La Gran Aventura

¡Pura Vida!

¡Puravida! In one word the Tico´s (Costarican´s) capture the essence of their country. Yes, life here is pure. Similar to our "life is good" catch phrase, puravida describes my feelings exactly: purely blessed. Between the breath taking scenery, natural wonders, and genuine people; I may not want to leave ... or at the very least, my apprehensions about moving to another Spanish speaking area in the near future are slowly evaporating in the sunny wonder of this country.

At the moment I am staying in Turrialba, soaking up the culture, living with a host family, and learning more than I thought possible in my language classes. Away from the traffic and pollution of San Jose, Turrialba is a small province situated in the mid-east of CR, about 3 hours from the E coast. I flew in to San Jose on Saturday and on Sunday morning hopped on a bus with my 2 new travel companions (and now friends :) Johanna and Megan. Funny story, Megan actually grew up in Timonium, we are the same age, even have the same gmail background ... and we´ve now met for the first time in Costa Rica: random! Anyway, they are both PA students and are staying the 2 weeks that I am in San Jose with the same language immersion program. Every morning we have classes from 8-12:30, only one other person in my class, so pretty much one on one teaching, it´s perfect. Then in the afternoon we have some medical centered activity or seminar, and a variety of things in the evening. The days are so full, it´s nice to finally have a lazy, rainy, sunday afternoon to make the hike up to the internet soda (not cafe - soda) and update you all :).

Life here IS good, amazing actually. The school is on the grounds of a huge botanical garden/research center, so every morning I walk into a botanical delight and learn in tiny huts situated in the gardens - what a wonderful class room setting :). The only hiccup so far has been that my original host family and I just weren´t meshing, I didn´t feel welcomed, nor did I feel as though they cared to have me there, then compound that with the language barrier and all comfort of living with a family is gone. So on friday, I switched to another family where my classmate Johanna is staying (now all of the students live on the same street) and the improvement was immediate - I love my mama Tica, Nelsie :)

However, home life issues weren´t too bad considering that I have been gone almost every night with activities! Tuesday was my first adventure - a trip to one of the coffee plantations (2nd picture is of the unroasted coffee beans) and learned all of these nerdy facts about the harvesting/roasting of coffee: ohhh and it ended with a meal infused with coffee! Wednesday my classmates and I had a cooking lesson with this cute little woman, Betty, who owns her own restaurant up the street from the school. We collectively made arroz con pollo - next week empenadas, mmmmmm. Then Thursday night we had a salsa class at the school, worked up a sweat and got to shake my hips - I knew I had them for a reason ;).

Ohhh and friday: perfect day - puravida! It started with a walk to the weekend open air market with our teacher Isabell. That´s me with the pineapple I bought (so many more pics to come once I get back to my own comp). The smells of the market were intoxicating: freshly picked cilantro mixing with the sweet smell of sugar coated coconut roasting in the background ... if only you could capture smells and colors in the photos. My classmate Megan and I walked around with Isabell for a good 2 hours in the market and city center, then made a pit stop at our teacher´s sister´s house. Within 5 min we had invitation to go hiking that afternoon at her brother´s farm in the mountains (gotta love tico´s and their hospitality). So in the afternoon me, Megan, and Joanna all piled in the car with Marsiello (the brother), Gabriella (my teacher´s sister), and Marsiello´s little boy (forget his name, but ohh was he a cute one - chiciquito in CR). The last 4 pics are from the hike, first one is on the ´road´ that we walked up to get to the adorable little mountain house - where Marsiello was waiting with snacks and fresh lemonade :). From there we drove up to a slightly higher vista and had a photo op (again more to come). Amazing, such a wonderful experience with people that we had only just met that morning.

As if friday wasn´t enough Saturday morning we all went rafting on the Pacuare river, which according to the guide is one of the top 5 rivers in the world for white water rafting for not only the class 4 rapids, but also the pure beauty of the untouched river. From 8-4 (with a handmade lunch by our guides in the middle) we cruised right through the rapids - great day. what an understatement. This morning I also ventured out to do some repelling down the waterfalls and zip lining through the rain forest .... ummm I promise, not trying to make you jealous, but you should be :).

So that brings you all up to the present. Tonight all of the host family´s, and therefore my classmates and I, are heading up to the city center for the Festival de Luz, should be fun, even if it did just start to rain ... ok time to head home for dinner: lingua de vaca and gallo pinto! Love you all!

God is good, life is good, Costa Rica is good: puravida!