Costa Rica Day 13 - Limon

Last day in Turrialba before we leave for San Jose tomorrow. The time has flown by. This might be the last post of the trip because I'm not sure if we'll have the interwebs in our hostel in San Jose.

Okay, so the big item on today's agenda was a SLOTH SANCTUARY!! Oh my gosh!!! Sloths (or as they call them in Costa Rica, "perezosos"--means lazy...) are pretty cool critters. Here are some fun facts for you courtesy of "facts-about.org":

• Definition: Sloths are slow-moving arboreal mammals (inhabiting or frequenting trees) of the rainforests in South and Central America; they hang from branches back downward and feed on leaves and fruits.  A sloth is about the size of a medium size dog and they move very slowly
• Sloths  are divided into two groups:
  
  • Three-toed sloths (yellowish face)
  • Two-toed sloths (larger, longer hair)
• The main predators of sloths are the jaguar, snakes and the eagle
• Algae that grow on the hair of sloths impart a greenish color to the coat so that it blends with the foliage
• The Sloths' claws are their only natural defense 
• Sloths carry their fetus underneath their ribcage, which makes it very difficult to determine that they are, in fact, pregnant

The sanctuary had 6 adult sloths in habitats and then an entire nursery filled with sloth beh-behs! They are so cute! The adults can't be returned to the wild on account of their inability to establish a habitat and avoid predators, but some of the beh-behs will eventually be re-released.

After the main tour, the sanctuary also offers an hour long guided canoe tour down the adjacent river. It was very serene and peaceful. Well...kind of peaceful...the birds, bugs, and howler monkeys were extremely loud, but it was a good kind of noise. Nature noise. We saw a bearded basilisk, bats, wild sloths, howler monkeys, some birds whose names I can't pronounce, and I got ambushed by a walking stick.

We left the sanctuary and grabbed a nice lunch at a Tico/Caribbean restaurant and then spent about 45 minutes at Cahuita National Park, aka the beach. I didn't think a beach trip would have much appeal to a bunch of native Floridians, but I couldn't have been more wrong--the students were all about some beach time. The beach was nice. It reminded me a lot of the Jacksonville beaches--big waves, course sand. We didn't have quite enough time for me to take a surf lesson while we were there, so I will officially be the first and only person to visit a beach in Costa Rica and not surf.

Last item on the schedule was a tour of the Limon Branch of the UCR campus system. The administrators had put together a great reception for us--a musical performance by one of their student groups, a glass of hiel (it's got sugar cane juice and lemon and a few other things that I didn't catch), and some patties! I haven't had those since I went to Jamaica!

 

The Limon campus is not as large as Turrialba, but much larger than Guapiles and Paraiso. There are about 850 students that study in Limon. Unlike the Atlantic Branch system, which is comprised of three smaller universities, Limon is just Limon. One campus. They just recently put in new residence halls, and they looked really nice. And their library reminded me of Jurassic Park, so that's never a bad thing as far as I'm concerned.

Okay, here's hoping I have a chance to update from San Jose, but if I don't, thanks for reading and I'll be back on this sucker the next time I go somewhere exciting! Cheers!

Costa Rica Day 12 - el Modelo Lechero, farewell dinner

Fair warning, I was a ding dong and left my camera at the hotel so I have no pictures from the evening's activities. I know most of you readers reader only check this blog to look at my pictures.

Started the morning off with a very quick tour of el Modulo Lechero. I was under the impression that it was going to be a production plant much like the sugar cane plant, but this site was pretty much the exact opposite. The Modelo Lechero is actually an ongoing science experiment (what the UCR folks call an "investigacion"--it is a very VERY small operation, with about 16 cows that are used for milking and about 8-10 baby calves.

The site kind of looks like a farm, and for the ease of writing I'm going to refer to it as a farm even though it's not really one. The farm is located on the UCR Turrialba campus, just about an eighth of a mile down a gravel road past the main cluster of classroom buildings. A few acres of fenced in grass on which the cows graze, and a small building/corral that is used to milk the cows and probably do some other agriculture-y things.

