Viva la Vida

I couldn't grab onto anything. I was just falling and falling. Granted, there was some resistance, but not enough to give me any sort of security. It didn't matter how much I squeezed my hand around the rope, it just burned my hand through the glove, and there was still at least 100 feet of the 160 foot drop left to go and I had no control. So I twisted and turned myself down the cliff wall in front of me to the yelled explanation of the guides above and below me of what I should be doing, though to my knowledge, I was already doing it... I guess I wasn't...

Today in Arenal, we awoke early to go either canyoning, that is repelling down waterfalls and canyons, or horseback riding around the volcano next to our hotel. I opted to go canyoning and after a bus ride and a hike up some mountains, we began to descend, vertically. Our first drop was the biggest and was next to a huge waterfall. A 160-foot-drop, it obviously wasn't flawless, but still was extremely fun. We were instructed to put our left hand on the part of the rope above us, and the right hand was what stopped our fall and was to go on the rope next to our hip, releasing and gripping to adjust our rate of fall. For some reason, I just couldn't pull the rope tight enough to stop or slow down and soon enough, I think the guides began to stop and start me in rhythm with my attempts to push off the cliff wall.

At our next attempt, we were to face an 80 foot repel. The first 40 feet were to be free fall, and then you had to repel of the wall behind a waterfall. “I'm going to be able to hold on this time!” I told myself. And I was right. As I turned around to plunge backwards off the ledge, I sturdied my hands on the roads and pushed off, released my hands a little bit and begin to swing back... right to the ledge. I hadn't dropped a foot. So I tried again and just landed right back on the ledge, again, even after making an effort to almost completely release my hands. Finally, on the next try, I combined releasing my hands with wiggling my body to coax the rope into slipping through my harness. I dropped right below the ledge and then got caught again. “Show me your hands!” the guide said, asking me to completely remove my hands from the ropes, but I hadn't heard him, for I finally had gotten the hang of it and was busy getting ready to start repelling off the waterfall as my sneakers flooded and water splashed everywhere.

We had a few more canyons to repel down, one of which was the the plain old dry cliff, with no waterfalls to be seen, but a good one to make sure you've really figured out this whole deal with the ropes. The last one went down another waterfall, but the second to last one was definitely the most challenging. The whole time we had been following a single river that cascaded over various cliffs. On the last repel, we were repelling off the wall behind the waterfall the whole time. This part of the waterfall began with a 45 degree angle, so this time, instead of hopping off a ledge as usual, you essentially just walked backwards until you were being completely held up by your harness and then repelled from there. The water was particularly strong here and there were also walls on either side of you, meaning you were either in the waterfall or repelling ungracefully from side-to-side.

I would say this topped the charts of the best activity we did in Costa Rica. I got to learn something completely new while exploring Costa Rica in a new and challenging way.

There were murmurs, murmurs between my host father and the woman organizing karaoke. Something about “El Primer Millón,” the song I jokingly said I would sing. I didn't pay much attention to it through, our family was going crazy with the karaoke, almost monopolizing the microphone as all of our cousins, parents, brothers, and sisters took their turn. Suddenly, however, the microphone was passed to me as I was introduced as singing “El Primer Millón” to the surrounding observers at the club we were at. As I pulled Mariela towards me to help me out, the song begun and we fought our way through the rest of the song, trying to push the microphone towards each other instead of ourselves, laughing into the microphone as we saw the ridiculousness of the situation. It was like the blind leading the blind, I'm not perfectly fluent with Spanish, and this was a relatively fast song, and Mariela didn't know how the song went. Somehow, it worked out though.

At the beginning of our stay in Heredia, our family had played with the idea of taking Julia and me out dancing with the family. As our stay began to draw to a close, I brought it up again with my family. We hadn't been able to go before because we were always gone for the weekends, but having this past Friday free, we decided it was the perfect opportunity to go. So we gathered together our family for the night and asked Olivia for permission, who, knowing she really shouldn't, told us we could go as long as we got back by eleven (which of course we wouldn't) and as long as she could come along as well to supervise (and dance).

