Settling In

Rafting down the Pacuare

These last few weeks have been a lot of fun. A group from UC Berkeley arrived on June 13th, so I've had a bunch more people to hang out with. A couple weeks ago, I got to go with them on an awesome white-water rafting trip on the Pacuare River. It was the coolest thing I've done in a long time! I went rafting in Colorado last summer, but this was so much better. We spent four hours on the river, stopping for a buffet lunch on the shore in the middle of the trip. The coolest part was that we were out there for several hours but never saw a trace of civilization -- no roads, no power lines, no trash. We were just surrounded by rain forest, waterfalls, and beautiful scenery. I can't remember ever being in a place that felt so remote and untouched. Very cool!

A view of Manuel Antonio
National Park on our hike

Last weekend I opted for the beach experience, and went with a few kids from the Berkeley group down to Manuel Antonio. We found a cheap hotel that came out to $10 per person per night, and had a great time. We spent all day Saturday at the beach, which was very pretty and had awesome waves. Then, I spent some time exploring the area with a guy from the Berkeley group, Trevor, and we unknowingly found a way to swim into a national park without paying. It was probably not the safest thing in the world, as the tides were strong and there were lots of rocks surrounding us, but it was definitely a fun thing to do. The next day, we went back to the park (this time we paid!) and spent some time hiking and watching a big group of white-faced monkeys.

Up close and personal with
a white-faced monkey

Work has also been more interesting lately. I've been keeping a separate blog and a YouTube channel for the Berkeley group, which I'm hoping will help promote these types of programs better for next summer. It also gives me some more experience using social media and, most importantly, an excuse to attend the most interesting lectures and activities. During these next two weeks, they'll be all over Costa Rica working on different types of community projects. I'm hoping I can talk my way into heading down to one or two of them for a few days!

In addition to the social media projects, I spent the last week or so helping to edit a chapter of a book that the Vice Rector here, Amr Abdalla, is submitting for publication. It was a bit painstaking, but definitely a worthwhile experience. I never really considered how many different stages there are in publication and how many people are involved in the process.

For the next month that I'm here, the workload looks to be fairly light. Another college group that was supposed to come down canceled on us a few weeks ago, so we won't have as much to do in terms of support and logistics. Since I'll probably have some more free time, I worked out a deal at a local language school that's going to allow me to teach English classes in return for Spanish lessons. It will be pretty lame if I get back to NY without being able to speak a decent amount of Spanish, so I'm going to work much harder at it these last few weeks. (I'm very glad the Berkeley group came down, but the influx of English speakers definitely didn't help me leave that comfort zone!)

I'll be sure to write another post soon. There's lots to share, but I don't want to cram it all into one long entry!