poisonous but that makes a really strong web. Hahaha, the spider was so big and it had a little small spider in it's web so we were all saying that there was a mom-spider and a baby-spider. Later a guide told us that the small spider was the husband. Hahahaha, fail.

When it was time for the canopy we were all so excited, and we did not get disappointed! We took some pics and filmed a little bit, but mostly we just enjoyed. This is something that you really should do once (or twice) in your life because it's just amazing. Feels like you're flying through the forest (and you kind of do).

 After the canopy our adventures for the day were over, we went back to San Jose to take the bus back home to Nicoya, but we were delayed three hours and so it didn't feel safe going home that late. Some stayed another night in the hostel, some who live closer to San Jose went home (nicoya is four hours away) and I went together with Valentina to her house in Heredia. It was so sad saying goodbye to everyone again, the only thing that kept me from crying was that we are going to go to Panama together next week, so then I'll see everybody then.

 But so I went together with Valentina to her Swizz hostfamily. They are soooo nice. When we got there we had dinner, swam in their pool and started watching a costa rican movie. I think I saw five minutes of the movie, and then I fell asleep. It had been a long and exciting day.

Love the sunglasses!

Vali and Luisa <3

SLOTH SLOTH SLOTH!!! It made me so relaxed seeing it because it really moves in slow motion. I would have loved to have one. Haha, search baby sloth on youtube, cutest things there is.

<3

Discovery tour - Day 1, abrazos y amor

Friday when we arrived in San Jose with the bus we first got picked up by Bram who had made a little cute map in his notebook of where all of the busstops in San Jose are. In San Jose it's really tricky with the buses, because there is one busstop for each destination. In one part of downtown San Jose leaves the bus for Nicoya, 500 meters away the one for San Carlos and on the other side the one to Heredia. So it was really lucky that Bram was prepared. When everyone had arrived we could finally go and eat lunch. After eating we decided to go to the hostel where we were going to spend the night to drop our big and heavy bags off since it was so tiring to carry them around. Without any bags, Valentina and I decided to go out and do "free hugs". We found a  cardboard box in the middle of the street and took it to a small shop where you cou repair your car. There we asked them for a knife and a pen so that we could create our "Free hugs" and "Abrazos gratis" signs. They were really helpful and as a thank you they all recieved a free hug.

With the signs in our hands we made our way to one of the shopping streets in San Jose. A lot of people just avoided us, but many many persons also gave us big hugs. It was the best feeling and one of the funniest things I've ever done. Sadly we failed taping it (Beatrice taped it all in slow motion...) but I've got some videos that I might put together later. Anyways, so we went around recieving hug after hug after hug, and it was just amazing. Some people just laughed, some said  things like "que dios la acompana" which means "may god protect you" (they say that often here) and a lot of them asked us why we were giving out free hugs. If I could I would totally do this every day, from just hugging we got so close  to some of the persons that we met, and it felt like we were actually making peoples days better. It was simply so cool.

Later we went back to the hostel, stayed there for a while and then some of us went out again to see a big park that we had heard of. However, when we got there it was so dark and so we didn't really feel like entering it anymore. We walked back to the italian restaurant next to the hostel, had dinner and went back again. We sat on the balcony and talked and had a really nice time. I was so happy to get to see everybody again and I realized how much I've missed them. We have gotten so close and are kind of like one big family now. Just love it.

So day 1 of the Discovery tour had come to an end and it was time to sleep and get prepared for day two with canyoping and rafting. Chiva!

Where the hugs started

Discovery tour!

Tomorrow the bus leaves from nicoya at eight in the morning. It will take us all the way to San Jose where we will meet up with the other exchange students to spend a day in Costa Ricas capital. In the evening we will go to a hotel somewhere close to San Jose. Saturday morning we will take a bus to rio Chirripo to do rafting and after that we will go canyoping! It's going to be amazing and I really can't wait!

This is going to be me on Saturday

Homesick-but in a good way

I'm staying in my IECs house for a week because my hostmum is in Peru with some relatives. It feels so strange, but ever since I started packing my bag for this week yesterday I don't miss my family in Sweden that much, I just miss my hostfamily and my home here. It's actually really strange, but I love the feeling of it. After a bit more than one month in this family I really feel at home, and that makes everything so much easier.

On Friday we will all go to San Jose for the discovery tour! I can't wait, we will go canyoping and rafting in some place close to san jose, haha don't really know where. It's going to be soooooo good. I was skyping with Valentina earlier and it's going to be so nice to see her again, it's been two months since camp and I've missed her a lot!
 

Ice-cream

In Sweden we have GB-glass, but here Dos Pinos is da shit! My favourite is this vanilla/chocolate ice-cream that has cookiedough around it. Yum.

24/09/12

In school today we went to see my schools basketball team playing against a school from Libreria in the polideportivo. I only saw the girls game (which we won, GO EUPI!) and then I had to go back to school to get my things because it was already 12.  After that I went home, ate lunch and finnished writing some letters and postcards. Now I just came back home from the postoffice and soon I'm going to go out for a run with Bea. Later tonight I'll go to the dancing lessons and after that I don't know. Most likely I will go to bed as soon as I come home because I didn't sleep well tonight. Woke up at three, superscared, and supersure that there would be an aftershock or something. After sitting in my bed for twenty minutes shaking like a leaf I decided to call my hostmum to ask if I could sleep in her room. Poor thing, this is the second time I call in the middle of the night to ask that... The aftershocks this weekend really freaked me out. Since I was in Samara I was in the epi-center of them so they were a lot stronger than the ones I've felt in Nicoya. Both times I got scared and prepared to evacuate the house while everybody else was just sitting down all calm. I need to stop doing FEAR- Fuck.Everything.And.Run. whenever there is a small aftershock.

El fin de semana

So on Saturday I came to playa Samara just before lunch. It was raining a little so we ate and hanged out in the room of Lena and Elis for a while. Later we all went out to the beach with the boogies and the surfboard. It started raining again after a couple of minutes but it didn't really matter, the only thing was that it was impossible to see when the waves came, hahaha. Otherwise it's fun to be in the water while it is raining as it did then. In the evening it was still raining so we didn't go out. Yesterday we went up early, went to the beach, stayed there for a couple of hours in the sun, went back to eat lunch and took the bus home. I got burned in my face so I'm still red. Never ever want to get burned again
.

The

THE almond tree

Las hermanas