We drove far into the mountains to reach our destination, and when we finally got to the club, we could see the city of Heredia and San José glittering behind us. Somewhere on a mountain in what seemed like the middle of nowhere, we found ourselves at our final stop. Magali and Jamie joined our family for the fun, as well as Grace and her roommate: girls I'm not really familiar with.

“No, no, no, no, no. The foot first goes back!” “Bien, bien!” our dance teacher instructed us as we experienced our first dance class in Costa Rica. We began with the simple one, two, cha, cha, cha step, a dance similar to the basic salsa step, but with an added pep in the step in the middle. Our method was to first learn the step individually, and then combine into partners to try and put the male and female parts together.

Before long, we moved on to what I believe was called the Rumba, and later the Meringue. During the Meringue dance, we all got to feel a little bit like ducks as we essentially waddled around the dance floor in order to swing our hips the right way. Regardless, this seemed to be a favorite among us. All of us picked it up pretty quickly and had fun practicing it. Once we got the hang of it, our teacher even showed us some new moves to add on the dance we learned.

Even once we got to school, my classmates seemed to still have their heads in the dance class, as they took time out to demonstrate for the teacher what they learned. Though we didn't spend a lot of time in the class, I'm sure we'll remember some dance steps to bring back to the United States with us.

Our morning's activity today was a visit to the Museo de Cultura Popular, the Museum of Popular Culture. We started the day off by cooking these delicious coconut cookies, that I'm sure would make my (real) dad's mouth water, and then proceeded onto to explore the museum. Though I don't know if I'd really call it a museum. I have a feeling that this mostly happened simply because we didn't have a great guide, but I'm not really sure what the museum was about.

Our guide began by explaining to us that this was not a museum of tangible objects, but rather a museum of smells, touches, experiences, etc., which seemed to make sense at first when you looked back at our experience of cooking the coconut cookies. All too soon however, I lost him. There were some pretty cool things that he showed us, but it seemed to be a random hodge podge as we walked around a field with a building in the middle of it.

One of the first things he showed us was this plant that grew these fruit-like bulbs, that looked a little like mamones chinos, that if you broke open, you would find small berries that had a red dye in them that people used for clothing and as make-up. Well, that cleared up the question of whether or not there was blood on his pants, we figured it was just the red dye. He also showed us how to know when a coffee bean is ripe for picking.

Next, he set us loose into a house with all of it's doors and windows closed and told us to open all of them. All of them were barred with a bar that came up and off of two supports on either side of the opening, which meant that when I tried to open a door in pitch black, the bar obviously fell and crashed to the ground. In response, the guide himself came crashing through the door I somehow managed to open to make sure everything was alright.

The house was a bit random as well, but some artifacts he brought out were cool. One was a ceramic doll with the number 13 and a horseshoe on the side. In American culture, this would be considered unlucky, but in Costa Rican culture, the number 13 is lucky, and the horseshoe as well. The moral of the story was that it all depends on perspective. This was followed by a can that was similar to a watering can, but the spout went downwards instead of up. We learned that this was to help bathe babies and pregnant women in the olden days. The last artifact was a wooden egg, which is apparently used for darning socks and by putting it in their nests, making chickens think they already laid an egg and responding to this by laying more.

Then, quite abruptly, the tour ended. It was interesting, but the concept of the museum, as the museum claims to be itself, was just a little too intangible for me.

Yesterday, the LPI group headed on over to the pool, which is located in something called El Palacio de Los Deportes. We spent our time swimming and just laying around, since the water was absolutely freezing cold. We're working on a scavenger hunt during our stay here, and my group agreed that I would make matching friendship bracelets for everyone, so I worked on the bracelets (I finished the last one today, now the question is if I should make one for myself...). We missed all the global impact students as well as the two-weekers, but there was nothing to be done.

