Costa Rica!!!

Port number 10. Our final country before we head home to the states. There are a lot of mixed emotions right now and also some pressure to make our last port the greatest.
Now, I know I told you that Brazil was my favorite, but Costa Rica might just have passed it up. We’ll see.
We ported on a pier in the city of Puntarenas. Our lone ship on the pier stood bravely against the rain it had to endure in the country.
The first day, I wandered around the port city and got all my shopping done. This included my secret santa and white elephant on the ship as well as gifts for family and friends back home. The humidity was quite terrible in Puntarenas and I was happy to leave for Monteverde the next morning. At 9am the next day, the gang piled into a minivan with our incredibly nice driver. He continued to tell us what he knew about the city and what the best things to do were. Our drive there took about two hours; the first hour being normal highways, but the second, a bumpy winding rode up a steep mountain. We hopped along a narrow dirt rode that rested on the side of a mountain where each turn made me feel like we might just fall off. Not to mention the fact that our driver whipped as fast as he could around these corners despite the fact it was steep and it was raining. Even so, I enjoyed it because the views on our ride were absolutely incredible. We finally made it alive to our hotel, Don Taco which was an incredibly cute family owned hotel with about five dogs running around all the time. The style of the hotel reminded me of a log cabin and gave it a sort of homey feel. The weather in Monteverde was also PERFECT. There was absolutely no humidity, some rain, but after the rain, the sun creeped out of the clouds and a nice wind cooled us. Not to mention the amount of rainbows I saw was astounding, but we’ll talk more about that later. This city is more like a mountain village with lots of steep hills and cute restaurants that you could always walk to. The same day we got there, we had some lunch, then went on the Cloud Forest Walk, which included a easy hike through the many suspension bridges the Costa Rica forest had to offer. It was still raining so we all bought nice rain jackets from the souvenir store and trudged through the mud and over the misty bridges of the Cloud Forest. You could say our first day in Monteverde was a perfect, relaxing day. Our second day, was the absolute opposite.
So a few weeks ago, I signed up with my group of friends to participate in an Extreme Sport Adventure in Costa Rica that included zip lining, tarzan swinging, bungee jumping, and sky swinging. And I gotta say, that was one of the best decisions I made on this trip. Day two began with zip lining over the hills and valleys in Monteverde where we were able to zip past two rainbows that were results of the previous rain storm. We swung through the trees before it was time to jump off the cable car that was suspended from a cable that stretched across the mountains. I wasn’t really scared to jump off, I was more anxious and excited. The only time I got scared was right after my feet left the cable car and I was face down, plummeting into trees. Once I felt the cord tug me up I couldn't help but smile. It was one of the most fun and exhilarating experiences of my life. The same goes for sky swinging, where I sat on the edge of the cable car and they move the car backwards causing you to fall straight down until the rope tugs and you swing under the cable car. My guide who dropped me decided it would be fun to tell me my helmet was loose (when it wasn’t) right before I dropped off the edge. Listen closely in the video and you can hear it. The amount of adrenaline in my body that day was insane, and now I’m craving more (anyone care to join me in sky diving?).
The next day we went repelling (or canyoning) down six waterfalls. Four guides took us down these beautiful waterfalls where we had to push against the walls with our feet and lower ourselves to the bottom. It was a lot harder than I had anticipated, and I definitely hit the wall a few times and got soaked by the waterfall. But it was so fun and our guides were hilarious.
The rest of our trip included lots of burritos, coffee milkshakes (so good), and quesadillas. It really was the perfect country to end in.
Next destination, home.

Trinidad and Tobago!!!

Port 8 of 10. I can’t believe how fast this trip went by. It’s already December! My friends and I are happy that there's only 25 days till Christmas. But at the same time sad because it means only 20 days till our adventure would come to an end.  Still not ready to leave. 

Anyhow, we ported in Trinidad, which is an island about the size of Connecticut located in the Caribbean. As we sailed here we noticed the change of the water from a deep blue to a green blue. We were welcomed off the ship with a steel pan performance (which is their trademark instrument and also my favorite instrument). 

Unfortunately, we only had two days and one night here, when you really need at least a week.  But my friends and I made the most of it. On our first day we decided to go to their most popular beach called Maracas. We hired a taxi driver to drive us around for the day and she took us through some incredibly steep and narrow roads that led to the beach. Our car ride there was absolutely beautiful. The mountains and hills are covered in trees and greenery and each turn of the road gave you a different view of the island. We stopped and ate some mango chow, which is just cut up mango in a bag with a bunch of different spices. We also had sugar-cake which is literally a cake made of only sugar. Both tasted amazing and I wish I could’ve taken some home. 

