From the Pacific to the Caribbean

The latest/greatest from Costa Rica

Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica

Get ready for a recap of a months worth of traveling, school, and every day adventures in San Jose, Costa Rica.

I've been an MIA writer for the last month, so we'll blame it on the "need to gather info" (a.k.a nonstop Spanish homework/classes and weekend trips).

For the last four weeks I've been waking up every morning to attend my intensive Spanish class that meets every day for four hours and then attending my other classes.

Needless to say, my brain has been overloaded and exhausted with a foreign language (that I absolutely adore). For those who don't speak Spanish or have never studied it, I swear it has five thousand different tenses and a galaxy of synonyms for one word. Yet, no matter how challenging it is to learn and speak, I will always love it.

Spanish is one of the most beautiful languages and I'm so grateful for the opportunity to learn it in COSTA RICA.

So even though this past month was intense, how could I complain?

Surf competition at Playa Cocles

Now that I have completed my first 4-week Spanish Intensive course at la Universidad Veritas, I actually have the chance to reflect on everything I learned and did in February.

What better place than to start at the Caribbean?

In the beginning of February, a few friends and I took a weekend trip to Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. No matter where one travels in Costa Rica, there is no way to avoid surprises or roadblocks (literally and metaphorically).

First surprise, which we totally should've seen coming, was that the bus we had planned to take to Puerto Viejo was completely full. BUT, we had the option to stand/sit in the aisle for the entire 6 hour ride--amazing, right?

We boarded the bus and took off for the Caribbean coast. As we were sitting in the aisle and cruising through the mountains, the bus driver hit the breaks; guess who flew down the aisle from the middle/back of the bus to the front in .04 seconds?

Me.

Shout out to the Tico man who came running after me and helped me up afterwards, he is forever my hero.

Setting the bumpy 6 hour road trip aside (and another scenario where I missed the bus that had all of my friends during our journey back to San Jose), Puerto Viejo was a gorgeous little town with Jamaican flair and amazing coconut rice and beans.

I salsa danced with my gringo friends in front of an entire bar, discovered my dislike for reggae music (the beat is too slow, sorry), ate an amazing vegan empanada and surfed in the Caribbean.

Not a bad start to February.

Cleaning up the Río Torres with Amigos del Río Torres

The following weekend, my study abroad program and I had the opportunity to give back to this wonderful country that we've called home for the past two months.

The Río Torres in San Jose, Costa Rica is extremely polluted. Due to a variety of factors like old fridges, washing machines, and trash being tossed into this river.

The amount of plastic bottles, containers, and wrappers that swelled to the surface as we walked beside the river created a kind of overwhelming paradox.

How could such a beautiful, colorful river be so toxic?

Or maybe the question should be worded: how can we (humans) allow this river, once full of life, to become so toxic that it can no longer sustain any type of life AND we can't even touch the water without risking consequences to our health?

It was hard not to feel hopeless as I stood next to the Río Torres and learned about it's toxicity. It's the kind of hopeless that I've felt when learning about coral bleaching, the thinning of our ozone layer, shark finning, and other consequences related to climate change/species extinction.

Then I looked around and realized I was surrounded by people who had also felt this way, but decided to continue pushing forward and fighting for real, sustainable change.

I'm thankful for the organizations and the people who make resisting climate change and species extinction possible, like Amigos del Río Torres.

It's these people who challenge the "hopeless" views of many people on earth in relation to climate change. They are creating the change that future generations will acknowledge and appreciate.

We can't simply watch the world unravel as a consequence of our own actions. I will never forget these people I had the chance to meet and their energetic, full of life attitudes. This clean up was more than just restoring the river's health, it was also about restoring our own faith that the environment can in fact be healed.

Walking through Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio

With a renewed outlook on people and the environment, a friend and I took on the Pacific coast for the last weekend of February.

We stayed in Manuel Antonio, Costa Rica for a weekend {which could be an entire blog post in itself}. Needless to say, it is one of the most beautiful places in the world.

Besides its outright physical beauty of the crystal clear ocean sprinkled with rocky and lush islands, the light-hearted people we encountered made this place radiate even more.

One of my favorite aspects of Costa Rica is the people that I've had the chance to meet. The tour guides, the waiters and waitresses, the bus drivers, the bakers, etc. have been some the happiest and most genuine humans. It's extremely uncommon not to be greeted with a smile, asked about your day, or called "mi amor" by some random lady.

I can't help but notice when others are genuinely happy, it's impossible to shield their happiness from radiating onto me.

It really does matter who you choose to surround yourself with. Julia's bubbly, full of life personality is like a disease that you can't help but catch (in the best way possible).

Our shared love for speaking Spanish, traveling, meeting new people, and nature made for a weekend of authentic laughs and new friendships. One of the many positives of traveling: I now have a friend to visit in Canada (Melanie pictured above on the right), from only one day of knowing her and sharing the same room with seven other strangers.

February was absolutely one of the most challenging months of my life, but if I could travel back in time I wouldn't change a thing.

Here's to jumping into marzo en Costa Rica!

Pura vida,

Savannah