Free day!

Last night we had a fruit lab. Our task was to sample around 50 different fruits and describe them! I tried sugarcane, papaya, passion fruit and many other fruits including noni vomit flavored fruit. It was disgusting and I took a huge bite out of it without any warning. Our professor said that bertie bott's every flavored jelly bean vomit flavor was taken from this fruit.

So today was our first official free day. ( We do not get weekends off or anything, just one free day every 10 days or so). In the morning, I took the bus to San Vito, where I bought high socks for hiking (desperately needed them!). We walked around and ate a coffee shop where I had una tortuga (a turtle) croissant. We came back for lunch and then headed out for an adventure. A small group of us went to go swimming in the river. Being in a river surrounded by jungle was awesome! The water was refreshingly cold and we found a waterfall nearby. I stuck my head under and it was amazing! We hung out sitting in the shallow water on the rocks for a couple of hours. Later, on the hike back, we decided to climb the strangler fig! It was amazing to see how strong the fig held our body weight. Now Im back at our cabin and we are just hanging out and relaxing.
Pictures posted in future

photos and lectures

toucan -->view from the classroom!

metallic wasp!

agouti!moth!

flower for mom! :D

today we went on an intense hike! but now i have class so ill write later
Soo I haven't been writing much about what I have been learning about really. We have very packed days with class and forest hikes. So as far as class goes, some lectures include : the history of Costa Rica, importance of... COFFEE!, dangerous and annoying animals, plant taxonomy with flower parts and identifying various leaves, insect taxonomy for identifying insects of the tropics, restoration lectures and more! So for some homework I have to collect 10 insects and correctly identify them up to family level!

So today on our intense hike we went very deep into the forest.

Las cruces hikes; the garden.

So I have been in Las Cruces since Wednesday night and I have already seen amazing things! Every morning, we start the day with a hike somewhere. Yesterday we walked around the garden and saw banana trees (including red bananas and bananas with seeds that look like corn!). Also, we saw agoutis! They look like they have the butt of a bunny (same size too!) but they are in the rodent family. But actually they are really cute :) My goal is to get an awesome picture of one before i go! Today one crossed my path on the way bk from dinner and i shouted "agouti agouti!!" and he stayed for me, but i had no camera. There are cycads (just like new orleans). The founders of the garden transported many plants from foreign countries (like the fig trees). There were many colorful flowers that look like birds of paradise (pictures to come). Also, my group spotted a toucan in the tree with a yellow beak! He was eating fruitloops, but unfortunately, I didnt get his autograph or picture for that matter.
At night I took a night hike in the dark! (with jungle boots and headlight of course). We were looking for frogs but only found a little inconspicuous brown one. However, I took a picture of a massive toad! as well as a huge spider.  
Today we hiked to the cloud forest and took observations. We examined the forest structure of the trees and took observations for 30 mins sitting somewhere. We had to cross a wild river with our jungle boots, and water got in mine! I went through about three pairs of socks today! I even went running in the rain (because it is almost always raining in the afternoon when we have free time, hikes in the morning). We saw a massive strangler fig tree, leaf cutter ants (actually carrying the leaves they were in the process of cutting), and a beautiful butterfly the same color as my fuchsia raincoat.

drive from san jose to las cruces

Yesterday we drove from San Jose to Las Cruces, our first biological station. The entire countryside is so beautiful; there are forested mountains everywhere, and the cities are built into mountainsides. We stopped at a rest stop, that was very highly elevated and it was freezing!! I had some te con leche (tea with milk) and we watched hummingbirds at their feeders outside. They were so pretty and they had a kind of iridescent green and blue mixture of feathers and they were speedy quick! I got some pictures ill post later when i figure out how.. For lunch we stopped in a valley in this restaurant. There was an incredible difference in temperature, we all took off our sweaters and were still hot! I have to go to my morning walk around the botanical gardens so I'll write more later!!!

San Jose

Yesterday morning I arrived in San Jose at 10:30. The time difference is 2 hours earlier than PA time and 1 hour before NOLA time. After waiting at the airport some about half of the students went to the hotel where we wasted no time before setting out to explore the city! We were all famished and therefore we went to a cute little restaurant where I ordered enchiladas (not a costa rican dish!) but they were still delicious. During the middle of lunch, it started pouring rain outside and the rain was so intense that they had to shut the windows so the place didn't get flooded! fortunately we were sitting in the middle nowhere near the windows. Afterwards we continued walking and went to a park (it was magical! hehe) and got very muddy. We also saw parrots chilling at the playground. For dinner we had..... drum roll..... pizza! Very costa rican! .... jk. But after getting a good 10 hrs of sleep this morning I had a delicious breakfast consisting of eggs, bacon, pineapple, mystery juice and.. rice and beans! It was delicious. We had orientation this morning where we learned about all the amazing things we will do this semester. We are going to travel all over and it will be amazing! For the midterm break I have started asking around to see what other people are doing. There is talk of skydiving, suba diving, kayaking, white-water rafting, ziplining... and more! Tune in later for stories of more substance.

Pura Vida! - CR phrase literally meaning " the pure life"