Later yesterday, I tested my luck with my phone. While I was at the beach this weekend, we at some point put our things too close to the water, and as the tide got higher, our stuff got washed up and soaked in seawater (which is most of the reason why everything was soaking wet after our trip, and the fact that it started pouring after our trip to the beach). My camera somehow made it through barely wet, without being in a ziplock bag or anything. My phone, however, was not so lucky. Drenched with sea water, after I disassembled the phone some and dried off the surface, the inside of the screen started to fog up with water vapor after I took a hair dryer to it at the hotel. I kept drying the phone until the screen stopped fogging up. However, I was still not convinced. I didn't want to try running a current through the phone while there was salt water hidden inside, so I left the phone without a battery until I got home. I asked my host father to let me borrow a few handfuls of rice, and he helped me bury my phone within the dry rice, so any remaining moisture would be absorbed. I left the phone like this for a couple days, as I worried about the salt water. It'd be one thing if it was freshwater that had flooded my phone, but the salt from the water had the potential to be much more harmful. Most people say if you go as far as to drench your phone in salt water, you should first wash it out with freshwater to remove all the salt. I was too nervous to do that though. When I got home that evening, however, I risked turning on my phone, and to my absolute delight, it worked. Whether or not the rice helped, or I got most of the moisture out myself is unknown, but regardless, I'm not complaining.

After our new experiences with the children's museum, we finally went to our first traditional museum – El Museo Nacional. The museum began with a walk through a butterfly room. Though it wasn't as impressive as the one in the InBioParque, it was still beautiful. In the InBioParque, there were a lot of butterflies in a very small amount of space. Here, there was a large amount of space which was tastefully covered with vegetation and a relatively small amount of butterflies, which made encountering one that much more special.

As we moved through the museum, there were various artifacts from Costa Rican history and their descriptions, classic museum design. Apparently, throughout Costa Rica, round balls of cement like material have been found in all different sizes, ranging from being the size of me to being small enough for me to pick up without exerting too much effort. They have yet to definitively figure out the purpose of these balls. There are many theories that fly around. One suggests that they were just for decoration. Other theories suggest that they were used as a method of keeping track of time and date, which was important for growing crops and keeping track of the rainy seasons and such. Often they were found arranged in lines to make angles or other formations.

Once we got to the basement of the museum, the style changed. In the basement was various rooms that the army of Costa Rica used (back when they still had an army). Though I don't remember for sure, apparently the building used to be some sort of headquarters for the leader of Costa Rica, and the army stayed in the basement. There was a hallway with small rooms stemming off. There wasn't a door covering them and the graffiti on the walls was the original graffiti from the soldiers who stayed there. These rooms were used for people they held hostage or for soldiers that needed to be punished. They would only have a wooden box for a bed and few other luxuries. Another room contained the bathrooms of the army men, which at some point were built over to display more artifacts in a museum that owned the building before El Museo Nacional. Another room involved the cafeteria and another the showers. Just a walk back through the butterfly room and a step over a couple of the famous balls and we were off to school for the day.

Another life goal has been accomplished. I finally got to be inside a bubble. This morning we visited El Museo de los Ninos, or The Children's Museum. This museum is inside a building that was once a prison that fell into disuse after a war. There was talk about knocking the whole building down until the idea came along of turning it into something society needed – a children's museum. The museum presents information about almost everything. You can find information that ranges from how a body works ranging to how light works. Of course, there are also exhibits that are more purely just for enjoyment.

One exhibit that caught my eye was the bubble exhibit, of course. This is where I finally received my experience of being inside a bubble. There was a circle in which you stood and pulled up a metal circle around you that had been dipped in bubble fluid. There was also large bubble wands that allowed us to create the biggest and longest bubbles I've ever seen, which is something else I've always wanted to do – make huge bubbles.

In another room, there was a wall onto which you'd lean and turn on the light. The wall was glow in the dark and after a minute or so, you would turn off the light and your shadow would be semi-permanently stuck on the wall, until the next light application. We called these magic shadows. Another exhibit featured a house that was on an angle with the ground. It produced odd, dizzy feelings in everyone since our brains told us we were supposed to be standing up straight, but we had to stand on an angle to actually keep our balance. It was very cool.

All the Costa Rican woman here wear these original hair clips that sort of work like a ponytail holder and sort of work like one of those large hair clips. I finally found one for 50 cents at The Children's Museum, so I got it. But I think its smaller and more fragile than normal, so I'm still on the lookout, but I definitely like how it looks. Whatever it takes to make me feel more Tica!

