The End

Author: Robin
Location: Piedades
After only a couple of hours of sleep due to an all-night writing of index cards filled with positive thoughts for each person in the group, we awoke and traveled to Picagres for the last day of constructing the lunchroom. After correcting a crooked pole, we got up five new columns into the holes we previously dug. We all wish we had more time to actually complete the walls of the lunchroom. Nostalgically, we ate our last meal of the best rice in the world. After lunch, we walked back to the high school where we hung out with the kids from the tenth grade who were making a garden. When they had finished constructing their garden, we all walked back to the field where we talked and enjoyed each others company for the last time. After empanadas, we said our last good-byes. Tomorrow we will be waking up at four to get to the airport. We've all had an amazing experience in Costa Rica and are sad to leave our new friends.


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Pumas!!!

Author: Katy
Location: Corobici
Today we woke up in our hotel to a nice walk towards breakfast, which was served in three courses. After browsing the gift shop we all loaded onto the bus with Edwin and headed to the animal rescue center. We got to see many tropical birds, cats, turtles, bunnies, and monkeys. The cages were so open that it seemed we could pet the jaguar that was napping with his paws seeping through the cracks. We then drove the short distance to the rafting place. After being fitted with life jackets, we separated into three groups and headed out onto the slow moving river. As we began to sweat, many of us put our feet in the water to cool off. After about ten minutes we saw our first crocodile, this caused many gasps and a quick shift of our feet. We all rested for two hours, many of us staying dry before we got a ride back to the hotel for lunch. Lunch was great and although we were told not to fill up too much, we all ate the majority of the delicious food put on our plates. After completing our meal, we got back on the bus and headed for the amazing Monteverde dairy restaurant. There we all enjoyed amazing milkshakes and taking pictures in the pouring rain with the dinosaur statue towering over us. We then drove the two hours through standstill traffic to a local store for souvenirs. After shopping we drove to our new hotel where we enjoyed dinner and began the long task of writing cards to each and every member of our trip. Many of us stayed up into the dark hours of the night spilling out positive ideas and memories for everyone. We are all excited for a hard day of work tomorrow in Picagres.
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HOT Springs!!

Author: Nick
Location: Rio Celeste National Park
The day started off with a delicious breakfast that consisted of a stack of pancakes with maple syrup. This was quite different than the usual breakfast of eggs with rice and beans. Right after breakfast we jumped into Edwin's bus and started the interesting journey to the hot springs. Around two hours into the bus ride, we realized that we had know idea how close we where to arriving at the hot springs. Edwin, the bus driver, started asking people that we passed who seemed to have some idea of where the hot springs where. However, after getting totally opposite directions for a while, we figured out where we needed to go. Another hour later, we saw a sign point to a dirt road that said seven kilometers to the hot springs. We took this dirt road for about twenty minutes until we had lost all hope. As Edwin was trying to turn the bus around, a car came up from the other direction of the road and convinced us that these amazing hot springs where just ahead. We drove for another ten minutes until we saw another sign that said seven kilometers to the hot springs. We decided to continue our journey on this narrow and at times almost too steep dirt road. At one point, we all had to get out of the bus so that it could get another inch of needed clearance. After about an hour of driving on the road, we finally made it to the hot springs, or at least the head of the trail to the hot springs. The hike to the hot springs was very demanding. It was two miles of muddy and mountainous mountain hiking. When we got to the amazing hot springs we realized that it was just a small hole with scalding hot water, and a rapids right next to it. On the hike back we decided to take a little detour to the waterfall, in anticipation of jumping off of it. Only did we realize when we got there that it was about fifty feet tall and really intense thus exceding any and all reasonable safety rules. We got back in the bus, and drove another two hours to our hotel, where we ate the usual dinner, played a game of mafia, and passed out on our comfortable beds.
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A Galloping Adventure

Author: Madeleine
Location:
Last night was out last night with our caring homestay families. We all woke up this morning to hearty breakfasts, packed bags, and out stand-in parents who were all sad to see us depart. We headed over to Ana's house at 8. After saying our goodbyes and exchanging email addresses we were off to our next location, near San Ramon. Sleeping, talking and listening to music were all popular activities on the 2 and a half hour bus ride that followed. Arriving at the scenic, tranquil Lands In Love hotel, the group was ready for a horseback riding adventure. After a delectable lunch consisting of pizza half of us walked down the road to the stables. Seven group members and two tour guides all trotted off for a ride down to the Balsa River, which happened to be an opaque murky brown color from all of the rain rushing silt into it. The horse I happened to be riding, named Cielo, happily walked through the jungle stepping over little streams, fallen trees, and other rainforest vegetation. Naturally, as we are currently in a cloud rainforest it began to rain. This however proved to be no obstacle for the horses who continued on the trail. Mid-way through we arrived at a majestic waterfall. We were even allowed to ride directly up to the base of the beautiful "catarata". We stopped at the waterfall for a brief moment and continued on resuming our relaxing trail ride. Upon our arrival at the stables we pet our horses goodbye and thanked the guides. Then, it was back to the hotel for a rest while the other half of the group went riding. After relaxing it was off to dinner at the hotel. Eating large plates of pasta put us all in a good mood for our fourth Lifeworks forum, Making Choices. We talked for about forty-five minutes contemplating how choices are made and what influences them along with other topics. The forum was especially nice on account of the delicious milkshakes that we ordered. Flavors ranged from nutella to cookie to chocolate cake. Personally, I enjoyed a coffee-nutella blend. After the forum dissolved we continued on to play multiple games of the ever-popular "mafia." Now we're all off to bed after a nice, relaxing day in the clouds.
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Going Vertical