Oscar, our guide, explained that all of the cows are grass fed and are not used for meat. They do regulate very closely the amount of grass that the cows in-take, and we even saw one cow with what appeared to be a hole drilled into its stomach so that they can do regular colonoscopies (sp?) to check for contaminants in the food sources and also to check the status of the microorganisms living in the stomach that help break down the food. A few students had concerns regarding the "humaneness" of drilling a hole into a cow's stomach, but Oscar explained that it's safe, necessary, and with the cow's best interest in mind because they can't check the microorganisms once the cow's waste has been evacuated--too many other conflicting microorganisms in the air and on the ground, as well as other contaminants, that the UCR faculty wouldn't be able the differentiate between.

The "milking station" is small--only room for one cow at a time. They hook up what looks kind of like a regulator (for my SCUBA readers) or multi suction vacuum that uses air pressure to suck the milk out of the udders. Apparently milking by hand doesn't cut it anymore. They also use the manure for fertilizer. If I don't have to smell cow sh*t ever again in my life, it'll be far too soon.

The morning's tour only took about 2 hours--after that, we were free to prepare for our farewell ceremony and dinner that was scheduled for later that evening. Naturally, I was CRAVING milk after the tour, so as the students and I walked back to the center of town (about a mile from campus), I stopped at the nearest convenience store and ordered a carton of milk (about 1 liter). When I received the carton, I was disappointed that it was not cold...at all. Room temperature in every sense of the term. I saw that the store had refrigerated cartons, but when we inquired about exchanging my carton for a cold one, the vendor said she couldn't sell the ones in the fridge. WHAT. At this point, I'm like, screw it, whatever, I want milk. And proceeded to put away half the carton of room temperature milk right then and there.

Ever been to a restaurant and built the meal up so much in your head that when you eventually get it, you're disappointed? That was me and my milk. In addition to the room temperature, milk in Costa Rica has kind of an odd aftertaste. That didn't stop me from drinking it, but it did make me like it less. Luckily, Coca-cola has universal taste, and I ordered a bottle right when I got back to the hotel. It was fantastic. Dad, keep up the good work. Back at the hotel, while Natalie worked on the presents, I worked on putting together a slideshow of pictures from the program's events--now all you Facebook creepers know why I took so many pictures this week!

 The ceremony was very nice--everyone got all gussied up, we decorated the cafeteria with 'murican red white and blue streamers and flags (red, white, and blue, by the way, are also the colors of the Costa Rican flag), and set up the projector with our slideshow. Funny story. I keep all of my music on an external hard drive, which I did not bring with me to Costa Rica for fear of it getting destroyed. I wanted to have music that was representative of American popular culture, but I didn't have access to my iTunes collection because I didn't bring my hard drive. I also didn't want to download any music illegally, because that's not cool, and I didn't want to buy any music while I was down here because that seemed a little overkill to me. Then I remembered that I had music available on my Amazon cloud drive--which could be downloaded and used in my presentation. I had a LIMITED selection of music to choose from--probably like 30 songs--so we showed the slideshow alongside an eclectic playlist of Coldplay's "Paradise", Bob Seger's "Night Moves", Foster the People's "Pumped Up Kicks", and Edward Sharpe's "40 Day Dream". Ha! Okay maybe not as funny as a story as it sounded in my head.

I just want to offer a brief but heartfelt thanks to a few folks who in particular made our trip so special: Johanna, Jimmy, Juanca, Lolita, Ali, Saul, Lily, Franklin, Iveth, Julio, Luis Pablo, Yudi, Christian, Ileana, Jazmin, and all of the other students, administrators, and host families that made our time at the Atlantic branch campuses so special. Costa Ricans have hearts the size of their meals--absolutely huge. Thank you all for your warm welcome, hospitality, knowledge, patience, and friendship. I promise my Spanish will be better this time next year!

(As a heads up loyal readers reader, we are in the country until Friday, but we leave Turrialba on Wednesday morning). Tomorrow we are going to a Jaguar reserve and a beach in Limon. After that, we're in San Jose for about a day and a half before returning to the States.