The ziplines provided endless fun for us. As we moved on, the ziplines kept getting longer and longer, and more and more people needed guides to help them get across. Some simply refused to or weren't able to stop without having the assistance of the tree trunk in front of them. Others got in trouble for releasing the grip of either of their hands to take pictures or videos as they flew across the sky. I was all set as I strapped my GoPro to my head and zoomed on.

The last couple ziplines were the most spectacular, as they were the highest, giving us an amazing view of the mountains below us. These ziplines were long enough that they gave you time to relax and stop thinking about braking in time. You could stop and smell... the greenery. In all honesty though, the air there was something different. In Monteverde, the air felt extremely fresh and just smelled amazing. There were moments where we all just stopped to breathe, and just breathe.

As a grand finale to our zipline experience, we got a chance to go on the Tarzan swing – a mix between a bungee jump of 120 feet and a swing, similar to the Dare Devil Dive at Six Flags Great America. You had to walk out on a long bridge which at some point just stopped, and you were attached to a couple ropes and would jump from there. The wait was filled with anticipation, since as you watched the people in front of you, you would see the person on the bridge, on the bridge, on the bridge, and then gone. Suddenly, without warning, they would disappear, and we were all waiting for our own turn to do just the same.

I finally got out to the platform. I was one of the first of my friends to attempt the jump and any of my friends who already did it were way ahead of me in line. And there I was, on the edge. “Las dos manos aqui.” …This is all I can hold onto? “Bend your knees.” “What?” “Bend. Your knees. Bend.” ...Umm, Okay. And then without further warning I was essentially shoved off the edge. I managed to scream for the first half second of the drop and then my stomach fell behind my body, leaving me breathless. Finally the rope caught, and I swung above the tree tops to catch one last glance at the green mountains that I got to marvel at on the ziplines.

We woke up at the crack of dawn today to drive down to the Pacuare River to brave the rapids that made it into the top five rivers for white water rafting in National Geographic. At six o'clock in the morning, our bus departed from the university, and we all settled into our seats for the two hour drive to the lodge where we would have breakfast before our departure.

After changing, we loaded the buses again to drive to our final destination at the beginning of the river. We donned our life jacket and helmet, and I donned my video camera, attaching it to my head. We were given the basics of the controls of the raft, and even practiced rescuing people if they fell out of the raft (practice accomplished by pushing members out of the raft and then rescuing them).

Quite soon, we made our way out onto the rapids, warming up with Class I and II rapids and then later advancing to Class III and Class IV rapids. Somewhere in the middle of the run, we stopped by a clearing of rocks for lunch. At this clearing there was a cliff which everyone took the time to dive off and into the water. The fishes in the water weren't too shy to nip at us either. Greg was holding his hand above the water and a large fish with teeth jumped up and bit his finger.

Afterwards, as we were finishing the run, we went through a place called “The Two Mountains.” This was a particularly beautiful part of the rafting trip, as we floated between two mountains. However, a large electric company is looking to build a dam here. To do this, they need to turn the river into a lake in this area. This work will be done in about six years, which is a real shame, since the beauty that was there was incomparable to any other.

Throughout the whole trip, vegetation surrounded us. There were also calm parts of the rafting when we had the opportunity to jump off the raft and swim around as we floated down stream. The three hour rafting trip was nothing short of a roller coaster of a ride. As we paddled, we observed the Indian Reservation to our right, and even saw some Indians. There were also lodging stations for multi-day trips from which came camera flashes from visitors taking pictures. Maybe one day I'll be taking the picture as I wait for my own rafting trip to continue for the second or third day.

After every rapid, we celebrated our survival and success with a “high five,” which included raising our oars into the air together and yelling “Pura Vida!” So, here's an oar to you - “Pura Vida!”

Our morning excursion today was a trip to the Biodiversity Park in San Jose. Officially titled INBioparque, this park houses a sample of the biodiversity of Costa Rica. There is a representation of most of the types of environments in Costa Rica, and within these live various plants and animals that appear in the actual Costa Rican counterpart. As we were shown, this park houses a research facility that studies all the various species. Their main focus is insects, plants, and mushrooms, though they study other biodiversity as well. They've discovered hundreds of species over the past few years, and 78 in the last year alone. Even at this moment, they have tons of species that they discovered, but have not yet named, so this year will be a full year for them as well.