At the beach we just laid out (of course I got sun burned), listened to some music, and swam in the water. While we were there, it started to rain.  It wasn’t just a light rain, instead it was a downpour. So we decided that it was the perfect time to jump back into the sea. It reminded me of when I was in Maui with my family it rained while we were in the ocean. It was so much fun, and it was such a great memory with my friends and probably the highlight of this trip. 

For lunch we ate “bake and shark” which is a shark sandwich. I never thought I would be able to eat shark, but I did!  I highly recommend that you try it if ever in the Caribbean. It’s a lot better than you’d imagine.  

That night, there was a field program event which included a festival with steel pan music and a chance to meet college students from the University of Trinidad. Allie and I did not have tickets however, so we waited in line for about 45 minutes hoping to be allowed in… and we were! The music was amazing and great to dance to and I was also able to meet a few locals. I met Jacob and Fes and it was so nice to talk to them because it was the first country where there was no language barrier! After the festival, our other Trinidadian friend Samuel, showed us around which included the night-life scene. 

The next day, I went shopping with my friends Allie, Cam, Nico, Matt, and Addison. We just explored the port area and visited some small shops. As we were walking back, it started pouring rain again. But this time, it didn't stop. We took a break for a few minutes, then eventually had to go back to the ship. So of course my hair and clothes were soaked by the time we got back to the ship.  Despite the fact that we only have one port left, we have several fun events still to come, on the ship. To name a few, there’s a talent show, the Panama Canal, Costa Rica, the ball, and sadly... finals :/

That’s all for now, folks! 

Sea Olympics

Eight seas. Three Prizes. One day. During our nine-day stretch to Trinidad from Brazil, we participated in a "Sea Olympics". The students were divided into one of the seven seas and within those groups we competed against each other in a variety of different contests (by the way the eighth sea included the staff and independent kids, so that’s the reason for the extra sea). I was in the Adriatic Sea and our color was purple. So we were decked out in all of our purple gear, complete with purple face paint, eyeliner, lipstick, and ribbon. It was sort of a flashback to my days at OCSA when we painted our faces for every spirit day (shout out to my OCSA homies). So anyways, we went pretty full out. 

The day began with a spirit competition to see which sea team could create the best chants. Of course, my sea team won this competition with an intense stomp routine that matched our chants.  Other competitions included a relay race, tug of war, a pull up contest, and many more. I participated in the relay race, but sadly we lost even with me and Liv's killer wheelbarrow team. I competed in the water balloon toss (which we also lost), however in my defense, throwing a water balloon all the way across a ship's deck is a lot harder than it seems. And finally, I played the card game "spoons" against seven other people, each from a different sea...AND YES, I DID WIN!!  Luckily, all those years of playing "Spoons" at family parties, had finally paid off. 

Later that day, my dear friend Allie and I were given the task of choreographing a synchronized swimming routine for our sea team.  It ended up being a crowd favorite. Five guys from our sea team volunteered to participate, so we basically had them swimming around and dancing to “Dancing Queen”, “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun”, and Selena Gomez’s “When You’re Ready Come and Get It”. I think we ended up getting fourth or fifth place.  Either way, I think we deserved better, because they were definitely the funniest team out there. 

At the end of the day, after the points were computed the winner was announced. The Yellow Sea beat us by 10 points! Although we didn’t win, I was happy getting second place especially since our prize included a movie of our choice and free popcorn. Who doesn't like free popcorn? 

Time to see what the Caribbean has in store for us! 

A-A-ADRIATIC! 

Brazil!!

Ciao friends!  For those of you who haven't yet tired of my long-winded posts, and the fact that I overuse the word "amazing", thanks for tuning in for another post. I just left the port of Salvador, Brazil, and I gotta say, Brazil might be my favorite port thus far (however that’s a loaded statement and I will not fully commit to it yet). 

My friends and I just spent the first half of the day exploring and shopping in Salvador. The people here are extremely welcoming. I completed all of my shopping that day since I had to leave for the Amazon!

 

So, on day two, my friends Liv and Morgan and myself got on our first flight to Manaus, then boarded the connecting flight to the Amazon. There’s actually a two hour difference between the Amazon and Salvador, so we arrived at the riverboat around 11pm completely exhausted. However we were still welcomed with food and some Brazilian dancing! Our sleeping arrangement consisted of almost 40 people on the top deck of a riverboat,with hammocks as beds.   We were packed together like sardines. But I didn't really mind it and we all definitely bonded. There’s nothing more relaxing than reading a book in a hammock with a slight breeze gently swinging you while you cruise down the Rio Negro. That was what I did about every morning we were out there.  Because we were sleeping outside, the sunrise woke us up every morning. If you know me well enough, you know I’m not a morning person. But I woke up at about 5:30am every day, and I was never grumpy (I also got some great sunrise pictures). 