Costa Rica Day 11 - Rest Day / El Clon

Today, the students spent the day with their host families, which meant that Natalie and I had a day to ourselves. With me being so sick yesterday, this day couldn't have come at a better time. I was still pretty sick through most of the afternoon today, so I laid really low until about 2PM when Natalie and I went to lunch.

My primary motivation for this post is so that I can remember this restaurant when I come back to Costa Rica next year. The restaurant's name is el Clon, and it's about 10 miles out of Turrialba to the west. 

Interesting note about Costa Rican addresses---there aren't any. Seriously. Residences don't have numeric street addresses. Most streets don't even have names. The "addresses" we got for our students' host families were like "go to this neighborhood, look for a green house, turn left, go 150 meters, look for the first house with a slate wall". You think I'm making this up...

(Again, the map is for my benefit!)

We braved the bus system to reach the restaurant--it reminded me a lot of the Jamaican jerk shacks that we'd stop at on our way between Kingston and Ocho Rios. Lots of chicken and pork being smoked on a giant outdoor rotisserie. I still wasn't feeling awesome and actually got sick AT the restaurant (fantastic...), but that didn't stop me from putting away a great steak, oreo milkshake, and cheesecake. Judge me if you want, but I've eaten extremely well all trip, and I hadn't eaten anything all day and food rules go out the window when you're sick!

We were planning on cabbing it back to Turrialba but the owner of the restaurant forced asked one of his employees to drive us home--very nice of both of them!

Other than the delicious lunch, I pretty much laid in bed all day working on homework and finishing Game of Thrones. Okay, this is the last of the nonsense posts. Tomorrow we are visiting a milk factory in the morning and I'm sure I'll have plenty to say on that!

Costa Rica - Days 9 + 10 Guapiles

We left Turrialba at 7am this morning. Our destination: Guapiles. Quick geography lesson:

Costa Rica has seven provinces--like our states. San Jose is the nation's capitol--where we flew into the country. We have primarily been based out of Turrialba. Paraiso is about an hour outside of Turrialba near Cartago. Guapiles is north of San Jose. Turrialba, Paraiso, and Guapiles together represent the Atlantic branch of the University of Costa Rica.

The bus ride was pretty uneventful other than I powered through about 200 pages of A Clash of Kings--gotta stay ahead of the Game of Thrones TV series!

We arrived at Guapiles around 9 and were greeted by a host of students and administrators. I met Franklin, my AWESOME host for the evening. He's a professor at Guapiles, probably 2-3 years older than I am. He teaches Information Technology and has an adorable wife of 1 1/2 years named Iveth. I could tell we were going to get along when we both agreed that Final Fantasy VII was the greatest video game of all time.

 Franklin and Iveth--they're the best!

 

Guapiles has more surface area than Paraiso, but it only hosts 450 students. In contrast to mountainous Paraiso and hilly Turrialba, Guapiles is flat, flat, flat. We took a brief tour of campus and then spent an hour or so playing volleyball, jump rope, and a few teambuilding activities.

After that, we went to a swany hotel--Hotel Suerre--for a nice lunch and a few hours of fun and sun at the pool. This pool was ENORMOUS--easily Olympic size (is it possible to be bigger than Olympic size?) and it had a pretty baller waterslide. I think more than anything it was just nice to have a break for a few hours.

After we left the pool, we all broke off to spend some time with our respective host families. Compared to everyone else, I really lucked out in this draw. Franklin was really intent in showing me Tico/Guapiles culture, so he took me on a little drive out to el Rio Sucio, near the foot of the mountains on the main street that connects Guapiles and San Jose. The name translates into "Dirty River", and it is named as such because the river flows from a volcano--which contains sulfur--which turns the water yellow. We stopped off at a bridge to take some pictures, and it was really cool because there was another river flowing in the same direction, and the rivers intersected right under the bridge--blue water mixing with yellow water. It was really pretty. 

 

 See the rivers mixing together? How cool is that?

The sun was also setting right as we started our drive home, so I got to enjoy views of the purply-orangy sky on our way back into town. Franklin is a total pop culture buff--he listens to all sorts of rock music, watches the Big Bang Theory (which is huge over here, by the way), and speaks near perfect English, so we had a great time comparing favorite rock bands.

