Jacó: Turtle Surprise!

Sorry I'm a little behind on posts. School has been keeping me pretty busy. I'll make sure to update the blog more frequently...

Jessica, Gabrielle, and I went to Jacó two weekends ago for a short getaway. We had fun laying on the beach, exploring the town, and enjoying an awesome surprise.  

Beach Pic

A Yellow Bellied Sea Snake we found on the beach

Something very unexpected happened during our time in Jacó. A turtle came to the beach to lay her eggs in the sand! Late September through early November is the season when turtles return to the beaches where they were born to lay their eggs. Jacó isn't know for being a popular destination to witness turtles laying eggs, but apparently it happens.

I had the privilege of watching the turtle lay her eggs from about 15 feet away. It was amazing. After she was finished, the eggs were collected to be taken to a refuge at Playa Hermosa. There has been an on going problem with the local stealing turtle eggs to eat them. It is common to add hot sauce to the raw egg and then slurp it out of the shell. Turtle eggs are sold on the street for about $5 an egg. So much for valuing an endangered species. The police are notified when a turtle comes to the beach; I just hope the man collecting the eggs was official. I trust that he was doing the right thing.
I watched the turtle push herself back to the ocean and swim away. What an awesome experience!

I didn't take any picture of the turtle because one, it disturbs and disillusions the turtles. And two, I just wanted to experience the nature of it for what it was.

Sea turtle

This is a picture I found on the internet but its almost identical to the turtle I saw.

Manuel Antonio: Mom and John's Visit

Mom and John came to visit me last weekend! We took a trip to Manuel Antonio...

I had an awesome time! We did and saw some really cool things; seeing them and spending time with them was great too! I'm really glad they came to Costa Rica! 

This is the view from the balcony of our hotel room. 

Not too shabby... In addition to the ocean view, we could also see a little sloth hanging out in a tree from our room.

Red- eyed Frog 

The first night we were there it rained... a lot! It was perfect though because we were able to have some down time and take a much needed nap before our night adventure. 

Si Como No, the hotel we stayed in, has a partnership with a wildlife preserve that's right next to the hotel. We signed up to do a night walk of the preserve. It turned out to be really cool. 

As soon as we arrived at the starting point of our walk we could hear numerous frogs calling with their unique songs. I honestly had no idea what to expect on our walk, but with a Tico named Michael as our guide we set out into the dark, noisy forest.

Frog being eaten by a snake
(The snake will eventually swallow the frog whole)

I was shocked at how many different types of frogs, reptiles, and insects we saw. We (and by "we" I mean mostly our tour guide) found a ridiculous number of frogs using only flashlights to spot them in the pitch-black darkness. He showed us so many frogs! Glass frogs, Gladiator frogs, and Red- eyed frogs are just a few types of the many we saw. We saw a frog that makes a sounds identical to that of a goat. How weird is that? We even saw a frog being eaten by a snake!



Bright and early the next morning we went to the rain forest preserve in Manuel Antonio. It was great. We saw so many neat animals and creatures. From huge spiders to slow moving sloths, we saw it all. As soon as we entered the preserve we noticed the group of Howler monkeys jumping through the tree tops above our heads: a pretty promising way to start the day.

Our tour guide spotted most of the animals, but I was pretty good at finding the spiders sitting in their webs. 

Golden Orb Spider

(Yeah, I found this one)

Sloth chilling 

 One of my favorite animals we saw in the rain forest is definitely the sloth. We saw a total of four sloths that day; we saw both three-toed and two-toed sloths. It was even more exciting seeing the sloth that was hanging up-side-down in a tree eating leaves; they rarely move.
To my surprise, I learned that sloths are part of the armadillo/ anteater family. One of their main predators are eagles. And they only come down from the trees once a week to go to the bathroom. They also grow a green algae on the fur on their back to blend in more with their habitat.
So basically they're awesome animals.

Sloth eating yummy leaves

In addition to the animals I have pictured we also saw Iguanas, lizards, birds, a hawk, a raccoon, a stick bug, crabs, Jesus lizards (they can run across water), and a big blue butterfly. We didn't see any monkey-eating jaguars to John's disappointment, but everything we did see was really cool.

Inside the park there are a few beautiful beaches. Apparently right before this area was going to be bulldozed for new luxury hotels, a law was signed making it a protected area. Good thing that happened! This beach is the beach we chose to spend the rest of our day at after the tour through the park was over. The water was perfect and the sand was soft; it was just an awesome beach... probably one of my favorites in Costa Rica.  I had so much fun playing in the ocean with my mom and John.

Family Photo

(A family that finds sloths together stays together) 

Monkey picking fruits

 Back at the hotel pool after our exciting time exploring the rain forest and hanging out at the beach, we had a visit from John's favorite animals: monkeys!
These little guys had a blast picking fruits off the trees and dropping the seeds onto Mom's pool chair. She forgave them because they're so cute. John (who actually despises monkeys) even enjoyed watching them.

Monkey being a monkey/ monkey jumping to the next tree

Monkeys fleeing the scene of the crime
(With baby on board)

I had such a great weekend... and I know Mom and John did too!

Nicaragua: San Juan del Sur

Having to flee Costa Rica due to immigration issues, I traveled to Nicaragua last weekend. Early Thursday morning Gabrielle, Frank and I set out on an awesome adventure full of border crossings, beaches, and good times. 

