Pura Vida

It's the end of my first week in Costa Rica! First of all, living with a host family is great! My tico family is more than nice and watches out for us Michiganders, making sure we make good decisions and eat only the best of food! One week in and I've already met many great people, ticos (or Costa Ricans) are very nice and friendly. I love being able to see mountains every way I turn. I took a shopping excursion with my roommate to downtown San Jose which was fun and adventurous for us! I'm still not used to the city smell, but the planned excursions through CMU included the cleanest of air! I had great adventures this weekend: Rio Celeste and Poás Volcano; both of which were located in the beautiful mountains which really tested my leg muscles. I met the Pacific ocean on the way to the national park which was pretty awesome.

Rio Celeste (or sky blue river) is home to the only naturally sky blue water in the world because of the chemical mixture of sulfur and carbonate that come from the Tenorio Volcano. By the end of the day I had walked more than 6 miles through mud, climbing up and down a mountain. It was more than worth the muscle strain! Unfortunately we couldn't swim in the beautiful blue water because the chemical levels were too high, but I did get to put my hand in the water near a hot spring for a minute. The waterfall was the most beautiful thing I have ever seen in my life.

Today was another long and vigorous trip to another national park. We stopped at a coffee plantation and to check out a sloth we spotted in a tree on the way to Poás Volcano, an active volcano with crazy acidic crater lakes in the Central mountain range. It was so cold and wet! We unfortunately couldn't see the volcano because it was covered in clouds, all we could see was white, but that was still pretty far out. I had a great time walking through the rain forest, doing some tree huggin', feeling the energy of the healthiest trees I've ever seen and the softest moss as well as meditating with the help of the rain along the way. It was so green and pretty; it's amazing how nature can make you feel.

Our next stop was La Paz Waterfalls. I liked the fact that all of the animals there were rescued and couldn't be returned to nature because they wouldn't be able to survive, except for the butterflies and hummingbirds. The hummingbirds were able to leave into the wild if they wanted, but why would they with all of the nectar hanging around?! I spent at least an hour in the butterfly house. I became friends with one that wouldn't get off my hand for 30 minutes! I saw another waterfall in this park too, but my pictures turned out bad :(

It was cool that on the way home we were able to stop at a factory to get some souvenirs for real cheap before I fell asleep the rest of the way home! I can't count the things that I can cross off of my bucket list after this first week of my trip. Namaste