On our first day in Alajuela. Excited for the adventure!

Students are getting a lesson on the various coffee of the world. Here we are at the Espiritu Santo Coffee Plantation. 

Peter is getting a taste of what it's like to be a bean collector.

After an arduous hike, the Rio Celeste waterfall was a well worth it sight. The aqua blue color you see is caused by a chemical reaction of the calcium carbonate with the water.  Que Bonita!


We apologize for the very small and I'm sure disappointing amount of pictures. Even the internet is on Costa Rica time which we have learned to be very slow. We have so many fantastic pictures that I promise to have all of them to you on the blog as soon as we get home, but for now we will upload whatever we can. We have some posts from the kids they prepared for you last night and today. I hope you enjoy them as much we all did! Today we went to the school visit where the Costa Rican students performed several dances from their culture, fed us a traditional Costa Rican lunch, we painted two of their classrooms, and played a great game of soccer.  Before we left we gave them two large bags full of the school supplies. Tomorrow we are going on a lava hike and then zip-lining through the rain forest canopy. After that the students will enjoy the beautiful pool set under the Arenal Volcano at our hotel for a couple of hours before touring the local town of Fortuna. Later in the evening we will play another game of soccer as the guides were kind enough to rent us a stadium for an hour. Que Rico!

At Costa Rica, we have been taking a lot of bus rides. From one destination to another, it is by bus. Sometimes we have had some tricky situations that our “off-road” bus driver, Hansel, has remarkably got us out of. One day, we even had to go down a road which had turns on a dime, but we always get out of it. With out Hansel, we would never get to where we needed to go. Even today, we had to get our huge tour bus over a bridge that was too small for us, but we got over it. Without him, we wouldn’t even be able to go on this trip.

                      Pura vida Hansel! 

~Sam Ayer

                      

For most of the day today, we hiked a volcano near our hotel. Being in a group of 22 kids can be difficult, when you are climbing up a steep hill on a small trail. Of course the trail was difficult considering it had just rained yesterday and the rocks and branches were slippery. A few people had fallen, but everyone turned out to be fine after a minute or two. The trail was also very steep, but at the end it was worth it because we came to a beautiful waterfall.  The whole trail was beautiful, but it made it so much better to have the crystal blue waterfall at the end. 

~Julie McCarthy

Hola!

The most recent hotel we stayed at was called the Celeste Mountain Lodge, and it was absolutely gorgeous. It is a special hotel because it is very eco-friendly. It was designed so that the light from outside could be used to it maximum point. The very few lights that they did have were fluorescent bulbs; the coverings to the lights were actually leftover metal from the construction.  A majority of the furniture is recycled items. The couch and chair cushions are stuffed with dried pine needles. My favorite part was how open the interior was. It felt as if we were outside, even though when it rained it did not get us wet at all- and at times it poured!

~Ellie Wilson 

Our trip to Costa Rica so far has been so different for everyone, and experience is unique and special on its own. We all have our different opinions of the food, the hike, and the weather but in the end it is all good for everyone. The best thing about this trip is that even when times get tough, this group always pulls through and sees it in a positive way. People have been sick many times and all of us have acted as friends and helped out. I feel like this is the true meaning of Costa Rica and the goodness of the people here is coming out in all of us. This trip is bringing us all closer together and I know it will be one of the best experiences for everyone, because we make it that way.

Love and Pura Vida,

Claire

ps. Shout out to my famiy, I love and miss you guys! Thomas, I surprisingly miss you singing all the time.:) Guess what guys, I messed up my other knee and now have many cuts and a large bruise. hahaha it doesn’t hurt that much however so that’s good. I can still do everything just fine. Once again, love and miss you. See you when I get back!

The food in Costa Rica is very different from America.  There are a lot of juices, and i’ve tried a few and they’re all made out of exotic fruits.  Some mangoes, guavas and really wild things.  The food is either really fancy like fish wrapped in pasta, or normal like beans and rice.  We eat a lot of fruit, and like me if you don’t like fruit you are in trouble.  But, I’m having a great time and the people are so, so nice!

Love,  

       Erin

Dear Mum and Dad,

I am doing great and I am having a great time! There is absolutely NO cell phone service up here so that explains the missed text messages.  We are having such a great time!  We went on a really long four-mile hike that was very exhausting.  The surprising thing is that I go to bed pretty late, but this morning I woke up at 5:30 and I still have energy at night!  Isn’t that unlike me? For last night and tonight we are staying in a very nice hotel (Peter, Hunter L, Sam A in the room) and I have a lot of pictures to show you.  Every night we have a very interesting meal- we are having chicken tonight.  Lunch is always rice and beans and breakfast is usually eggs, sausage, and coffee (very good coffee here btw- bring home some). I miss you all and I am having a lot of fun!