Before heading home, we stopped off at a large roadside open-air restaurant because Franklin wanted to show me authentic Tico food. He ordered me a chorreada, which is like a corn pancake that is served with queso y natillo (like sour cream). He had some sort of tortilla stuffed with cheese, but it wasn't the same consistency or texture as a quesadilla. We also drank agua dulce con leche--which is basically sugar cane juice with milk, heated up. People drink it over here as a pre-dinner drink

One of the administrators, Juan Carlos, had organized a barbeque for all of the FSU and UCR students as well as the administration at his house. Franklin, Iveth, and I showed up together about an hour after the party had started. The students were showing each other Latin and American dances (I taught about 20 students how to Wobble---yep, true story), and everything was going swimmingly.

And then I got violently ill.

There is NOTHING worse than getting sick in a foreign country. It is even worse when you are sick as a guest at someone's house, because there is no dignified way to "be sick". I didn't want to draw attention to the fact that I was sick, and I didn't want to make any of the Guapiles hosts feel bad because there was nothing that they could have done, so I just sucked it up and dealt with it. But it wasn't pretty.

The next morning, Iveth cooked an incredible breakfast of gallo pinto, platanos maduros (actually I got to cook those after she showed me how), huevos y jamon, queso frito, mango y papaya, y cafe. It was a huuuuge delicious breakfast, and I still felt like the walking dead, but I ate everything anyways and figured I'd just face the consequences later. And I totally did face consequences later. But, as far as I'm concerned, it was worth it. The food was fantastic.

Other than being horribly sick, I absolutely loved the brief time I spent with Franklin and Iveth--two of the nicest, sweetest, most hospitable people I've ever met in my life. Before dropping me off at UCR the next morning, they took me to la Feria del Agricultor --Guapiles' annual festival celebrating produce and farmers. They bought me all sorts of fun fruits to try, including manzanas de agua (translated into water apples--kind of tastes like a mix between an apple and a pear) and pejibayes--a relative of the coconut. I really love all of the local fairs in Costa Rica--makes me wish the US did more of that sort of thing.

 

We started the morning off with volunteering with a class that focused on teaching English to young children---ages 4 to about 14. Kids are not really my bag, as many of you know, but it was fun to teach them Simon Says, Red Light Green Light, and a few other teambuilding games that I had up my sleeve. At the end of the morning, I made about 20 kids paper airplanes, so I felt pretty good about contributing to their future academic delinquency. The kids were super sweet though--two of them colored pictures for me! I can assure you that will be the first and last time a kid ever gives ME a present.

Had lunch (which I did not eat on account of being in the walking dead) and then went to an English teaching class, where students in their 4th year are studying to teach English as a secondary language. Today's presentation was on non-verbal communication. It was fun and very interactive. We had to act out "flirting" using nonverbal cues. I learned about the "macho man stance". The students also provided us with [surprise surprise] more food! Coconut water straight out of the coconut and a fruit salad. I'd probably be more likely to jump on the CrossFit coconut water bandwagon if I could drink it straight out of the coconut every time! Lastly, we toured the town center of Guapiles before returning home to Turrialba.

This evening, we were invited over to Joanna's house (Turrialba coordinator) to get our nails done by Joanna's cousin. To get our nails and toes done, with a variety of different styles and designs, was a combined 4,000 colones, which is about $8. I've looked so gross and disgusting this entire trip that it actually felt great to get my nails done--and for a price like that, how could I say no? The girls and I ordered a few pizzas and just vegged out while everyone was getting their nails painted. It reminded me of any typical college night in the US--hanging with friends, eating pizza, getting nails done--it was really refreshing and relaxing. I really appreciated Joanna's willingness to open her home to us when she's already done so much on our behalf.

I'm gonna wrap this up since I don't feel like I've said anything of substance in like 4 or 5 paragraphs, but I am definitely looking forward to tomorrow because it's a FREE DAY! After being sick and spending so much time on the bus this weekend, I feel like my body needs it!

