Spring Break: Frogs and Fish

Spring break was immensely fun. I finally saw my parents for the first time in two months, which was pretty exciting. They were clearly very excited about what Costa Rica had to offer, and I was clearly very excited about having the week off from work. Nevertheless, we began our journey in Sarapiqui, which hosts a tropical lowland wet forest (basically your standard rainforest). This was a neat opportunity for me, as it’s one of the parts of the country that I haven’t seen yet. But I was able to draw a few parallels between the habitats that I have seen and this one. Additionally, we got to go on a boat safari (where I got terrified by a giant iguana and also got to hold a baby iguana), take a chocolate tour (yum), and simply walk around the hotel area enjoying the sites. We saw lots of frogs, and a lot of anoles. 

In addition, this ended up being one of my favorite parts of my spring break, because I ended up going on a horseback riding trip with two vaqueros here as well. I got to herd cows with them, gallop around the Costa Rican countryside and basically just be a cowgirl for around 3 hours. Pretty great in my opinion.

Next, we traveled to Manuel Antonio, which is well-known for its beaches and National Park. Now, anyone who knows me knows that I LOVE the beach. So this was also a great part of the trip as well (minus being hit on by the surf instructor who apparently remembered me from my last trip to Manuel Antonio a few weeks before). Here, we also had the privilege of doing a kayak/snorkeling tour, which was an awesome experience for me. I had never been snorkeling before, so understanding how to actually breathe took some time. But it also didn’t help that I kept gasping to myself every time I saw a really cool fish. Still, didn’t drown, and overall had a great time. We also went to go see the National Park as well. Despite my mother reading the map wrong and making us hike 1.4 km in both humid and hot weather, I actually really enjoyed the park. It’s a bit more tourist based than what I’ve seen in the other national parks, but it was still enjoyable. Not to mention, we saw three sloths (two-toed and three-toed) just in the span of the three hours that we were in the park. So that also is a pretty good day in my book as well.

A grooming station of capuchins.

A really terrible picture of a sloth. 

The view from a rock that I climbed in the Park (I miss climbing)

I returned back to San Pedro to stay at Mama Tica’s for the weekend on Saturday. I expected it to be a quiet weekend, where I could get ahead on homework that’s due in the next couple of weeks. Unfortunately for me, I forgot that it was Mama Tica’s birthday, so people were pretty much in and out of the house the entire weekend. In addition, I had to awkwardly go to the party where I was introduced to her family and friends as “A girl from the United States who is living here.” So maybe I can check crashing a party off my list, but her family was very nice and I actually did have a good time.

Now I need to pack quickly for the two week excursion to Monteverde and Bocas del Toro, Panama. I won’t have access to internet there, so I will provide another update when we get to La Selva in two weeks. Hasta luego!