What a weekend! I’m going to start off with Friday, which was so fun, but not even the highlight! Friday night, there was an event for all of the families in the LASP program. We met at the Indoor Club for a concert of Humberto Vargas. He recently won a contest in Chile, and we had the opportunity to hear him play! It was so great. He played traditional Costa Rican music. He also played some salsa. The music made me want to get up and dance!! It was also really fun to hang out with the other students and their families. My brother, Marco, and my sister, Daniela, came to share the night with me. So great!
I had to go to bed kind of early Friday night because I woke up Saturday morning at 4:30 to take a taxi and then a bus for four hours to La Fortuna, home of the volcano Arenal. I went with 8 other students for just a weekend away. It was so much fun! We went on a guided tour of the volcano with three people from Switzerland, two girls from Israel, and two ticos. We hiked around the volcano through the jungle. Everyone kept saying how this is the REAL Costa Rica we expected to see.
After hiking for a little, our guides led us to a waterfall! And guess what!? I get to cross off something of my life list! I got to swim under the waterfall! It was absolutely gorgeous. The water came down much harder than I expected. My fear of drowning definitely affected how well I swam. Fortunately, Abbi showed me the way to swim in order to sit on the other side of it! Not only did I get to swim under it, but I also JUMPED off of it!!! It seems like every time I leave the United States for an extended period of time, I jump off a cliff. Seriously. This jump wasn’t as high as I have done before, but the climb up was much more difficult. Have you ever tried to climb “upstream” on a waterfall? It’s not the easiest. I climbed about 15-20 feet up and jumped! It was so much fun!! I can’t wait to have more experience like that J
Continuing on the hike, I swung from a vine (kind of like Tarzan, but he was much more graceful), slipped on a hanging bridge and bruised my knee, smelled all different kind of plants, and learned all about the volcano (Did you know it is the most active volcano in the world?). As part of the tour, our guides took us to a natural hot spring. At first glance, it looked like a sewer, but the water was so warm! There were different levels, with the water constantly flowing like a river. We sat in the water on the second level – actually, TRIED to sit is the more appropriate wording. The flow was so strong that it was hard to hold myself still. Thank goodness for the guides because otherwise I still might be flowing down stream.
I wish I had pictures to upload to show you all, but unfortunately I didn’t take any. But thanks to Facebook, hopefully I will be tagged in some soon!