Costa Rica Day 8 - Volcan Irazú y el Sanatorio Durán

This entry is coming at you "Jamaica style" meaning that it was written by hand on a bumpy bus ride on the way home from today's activities. Almost all of my journal entries in Jamaica were written by hand first and transferred to the blog a few days later because I never knew when I was going to have internet access.

Our first stop today was el Volcan Irazú in Cartago:

The Irazú volcano...is the highest active volcano in Costa Rica, and has an area of 190 sq mi. It has an irregular subconic shape, and its temperature oscillates between 37 and 63 °F. It is a stratovolcano with a summit elevation of 11,260 ft. Its five craters are easily differentiated. The most important ones, because of their activity, are The Main Crater, which is almost circular has very inclined walls and it measures 3,440 ft in diameter and 980 ft in depth; The Diego de la Haya crater is 2,000 ft in diameter and 330 ft deep. Other craters are Playa Hermosa, La Laguna, and El Piroclastico. (Wikipedia)

We were told to bring a jacket because the altitude makes the air temperature pretty cold by Tico (Costa Rican) standards, which I figured meant a comfortable mid to low 60's. You can imagine my concern when I showed up to the bus in the morning, equipped with my rain jacket, a pair of shorts, and my Chacos (Val, quit hating), while people had multiple jackets and scarves. In fact, several students said their host families encouraged them to bring gloves and a hat--whaaa?

For the next two hours, the bus drove up...and up...and up...and up. Above the clouds. 12,000 feet. To put it into perspective, Mt. Fuji is just over 12,000 feet. I went skydiving at 15,000 feet. Not the highest peak in the Western Hemisphere by any stretch of the term. FYI Mt. Aconcagua, in the Andes of western Argentina near the Chilean border, is just over 23,000 feet and IS the highest peak. Anyway, back to my story...

It had been really overcast when we left the hotel in the morning, and I was worried that we wouldn't have good visibility for the volcano. But Mother Nature hooked us up and gave us a perfect day. The air was cool and crisp--turns out I was fine in my jacket...probably low 60's or high 50's--and actually it was a nice reprieve from the sticky tropical heat that we've been experiencing in the valley. We had a great view of the main crater and surrounding lands below. The clouds provided a beautiful contrast to the blue sky. The volcano smelled strongly of sulfur (duh) and had a beautiful blue lagoon at the mouth of the main crater. We hung out in the park for about an hour and a half, took some goofy pictures, and departed for our next "mystery" location.

 

[I'd like to add, that during this point in my transcription, I took a timeout to have dinner. The scene is this: I am sitting in a foreign restaurant, outfitted in my thick-framed glasses and TOMS shoes, sipping my mango juice, blogging. Ladies and gentlemen, you just can't get more hipster than that.]

Moving on. 

You know how every horror story since the dawn of time has started with some legend about an insane asylum or prison? Our next location had both--and both were kind of true! We pulled up to what appeared to be some sort of rundown hotel nestled in the side of a mountain. At first glance, it looked totally creepy...and awesome. And as if Mother Nature hadn't done enough for us already, she threw us another bone and turned the sky very dark and ominous right as we were getting off the bus. The name of this place is el Sanatorio Durán, named after Dr. Carlos Durán Cartin, who founded it in 1915 as the only primary tuberculous center in the country. His daughter was diagnosed with the illness, which provided the motivation he needed to construct the facility. The primary caregivers at this very remote facility were nuns, although doctors were responsible for the operations. Over time, fewer and fewer people were diagnosed with tuberculosis, so the facility was repurposed into a geriatric facility---specializing in patients with mental disorders. Between the years of 1963-65, it was used as a juvenile penitentiary. As a result of its declining condition, the facility officially closed its doors in 1973. In 2008, the people in the area petitioned to have the site protected as a place of historical significance, but as of 2010, no action had been taken.

 

 There are TONS of legends about this place, involving the ghosts of dead patients, dead nuns, dead children--you name it! For example (and I apologize if I don't get this 100% correct--translating off of a handout in Spanish):

1) During its time as a hospital, it was said that during the nights, the ghost of a dead nun would come to continue to give care to the existing patients.