Our first day on the Amazon we saw the “meeting of the waters”. This is where the two rivers of the Amazon meet. One side was a light brown, muddy color while the other was a reddish black. We docked and took a jungle walk through the “Flooded Forest”. They call it this because when its high tide, the water reaches up about 8 or 9 feet above the actual sea level. You can see the water marks on the trees showing how high up the water rises. During this jungle walk, I saw three sloths, one monkey, and a few water lilies that can actually support the weight of a small child. Throughout our adventure, I was completely covered in sweat and dirt. The heat here was a lot worse than Senegal, but you get used to it after a while. 

 

For the next part of the day, we went out on canoes and attempted to piranha fish. A very petite 11 year old Amazonian girl accompanied us on our canoe trip and gave us bamboo sticks with fishing lines with bait.  She taught us (without speaking) how to fish. You have to stick the pole in the water and splash around a bit to make it seem like there’s a fish swimming near the surface, to entice a piranha. I caught three fish, but none of them were piranhas. One was a sardine and the other two were catfish. A few other people in our group were able to catch piranhas, but I was just glad to catch any fish at all. I mean, that was the first time I actually went fishing, so needless to say I was proud of myself.

 

Afterwards, we headed back to the boat for dinner and boated back down the river to get ready for the next day. Turns out we were headed in the direction of a storm, but not close enough to affect us. From the boat we were able to see an amazing lightening storm that lit up the entire sky and the full trail of the lightning bolts. It was an absolutely incredible ending to our first night. 

Day two started off with a lot of pineapple for breakfast and another jungle walk. This jungle walk was more like a climb and it was a lot longer. We were covered in even more sweat than the day before, but it still didn't bother me. Our guide carried his machete and taught us how to survive in the jungle with only that weapon. I tasted the bark from a tree that contains preventative medicine for malaria, I drank water from a water vine that was wrapped around a tree, and also tasted the milk from a tree that people in the jungle survive on. We also learned how to communicate with people in the jungle by knocking on massive, hollow trees (like morse code) to communicate. I had many close encounters with the insects in the jungle and discovered ants that were half the size of your finger. If you don’t like insects back in the United States, then you might not want to see the ones in Brazil. They’re bigger, more harmful, and more abundant. Our guide started rubbing ants on his hands because it is also a natural mosquito repellent.

 

After making our a loop through the jungle, we headed back to the boat to take a “shower” before we swam with the pink dolphins. I use quotations since our shower consisted of just rinsing off dirt, sweat, deet, and sunscreen using only one water spout. Pink dolphins are a lot uglier than you would imagine, and a lot fatter. We were able to pet them as we stood in the water and they swam all around us. A man who was in the water with us held fish above the water and the dolphins would jump up and try to grab it. A few of them did but the majority just flopped around and ended up hitting us. We also saw the largest fresh water fish in the world. We were allowed to “fish” for them— aka using a bamboo stick with bait on it to lure them above water level so we could see their full size. A girl dropped her go pro in that tank and unfortunately wasn't able to get it back because that last man who went in that tank was in the hospital for a week. 

After our fish adventure, we moved down the river to a nearby village where we met and played with children. A group played soccer with the older kids while the rest of us (including me) played with the kids aged 10 and under. We blew bubbles, jumped rope, made bracelets, and gave them piggy back rides. A beautiful little girl named Melina stayed by my side the majority of the time and I think we really connected. It was really humbling to be able to give all these kids toys and toothbrushes and see how so little made them so happy. 

 

By the time we left, the sun was beginning to set and we took our canoes to our next destination. On this canoe ride, we looked for caiman, which are another type of alligator except that they have a slightly different shaped nose. Our guide found a small one on a beach where we stopped and took pictures with it.  I have to say, someone did get a great picture of me and Liv holding the little guy. During this canoe ride, we were went straight into darkness so I’m not sure how we didn't run into anything. The sky was lit up with stars and they reflected almost perfectly against the water and it felt as if we were sailing through the galaxy. Despite my slight fear of crashing into another boat, it was the most peaceful canoe ride I had ever been on.

 

Later, we were greeted on a beach with fireworks, torches, music, and a giant feast for all of us. After stuffing my face with meat, rice, and lots of pineapple, I fell asleep in my hammock. The next morning was our last day, and once we finished off the pineapple, we packed up and headed to the airport for a few long plane flights. 

 Writing this blog post reminded me of how much I love this country and now I’m already missing it. This country is my favorite by far, but we’ll see what Trinidad and Costa Rica have to offer. 

Talk to you soon my friends!