The last two days

I’ve got two days to update since I missed yesterday! On Monday, we went for a hike around the rainforest. We split up into three groups of about eight, and each group had its own tour guide. It was pretty interesting because they are very knowledgeable about all the things in the forest. We saw a bunch of monkeys, some parrots, these huge black birds, a GIANT grasshopper (like 6 inches long), and tons and tons of hermit crabs. We also drank water out of a coconut that our guide broke open and even ate some plants from the forest. One group ate termites, but luckily we didn’t! The hike was pretty cool though because it didn’t feel like we were on a trail at all. It was like we had just taken off into the jungle, which is always more authentic and interesting than the super obvious trails.

After that portion of the hike, we did another hike to this big waterfall up in the jungle. It was a fun hike because once again it wasn’t paved or super organized, so we had to jump across rocks and go slow in some parts that were really steep. The waterfall was really pretty and high, and we got some good pictures in. Some of the guys from the Puntarenas group pretty much risked their lives climbing way up right next to the water, but at least they got some good pictures. It’s funny because they always seem to need to one-up each other. It’s like the closer they come to death, the more points they get!

After those two hikes, we spent a couple hours on the beach. I mostly read and slept in the sun, but spent about 45 minutes playing in the water as well. When we got back, Morgan and I kayaked out into the ocean with Jim, a guy from Puntarenas, in order to watch the sunset. It was really cloudy, so we didn’t really get to see the full effect, but it was still pretty and really relaxing. After dinner, we were all sitting in the pavilion chatting when it started pouring rain. We figured that it would stop soon and tried waiting it out, but after about 45 minutes we realized that we couldn’t stay there forever. One of the workers gave us trash bags, and we literally put them over us and tore little holes in order to see. We looked ridiculous, but it actually worked really well! Someone took a picture of us, so maybe I can find that sometime. We didn’t do anything exciting last night though; Morgan and I passed out around 10.

Today, we went on a crazy horseback ride. I was really excited to ride horses, but after this trip I don’t know if I’ll ever do it again. Today was the epitome of a Costa Rican adventure, full of dangerous situations, confusion, and blindly following our guides into a sketchy jungle. It was really muddy from the rain, and the first hill we went up was really steep. Well, I figured that the horse would know where to go since it was the one walking, but it ended up slipping and falling with me on it. It pretty much sat down, so I fell backwards into the mud. It was terrifying, not to mention disgusting, and I was paranoid for the rest of the trip. I switched horses, but I had to pretty much be leashed to one of the guides because I was so scared. Turns out, I wasn’t the only one to fall off their horse—another girl did too! Other problems included one girls horse taking off after she fell off and her being stranded alone in the road for a while and one group got separated from their guide and went the wrong way for about 45 minutes. In the States, we would have had to wait forever for safety instructions, but here we just dove right in. For those of us who know nothing of horses, that would have been extremely helpful. I also heard from a guide that many of the horses were new to this and had only been training for a short while before we rode them—good to know! :/

After the ride, we then went on this crazy hike through the jungle to this “waterfall” that really ended up being a bunch of rapids. We literally followed our guide while he hacked plants out of the way with a machete. Not exaggerating, an actual machete. The path was really dangerous; I witnessed a bunch of people fall and slide down since it was so steep and slippery. We also had to maneuver around bee nests and army ants crawling over logs that we had to scale. Definitely a once-in-a-lifetime experience. When we finally got to the “waterfall” a bunch of us got in to cool down and in my case, wash off all the mud. It was cool because we could jump off the edge of these rocks into the rapids because it was really deep. I felt so much better having all that mud off me. After that, we hiked/rode the horses back (in the rain!) to the beach where we finally boarded the boats to go back to the resort. I think most of us were over that trip by then! However, it was really cool to ride through some of the pueblos. I can’t believe how different their lifestyle is from ours.

We kayaked again to watch the sunset this evening, and this time I’m pretty sure we saw some dolphins! They were swimming around us for a while and we only saw their noses, but still very cool! I also love watching the storms over the water. The other night, I went and sat by the water by myself for like half an hour and just watched the lightning from miles and miles away light up the clouds with color. It was so beautiful—that’s something that I’ll for sure miss.

It’s our last night at Drake Bay, so hopefully we’ll do something fun tonight! I go home on Thursday, so I’ll do one last wrap-up of the trip in a few days. As amazing as this trip has been, I’m actually pretty excited to go home. Hasta luego J