-Love Jake

No me gusta avion!!

Luke 

Being adventurous serves you well here. I said I would try anything once and so far i have kept to that. So far I’ve been bitten by an ant that a guide put on my hand, held a mouse named Parker, and was the first one to get into the river for swimming. The adventurousness includes food too. If you say,” Hmmmmm... I think I’ll have some of that” even if you don’t quite know what it is or if you’ve had it before you find many things you never thought you would like. Another thing i’ve learned is to not judge a place by what it looks like on the outside. I’ve been pleasantly surprised by both our hotels so far so I’m trying to keep an even more open mind. 

-Erica(:

Here in Costa Rica, we are having a great time trying all of the new food. There is a lot of amazingly fresh fruits. After the coffee tour, I don’t think I will be able to have coffee for a while though! The first hotel didn’t have air conditioning but this second one has an incredible view, plus it is very eco-friendly with lamps and decorations made from left over building materials. 

-Caroline M.

Having such a great time down here in Costa Rica. we have already been to two great hotels the first one was a little cramped, especially because their was four of us in one room. the bus rides have been long but fun. I have learned so much from the tour guides and have really gotten to know them and a lot of other people on this trip a lot.

-Alex

So far the trip has been very interesting, but I was scarred for life by a naked old lady in a car who after getting out of it then decided to walk around in a fish net. Other than that the trip has been unbelievable and the Rio Celeste was unimaginably beautiful and you really had to be there to see the beauty because a picture just doesn’t show it well enough.

-Kathryn :P

Hi Everyone at home,

We’re having a great time in Costa Rica. I’m so glad I came! The hotels are really nice and I don’t think that any of us were expecting 3-course meals at one of them. The scenery here is really beautiful and I have a ton of pictures already. We went on a hike yesterday up the side of a volcano. It was tough but we saw different hot springs that were a pretty blue. The waterfall called Rio Celeste was one of the most beautiful waterfalls I have every seen. We also found a little mouse-like animal that we named Parker. The colors of all the flowers and plants here are extremely vivid and I’m really glad that I have my camera. (Thanks, Mom and Dad, for getting me that!) There have been some extremely funny moments. Especially that time when Kathryn got freaked out by an old lady that I luckily didn’t see. I hope everyone there is having as good a time as I am!

-Carolyn Terry

The trip has been great so far, and the $2,000 my parents spent to send me here was well spent.  Though I have enjoyed many things on this trip, my favorite site so far has been Rio Celeste.  With it’s sparking turquoise waters and it’s unique shape, its no wonder that it is considered Costa Rica’s best waterfall.  Well, I guess it’s nice until you compare it to America’s best waterfall: Niagara Falls, which is a little nicer :).  Also, I was happy to be pleasantly surprised by Celeste Mountain Lodge which looked like a really crappy hotel from a distance, but it turned out to be a great luxury hotel with august panaramic views of the Costa Rican rainforest.  Overall, it’s been a fun trip. 

-Greg McHale

Hola personas estan en el EEUU

we are all having a wonderful trip and enjoying every moment of the Costa Rican culture.Everyone has enjoyed everything from the coffee plantation to the waterfall and Rio celeste. El Rio Celeste is as blue and the sky and thus the name. We are all a little jet lagged but loving every moment.We all miss everyone back home but we will be back soon and cant wait to see personas:)

-Stephen Young 

Sup people,

We’re on the way to the school at the moment which takes a little more than two hours. We have stayed at some pretty cool hotels. After we help out the kids at the school, we are going to play a game of soccer. Signs point to us losing. The food is very good here, and we have tried many new beverages, such as guava juice (which resulted  in unhappy stomaches of some students). Tonight we will be staying at Lomas del Volcan, which has an amazing pool, as well as a view of the volcano.