Sitting in a charter bus for seven hours really isn't that bad. The guy on the bus selling empanadas out of a cooler made it worth while. He saved me from starving to death. 

Crossing the border was an experience I'll try to describe but I think it might be a "you had to be there" moment... The bus pulled up to Costa Rica immigration at the border. Every one gets out, waits in line, gets their passport stamped and then files back in line to get on the bus. During the period of time spent between the bus and the immigration building, we were bombarded by hoards of people wanting to exchange money for us. Back on the bus we filled out a form and waited to arrive at Nicaraguan immigration. It didn't take long to get there. We handed our passports over to the bus employees so they could take them to be stamped while we headed outside to have out bags checked. The concrete platform in the middle of a parking lot was crowed with vendors, money exchangers, and people asking for monedas (coins). An immigration official checked our bags. I unzipped the top zipper of my backpack. After that the process went like this:  

The immigration guy looked at my bag...

"Ropa?" (Clothes?)

"Sí." (Yes.)

"Bueno." (Ok.)

And that was the end of that.

Good thing I'm not a drug smuggling cartel member... 

After about an hour of waiting outside in the hot sun we got back on the bus. Frank, Gabrielle and I got off the bus in a town called Rivas and took a taxi to San Juan del Sur.

We went to three different beaches during our trip...

The first beach

This picture was taken from our hostel.

Playa Ramones 

This beach is great, minus the jellyfish... Gabrielle and I both were stung multiple times. Our blistered jelly stings definitely gave us some beach cred. 

Gabrielle and I took a surfing lesson at Playa Ramones. It was so much fun! I spent a fair amount of time falling every direction into the water, but by the end of the day I could successfully stand up on the board! I'm practically a pro now. 

Playa Hermosa 

We visited Playa Hermosa on our last day in Nicaragua. This beach definitely lives up to it's name (hermosa means beautiful)! The water, sand, sky, everything was picture perfect. We spent the entire day hanging out on the beach and playing in the waves (we had to watch out for stingrays though...). The show Survivor was filmed on this beach a couple years ago. 

Sand Dollars! 

A street in town

Córdobas 

(Exchange rate 23 córdobas to 1 dollar)

Sunday morning we had to get back on a bus to reality. The bus had been over booked... somehow Gabrielle and I ended up having to be the people who had to sit on the floor at the back of the bus. That was a longgg bus ride. The important thing is that we made it back to Costa Rica safely and had a great time in Nicaragua. 

Feliz Cumpleaños A Mí!

Hoy cumplí 20 años en Costa Rica! 

(Today is my 20th birthday!)

I am a firm believer in indulging in multiple pieces of cake on your birthday, so that's exactly what I did. I had cake after breakfast and two pieces of cake for lunch. The group and I celebrated my birthday in the grupo office with cake, Coke, and the happy birthday song. What an awesome way to spend my day! 

Me in my new shirt that Sara and Soli gave me for my birthday! It has monkeys on it and says "Costa Rica Party". Its awesome! 

Shaking up Costa Rica: My Earthquake Experience

Today was a scary day.

Halfway through my 7am class the building started to tremble. Costa Rica will get occasional tremors, but when my classmates started to become concerned I realized something probably wasn't right. The little "tremor" turned out to be a ground shaking earthquake.

This is how everything played out... (Everything seemed like it happened so fast and some details are fuzzy, but for the most part this was my experience):

The building literally started to move. My classmates repeatedly tried my professor (who didn't seem to want to stop talking) that the ground was moving. She didn't pay attention until their cries became more concerned; this is when it became obvious to me that what was happening wasn't normal. The next part happened so quickly in my mind... the ground's movements changed from a light shaking to a vigorous shake. A scary shake. All at once everyone started to head to the door. My professor screamed, grabbed her stuff and ran. It was a moment of panic. It was like my body was on autopilot. In my memory, I somehow made it from my chair on the other side of the classroom to the door in one sweeping motion. Once outside of the door everything became surreal; everyone was rushed, yet it feels like everything was happening slowly. Out of instinct, I power walked to the stairs I walk up to get to my class on the 2nd floor of the building (I remember someone yelling "Don't run! Don't run!" in the background). The lights flickered and then remained off. Walking through the sea of frightened people, my memory is vague; I remember walking toward the light from outside and passing two girls holding each other's shoulders. Wether I was conscious of this or not, I remember feeling an imminent sense of something bad... I was waiting for the ceiling above my head to crash on to me. The building was moving so forcefully, I felt like I was having trouble keeping my balance. Finally I emerged through the door of an emergency exit with a group of people clustered like cattle.
The outside lights seemed so bright. I couldn't seem to suck enough fresh air into my lungs. I didn't realized how bad my hand were shaking or how fast my heart was beating until I had made it out of the building. That was one on the scariest experiences of my life.

Finally safe I could try to evaluate what had just happened. Everyone around me was for lack of a better term, freaking out. My recount of the story doesn't do the situation justice, but I thought I'd share it anyway.
They shut the building down for the rest of the day to be evaluated for structural damage.
I later found out that I had survived a 7.6 on the Richter scale, 12.4 mile long earthquake. I'd say that's good enough for one day... classes were canceled for the rest of the day.

Here are some links about the earthquake:
Map
Earthquake Information
Powerful Earthquake Reported in Costa Rica