Author: Mary
Location: Picagres, Ana's Rancho Piedades
Today we woke up at our homestay family's and ate breakfast. We all then met up at Ana's house and set off for our second to last day of work. We arrived in Picagres at 9:30 and worked straight through until one! Finally, today we went vertical! After we got all of the water out of the holes that we dug last week, we split up in to two groups. One group started putting up the columns that will sustain the lunch room walls while the other continued to work on the trench that will be the drainage system. After about four columns we switched jobs. At lunch, we ate the cake that we had brought as well as some fruit and ice cream with all of the kids from the school, and then played futbol before heading back to work for another half hour. When we left, we were all happy to have some posts up. It finally starts to look like a building!
We then went back to our families to get ready for the despedida party at Ana's ranch. We ate dinner with our families, and then sang the national anthems of Costa Rica and the USA and ate some more cake. We danced some salsa. It was fun because everyone was dancing with people from different families, and gave us a chance to meet them. After dancing, we all batted a piata blindfolded, which was very amusing for everyone to watch! We then took a picture with our families, performed a couple songs in Spanish, and went home to spend our last night with our families before going away for the weekend.

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Bringing out our inner children

Author: Riley
Location:

We began the day with a late start, meeting at Anna's house at 9:30. We all anxiously awaited any new stories form the previous night with our new families. Fortunately, no more heaters exploded; although, we all loved hearing about the boy's fashion show that they performed for their family. The stories continued on until we reached the children's museum, renovated from an old Costa Rican jail. Once off the bus, we were greeted by our new friends from Picagres who had decided to come spend the day with us. In the museum, we first ate our home packed lunches before venturing into the various parts of the museum. These section included activities such as electricity though each other (which Taylor took full advantage of) and a fluorescent bulb, dancing for the camera and then watching those dances on TV, recording songs, the ins and outs of earthquakes, coffee, bananas, the history of aviation (with a real plane cabin), a puppet theater, all about recycling, relay races with healthy supermarket purchases, a keyboard music room resembling Tom Hanks performance in big, a falling mummy in an ancient Egypt exhibit, a house full of optical illusions, along with a ton of exhibits on local history and agricultural products. When the four-hour tour concluded, we said our goodbyes and piled back onto the bus. The ride home consisted of more stories, this time about what went on in each group during the tours. After 45 minutes of these stories, we were all returned to our homestay families, waiting to see what amazing foods they had prepared for us tonight. I, as well as many others, will be going off to bed right after our long day, desperately awaiting the possibilities that tomorrow will bring.

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A Mud Epic!!

Author: Taylor
Location: Picagres
Upon waking up this morning at our various homestay family's homes, we were all very excited to reunite again in order to work at Picagres and share our individual stories from the first night with our families. Farah's story was my favorite. She told us that she blew up the hot water heater causing smoke in the bathroom, and the electricity turning off.
Later at Picagres, after much work, sweat, rain, and mud, a huge mud fight was inevitable. The war was every man for himself, which was indeed taken seriously. Before getting back on the bus, we got to wash-off. For many, this so-called "wash-off" meant getting the chunks of mud off, but still being entirely covered by a brown layer. In fact, the bus driver made us wear disposable plastic aprons backwards so as to not make the inside of the bus look like us.
After all the fun and games, we got dropped off at our fairly new homes and spent the rest of the night with our respective families. For me, this meant playing many different card games, and my "mother" insisting on painting my roommates' and my nails. I'm pretty sure it's safe to say that when we all went to sleep, we were exhausted, but happily clean and dry.

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Intense Adrenaline High!!!

Author: Mia
Location: Santana, Picagres
On July 1began in an incredibly nice hotel (sin tanto insects), and an intensely familiar breakfast consisting of rice, beans, eggs, toast, fruit and cinnamon rolls. We then left ASAP for Aguas Bravas, the company with whom we would be rafting. Since we arrived early, we all took the time to put on sunscreen, fill up our water bottles, and see some little red and green poisonous froggies. Soon, we left for our "put in" at the river, where we collected necessary items such as helmets life jackets, and paddles. After a safety speech from Victor (the "Jefe"), we began our journey down the Sarapiqui. The guide in my raft was very musical, serenading me every once in a while with songs about "Mia" or maybe they were about Ma no s. Entonces a little while later, our guide decided to flip our raft, which I did not find fun at all because I tried to stay with the ship and found myself the only one left in the boat upside down. At multiple points during our rafting adventure., everyone was allowed to jump (or be shoved) out of the rafts and float a ways down the river. Halfway through we stopped for some refreshing fruit and cookies, then hopped back on the rafts and continued down the ro. Our expedition ended next to a bridge, where the guides let us jump from the bridge into the river below. The bridge was very intimidating. Or I found it intimidating. It was like a million feet above the river, like seriously. I made everyone jump off before me. And then everyone was trying to get me to jump off. I would call it an intense adrenaline high. Once we were back at the rafting company "HQ" we had a typical meal. We then re-entered our bus. And made our way back to Piededes where our home-stay families anxiously awaited our hungry bellies and dirty clothes, as we anxiously awaited telephones, and to speak to our new mommies and daddies. It was a most invigorating (and exhausting) day, the food and warm home of our home stay families are much appreciated.
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