El Osa Peninsula

So we just got back from the Osa Peninsula. It was moved back due to a tropical storm that decided to mess up the pacific coast, but it ended up being a fun trip. There was actually a bridge out on the way due to the storm... I believe it was completely washed away. Anyway, as usual it was raining the entire first day we were there/traveling there. I was pleasantly surprised by the boat trip we needed to make from a small town to the place we were actually staying. The boats were fast and a lot of fun to ride on. However, apparently one of the boats capsized last year with a bunch of Miami students in it... haha. They all turned out okay, but that made everyone a bit nervous at first. They took us through a forest of trees that actually grow on higher ground in the middle of the river-lake thing we had to cross. When the water is low you can see the ground, but when the water is high it looks like the trees are randomly growing in the middle of the lake. The place we stayed is still being worked on. We basically had to rough it a bit, but it wasn´t too bad at all. The place is already pretty nice and I´m thinking it´s going to be really nice in a year.

Moving on... the next day we took those boats a half hour down the shore line to do some rain forest hiking. This rain forest hike was really sweet compared to the Monteverde one. First off, it wasn´t raining. Also, we saw a lot more wild life that you can´t see in the U.S. The natural beaches were gorgeous as well. We ate some fresh coconuts, swam in streams that led to the Pacific (they had nice little waterfalls in them and such), and saw some sweet animals and insects. The monkeys and scarlet mackaws (sp?) had to be the coolest. (A scarlet whatever is a stereotypical parrot... all red blue and yellow and likes to eat nuts). After lunch we hiked 20 minutes to another waterfall. This one was pretty standard, until I saw the more adventurous tour guide and 6 or so guys I´d been hanging out with heading upstream. Good ol´Peter and I decided to follow, and although all the sharp rocks hurt like hell on our feet, the trip was well worth it. At the top was a 50 foot awesome waterfall. We had to rock climb up, but we made it to the pool where the water falls. The water was shallow enough we could actually stand in the waterfall... it was big enough that it was really hard to stand. You could walk behind it as well. Pretty awesome. After that we headed back to our hotel of sorts and had the standard night of playing random card games for hours.

Tuesday we took an hour boat ride to an island out in the Pacific to go snorkeling. We went in two separate groups due to lack of equipment, but it was sweet. The water was absurdly blue, clear, and warm. The downside, however, is that I wear size 13 shoes and my flippers were for sizes 5-8... I was in pain the entire time. The other problem is that I have an ear infection in my left ear, and this inhibited me from diving down lower than 8 feet. At that point I´d hit my pain threshold and have to level out or go back up, which sucked because I wanted to touch stuff and chase fish that were only 5 more feet below me. Either way, it was still really cool to swim with the tropical fish and see all that stuff. Then on the boat ride back we finally got to see some dolphins. We had a lot of free time during the rest of the day (for once), so we just napped then played random card games and had a four wheeling adventure.

Finally, on Wednesday we just came home. Sadly, the bus ride was 10 hours long... 11 including lunch. This would seem near impossible to some seeing as how Costa Rica is approximately the size of West Virginia. I´m pretty sure the roads in the U.S. are efficient enough that you could almost circle WV in 10 hours, but this is still somewhat of a developing country in a lot of parts. Imagine a tour bus going over a bridge that has no more than six inches on each side of the tires of extra room. Then imagine this bridge spanning about 200 feet over a river which was still high from the tropical storm. After crossing said bridge, we would proceed down a large gravel road (which is thankfully being paved or worked on as I type) until we reach the next bridge of the same type. I thought of the ways to die that would piss me off most, and falling off a bridge on a tour bus and drowning in a river is probably top 5.

So tomorrow we´re going on some trip to some random Medical facility. It will probably be boring and non-relevant to class with our altered class material. I´m over it. Because Friday, we´re going to Puerto Viejo... which is that Caribbean beach. If it´s not sunny every day we´re there, I´m going to fight mother nature. That bitch has not given us a single sunny beach day yet. Okay I´m done. Adiós.