-Hunter Lambroff

Hello to everyone back in the US, 

We are currently sitting in the bus on our way to the school which is pretty exciting. I have had so much fun so far and I can’t wait for the rest of the week. I really enjoyed our hike yesterday, and the long trek was definitely worth it to see the bright blue water across the Rio Celeste and the powerful waterfall. We all got some great pictures and I can’t wait to show you when we get back. The meals have been pretty exotic but I think its good for us to try some new things once in a while. Overall, we are all having a great time and learning so much about this new culture that we wouldn’t have ever imagined. I hope all is well back home with everyone and we will see you soon

-Kyra McDermott

Hi All, 

The trip has only gotten better as it goes on. The beginning of the trip was rough, the first meal did not agree with my stomach even though it tasted very good. But I have been better since the morning of day two. As we drive on the bus, the thing that strikes me most is how people build their homes out of mostly scrap materials (there is occasional nice house along the way) and then surrounded by a fence almost always topped with barbed wire. Almost every building here is surrounded by a fence with barbed wire because the police forces are spread thin around here and people feel the need to protect themselves. Seeing all of this has really made me grateful for the safety and comfort of my home back in Reading and I don’t have to worry about the basic needs of life that the average Costa Rican is constantly thinking about. Although the bus rides have been long and rough, I am constantly amazed at the skill of our bus driver Hansel, who has literally taken our 40 foot long bus on roads where someone in an off-roading Jeep would think twice about driving on. Hansel has driven us on narrow, one-lane dirt roads up on high ridges, across thin bridges, up steep grades, and around hairpin turns. And he has been able to drive us through all of it with practiced skill. The first hotel we stayed in was nice, but the location was nowhere near as good as the second hotel, the Rio Celeste Lodge was wedged up in between two volcanoes and in the mountains. The lodge was very eco-friendly and was surrounded by rainforest and at night we could hear howler monkeys calling out from the rainforest. The hotel was very open and it felt like we really lived outside for two days. The food has overall been tasty and exotic, especially at the Rio Celeste Lodge, where for dinner we were served gourmet three course meals for dinner on wooden platters covered with banana leaves for a plate. Also, yesterday afternoon we had about four hours of free downtime at the hotel where I was able to get in a workout with Mr. Barnett and Dan G. which was great because I haven’t been able to workout like I do at home so I had a lot of pent-up energy. I am having the time of my life and do not want this trip to ever end.   

Pura Vida,

Peter V.  

Today (wednesday), we are headed to paint two classrooms in the school, meet the kids and play a game of soccer with them.  Yesterday, we took a hike in the Rio Celeste rainforest.  I saw the most beautiful waterfall of my life with light blue water, and was able to capture many pictures of it.  But on the way to the rainforest, we had to drive on a rocky dirt road and cross bridges that were too small for our coach bus.  It is a very nice bus, but it doesn’t handle many of the roads in Costa Rica very well as they are very small.  The bus was scraping the dirt road many times going up the hill to Rio Celeste, and even went into emergency shut down once because the bus driver was pushing it too hard.  The bus driver is doing an excellent job navigating the bus through just about every terrain.  I am really enjoying this trip and don’t want it to end next week.

The Costa Rica saying is “Pura Vida” meaning pure life.

--Dan G.

Yesterday we went hiking and in the trip we saw a water fall, river, and sulfur bubbling up into to the river and it smelt like Steven farted. Then I founder out it was the sulfur not Steven but it did smell like he farted.  At the water fall I thought we could go swimming but we couldn’t and all we did was take picture. The teachers said that we re going to swim we did but the water was about 3 feet deep and Sam told me to jump into the water so I did and I hit the bottom. This is an excellent trip.

$ HUNTER ATWOOD $

So far the trip is amazing, and soon to get better.  Yesterday we went on a 4 mile hike through a forest, and got to see a waterfall, and a ton of bugs.  Sadly we weren’t allowed to swim in the water.  Also, I almost fell into the river from slipping on the rocks.  I can’t wait to visit the school and help out there.  PURA VIDA

-Peter McGrory

The trip has been very fun so far.  Yesterday, we went on a short hike around the Rio Celeste rainforest.  On the way there, the bus got stuck and we were delayed by about an hour.  We saw a great waterfall that, unfortunately, we could not swim in.  We didn’t see many animals, just insects- mainly ones that were trying to bite us.  Lunch ended up being delicious, and we waded in a creek nearby afterward.  All in all, it was a pretty fun day.  Today, we are going to the school, to help paint and give a cultural presentation.  It should be fun.

-Andew White

The trip here in Costa Rica has been amazing.  I’ve tried so many different foods (even rice, which I normally do not like) and they were all delicious.  We went on a hike yesterday to a waterfall.  It took a while because the bus wasn’t able to get to the trail, but we made it in the end.  We saw a gorgeous waterfall, and it was totally worth all the sweat and mud.  Right now we’re going to a school to help with a community service project and meet the kids there, but the bus can’t seem to get past so we’ll have to see what happens.  Can’t wait for the rest of the trip!

~Chloe McLaughlin :)