The park's story concerning mushrooms is an interesting one. In Costa Rica, the people really only eat one type of mushroom – the ones they put on pizzas. Through the park's studies, they know that there are many types of mushrooms that would provide a great type of nourishment for people. On top of that, mushrooms are extremely easy to grow. As a result of the combination of these factors, the center is trying to spread the word and convince the public to grow mushrooms for themselves and so that Costa Rica can have a mushroom exporting business.

As we explored the park, we saw various animals ranging from fish, to frogs, to white-tailed deer, to snakes, to crocodiles and turtles, to iguanas. We also saw a great variety of plants. One plant we saw was one we once tried to grow in my freshman year biology class. If you touched it, the leafs closed up. My favorite part was probably the butterfly emporium they had. The butterflies were absolutely beautiful and there were so many. If you spread your arms out like an airplane, they would consider sitting on you, and a lucky few got to have a gorgeous butterfly atop their arm or their hat. I, however, did not get my butterfly experience until after I left. The saying goes that if a butterfly settles on you, you get seven years of good luck. Does settling on my backpack count for at least three and a half?

The schedule just said Team Building. We were given no other clues as to what was going on. Were we going to do trust falls? Do a human knot? We had no idea what to expect, but what we definitely didn't expect were Costa Rican men with sticks that have feathers and attached to either end.

On Tuesday we all gathered together at the university to become more “united.” As we walked onto a sports field which included a worn down basketball court, we were told to throw our backpacks against a tree and then come to be divided into teams. We were divided by which program we were with: Summer 2 (green team, my team), Global Impact, and two week.

Our first activity involved us holding hands in various confusing ways and passing a hula hoop over the whole group without letting go. I was put at the front of the line, and when the whistle blew to begin I climbed through the hula-hoop, and though I planned to let go, my mind never really connected with my hand, and I continued to hold the hula-hoop, which pretty quickly developed into a winning strategy. I would move with the line holding the hula hoop up for my teammates to make it easier for them to pass through. The people behind me were kind of forced to be pulled along with me as I did this. In the first round, we finished before any of the teams had gotten even halfway, and in the second round all the teams tried to mimic our strategy. We still were faster and more efficient, having gotten practice in the first round. Lots of high-fives were passed around for our accomplishment.

Our next challenge was to flip a member of our team over in various ways while she was holding water and to have the water not spill, followed by a challenge to stand up and sit down while all of us were hanging onto a rope that was tied in a circle. There was also a contest to see who could build a sort of bridge over an imaginary river with blocks faster and another to carry a tennis ball using strings from point A to point B. The ultimate test we did was we were given a man made spider web and through each hole we could have only one person pass. There were just enough holes for all of us. Being one of the lighter ones, I got to be hoisted in the air for one of the holes that was higher up and essentially got to experience a little bit of crowd surfing – though that life goal still doesn't count as accomplished.

This morning, we had to be at our activity for the day a little later than usual, at 10:00am in the morning. So my friends and I took advantage of this spare time to wake up early and walk around Heredia for a while. We took a similar route to the one we took during our tour, and just spent some extra time enjoying ourselves and taking in our surroundings. We ended at the market with the intent to buy something, but we ran out of time.

We returned to the university to have an art class, where we were given three dimensional wall hangings of a typical Puerto Rican house to paint, with assistance and help on how to do it well. In the end, all of ours turned out better than originally expected, which was a welcome surprise, and we were allowed to add a pre-made figurine to it, which ranged from a small dog to a woman carrying a pot.

Over the past few days, we've been battling with the people at the mall who sell cell phones. Every day we came back looking for a phone line or a cell phone, the process seemed to become more difficult. Finally, today it worked out. I received a local service plan for extremely cheap which is activated by a new SIM card I had to put in my phone. This will allow me to more easily and cheaply contact my friends in Costa Rica, taxis, or directors in case I need them. My other friends got cell phones, so now we can all communicate more efficiently.

And random fact of the day: For the past couple days I have been furiously scrubbing at my feet. Its extremely muddy here because of all the rain, and my feet have been dirty wherever my sandals weren't. Today, looking down, I realized it wasn't dirt/mud. It's a tan. For the last two or three days, I've been trying to scrub my tan away.