So on Saturday morning all the AFSers who were going on the trip were suppose to meet at the office in San Jose at 5:30. Well, the other exchange students and I from Puriscal didn't want to spend the night in San Jose the night before, because that means extra money, and I am kinda in my cheap stage right now..:/ So instead we decided to take the bus at 4 am in the morning. That meant I had to wake up at 3 am in the morning, and hitch a ride on a motorcycle while carrying my luggage-that was a very scary situation! Anyway we get to San Jose, we meet up with all the other exchange students, and we are on our way by 6 am. We stopped at got breakfast at around 8ish, and then drove some more (its a 6 hour drive.) So when I found this out, I kinda got a bit upset because I mean, who wants to sit in a bus for 6 hours doing nothing? But the good thing about AFS, is they took us to a national park on the way to Osa. But the national park was....different. It was about rocks.... kinda boring......!!! I guess a longgg longg time ago, the indigenous people created rock balls *AHH HOW EXCITING!!* But it was better than sitting in a bus for 6 hours!(;
The name of the park was Finca 6. When we were on our way to the national park, no one knew what we were going to see, so we started joking about going to a tree farm! Nope...its karma. Instead we go to a rock farm...:D None the less it was actually quite pretty and interesting.
After the rock farm we got on some boats and made our way through a river, going along many different canals. One thing I really loved about this trip, was that we took boats EVERYWHERE! It was so much fun! After the hour long boat ride, through the river and out into the ocean, we made it to our hotel, kinda! We actually made it to a part of the island, where we docked and then walked to the hotel. It was a cool surprise, because we would be walking and looking at all the beautiful flowers and looking at the view and the beach and then all of a sudden there would be monkeys!! When we finally got to the hotel, we ate and then went straight to the beach! The hotel we stayed at was called Punta Marenco Lodge and was an eco-friendly hotel. Eco-friendly meaning they only had electricity from 6pm-10pm and it was pretty much in the middle of no where. But the hotel was so cute, a collection of cabins along with a main lodge, and the view was stunning. I thought it was a great place to host students!
The boats we took
From left to right: Tieta (Usa), Hans (Usa), Hanna (Sweden), and me.
Our long walk up to the cabins
One of the cabins
The view from the main lodge
A monkey!!
Day two was a lot of fun! We took the boats to a different part of the island to a national park, named Parque Nacional Corcovado. There we had some of the awesomest tour guides ever! They were super tranquilla and muy pura vida and they taught us a lot! But they weren't trying to shove the information down our throats, it was just a really great experience! I totally felt like I was in Pirates of the Caribbean or King Kong, because it looked like we were on a deserted island, and I was just waiting for the indigenous people to come running out of the rain forest! But, it didn't happen haha! So we made our way on the beach, and then after went back through the rain forest. After that, we went and found 3 different waterfalls, and went and swam in one!
One of our awesome tour guides!
Raina (USA), me, Josh (Austria)-we ate a lot of coconut that day!!
The second day, we took a boat to the Island Cano annnddddddd WENT SNORKELING!! It was so cool! We "swam" with turtles, I saw a stingray, lots of fish, and I guess there was also a shark!:0!! When we were making our way back to the island, we saw some dolphins and started to drive near them-it was so cool! It was truly like a movie, and it made me think of The Little Mermaid for some reason! And then-you'll never believe this-we saw whales! But it's not like they were far out and we were "whale watching"-they were right in front of our boat! 3 feet away, just swimming and chilling and we just kept driving right next to them! It was a humpback whale with her baby, and honestly it was one of the coolest things I had ever seen! After that we just went to an awesome beach and hung out. I guess I got really tan because when I came back my family was commenting on it for a long time! So, I think this trip was -- fantastic! I loved it, I wish it had been for more days but, all good things must come to an end...:( If anyone just happens to be going to Costa Rica, go to Osa. It is amazing-it has my stamp of approval(;
The beach we went to
SNORKELING!!
The entire AFS group that went to Osa(:
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