2) On dark and cold nights, religious phantoms would appear in the hallways and corridors to provide care to those that had been hospitalized.

3) On the highest floor of the facility, it is said that you can view two figures--in the shadows of of one of the small rooms.

4) The last child to die in the facility, a little girl, still haunts the halls.

True to its reputation, the facility was creepier than any old building I've ever been in my life. We had a great time hiding behind corners and underneath stairs trying to scare each other. I had a blast. Apparently local filmmakers have actually filmed a scary movie called "el sanatorio", and it's the subject of numerous documentaries, so at some point I'll have to research to see whether any of it has ended up online.

I will probably not be able to post for the next few days because we are going to Guapiles. We'll be staying with host families and I'm not sure about the internet situation. Until then, enjoy the 800+ pictures I've posted on Facebook!

 

Costa Rica Day 7 - San Pedro campus, Goya exhibit

Not sure if I can keep up this once-a-day blogging...it's starting to wear me out! But I don't want to disappoint all of my readers reader!

Started the morning off with a 2 hour drive back to San Jose to visit the San Pedro campus--the largest of the UCR campuses. If UCR Turrialba was like FSU Panama City, then San Pedro would be like FSU Tallahassee. There are about 28,000 students enrolled in classes on campus, although according to university officials, there are presently about 35,000 that are officially recognized as UCR San Pedro students. In terms of size and aesthetics, the campus in San Jose is completely different from the Turrialba campus--this one is much more representative of what Americans would picture as a large D1 research university--tons of buildings, lots of cars, lots of people--it reminded me of FSU and UGA, although UCR has much prettier mosaics. Unfortunately, not many of our experiences today were very photo friendly, so I'm sorry if these photos aren't as interesting as exotic birds or mechanical bulls or what have you.

Stopped off at the UCR apparel store so I could buy myself a bro-tank, and then we went to visit el CITA (El Centro Nacional de Ciencia y Tecnología), where we sat in on a presentation regarding the mission of el CITA and some of its current projects. Basically, el CITA deals with food science. They look at beneficial foods, sub-products, and a bunch of other things that were far too intellectual for my plebeian brain to process. It was cool to hear about their funding system and current projects--apparently they are developing cookies out of beans and they are [allegedly] very tasty!

After lunch, we met with the Director of the Office of International Affairs. She is responsible for coordinating all of the cultural exchanges (like Beyond Borders) for all of the 6 branch campuses. FSU has three existing partnerships with UCR, the University of the West Indies (where I interned in 2009), and a university in Dresden, Germany. UCR has partnerships with dozens of institutions--ranging from the National University in Singapore, to the Netherlands, to Central Missouri, etc. Also unlike FSU, which has two separate departments that deal with cultural exchanges and study abroad programs, both of these responsibilities fall under the supervision of one office at UCR.

Last stop in San Jose before the return home was el Museo Calderón Guardia--one of San Jose's art museums. This particular museum was hosting a special Goya exhibit featuring 80 pieces from his Los Desastres de la Guerra collection.

 

According to Wally Wikipedia...

"Los Desastres de la Guerra are a series of 82 prints created between 1810 and 1820 by the Spanish painter and printmaker Francisco Goya (1746–1828). Although Goya did not make known his intention when creating the plates, art historians view them as a visual protest against the violence of the 1808 Dos de Mayo Uprising, the subsequent Peninsular War of 1808–14 and the setbacks to the liberal cause following the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy in 1814.

(Sorry for being lazy...)

But for real, Goya's works are really awe inspiring. I was much more familiar with his oil paintings prior to today, but his whole perspective is just incredible. Haunting. Grotesque. Other than being afraid of having nightmares tonight, I was really glad we had a chance to visit the exhibit. The prints were just a crazy mix of beautiful and awful at the same time--which seems to be exactly what Goya was going for. I'm definitely interested in doing a little more research on Goya as a person/artist and also the violence that he was protesting against.

Wrapped up my night with a solo dinner at La Feria--this cute little open air restaurant a few blocks from our hotel. I'd describe it as the quintessential Costa Rican dinner venue--bright colors, friendly servers, great food, not crowded--just absolutely perfect in my opinion. I went in armed with the book I was reading and my feeble ability to speak Spanish, and I came out with a completed book and a belly full of mango milkshake and a HUGE red steak.

Costa Rica - Day 6 - FEIMA, PE class

I just pounded a very large ice cream sundae and it's late so my brain is a little mushy, but I'll try and knock this out before going to bed.

Started the morning off at la FEIMA (Finca Experimental Interdisciplinaria de Modelos Agroecológicos). "Finca" is farm, so I was expecting to roll up to a large...farm...with chickens, and cows, and pigs, and other farm things. We did see cows--bulls, rather--but as this is an "experimental farm", it didn't resemble a 'typical farm' in the slightest. The first thing on our agenda was a tour of the sugar cane processing plant---an open air plant that is responsible for...processing sugar cane...into refined sugar. Our host for the day, Saul, greeted us in the morning with his HUGE machete--it was awesome. He turned us over to the head of the processing plant, who, after fitting us all with hard hats, led the way into the plant. I LOVE raw sugar cane, so I was really excited about being surrounded by it.

The tour itself was mostly pretty cool--we got to see what happens to sugar cane when it is harvested, from start to finish. With that being said, there were a few aspects of the tour that made it a little less awesome. First, it is LOUD--machines are constantly grinding, the floors are shaking, steam is pouring out of every possible hole in the wall--it's just a tough environment. I probably missed 85% of the explanation of the refining process because our guide, who was very soft spoken, was constantly overpowered by the surrounding machinery. Secondly, the SMELL was something like syrup mixed with garbage--it was thick, sweet, and wet, and there was no way to avoid it--you couldn't breathe through your mouth for fear of swallowing whatever hot nasty smell was floating around in the air. Third, it was DANGEROUS. The best way I can describe this set up is that it looked like what should be a set for the next James Bond and/or Jason Bourne movie. Tons of sharp rotating knives, rickety platforms, sudden drop offs, gears and cogs all over the place--at one point on the tour, I had to be physically pushed out of the way before I ran into a steaming rotary. Granted, I am both clumsy and unobservant, but I was a little more cautious after that...

After the tour ended, we had a chance to eat some raw sugar cane. That stuff is hard to come by in the US, so when two girls said they didn't like it, I was more than happy to take them off their hands. 3 pieces of cane later, I was AMPED up on some sugar and ready to hiking through the rainforest.

 

Saul told us that we had to go find un toro que falta (a missing bull). We each took our Gandalf-esque walking sticks and started on our trek through the rainforest in search of the bull. While the experience was breathtaking, my pictures during this portion of the day are unfortunately not because everything in the rainforest moves really freakin' fast! I could not take a good picture to save my life. We saw oropendolas, a toucan, a rubber tree whose sap is used in glue, banana trees, an anaconda (not really, just checking to see if you're paying attention), and a bunch of beautiful trees and flowers.

 

Eventually, we found "the bull", which was basically a crude mechanical bull that the guides had erected out of a barrel and some ropes for the students to ride. It was pretty funny.

The last activity of the day was a PE class on campus. I think this might have been added to the itinerary because the coordinators knew that I worked in the FSU Recreation Department, so I thought that was pretty thoughtful that they incorporated one of my interests into the schedule. The class was super fun. The activity was planned by the students in the course who were seeking a degree in Physical Education. It was kind a mix of a challenge course with physical activities. We were given a map and twelve markers to find on campus. At each marker, we had to complete some sort of physical task. The highlights were dizzy bat, tug of war, and a water balloon relay. 

I'd been battling a hip injury before I left for Costa Rica, and I jacked it up big time during tug of war and was sidelined for the last few activities. As a result of today's incident, I'm officially on the DL. No squats, burpees, any sort of jumping, and definitely not the Wobble. Speaking of dances, the UCR students taught the FSU students a bunch of Latin dances after the end of the class, including the cha cha, salsa, and a few others whose names I don't remember. Capped off the evening with a group dinner at the hotel and ice cream with a few of the UCR students. All in all, pretty solid day minus the hip thing.