¡Pura Vida!

¡Hola de Costa Rica! We have now been in Costa Rica for 3 days and the experience has been amazing.  On Friday I had my first experience with Costa Rican currency, the colon.  The conversion was difficult at first, approximately 5000 colones = 10 dollars or 500 colones= 1 dollar, but I am slowly catching on. 

Luckily our group has Sonya along to help. She is from our language school, CPI and recently attended classes there so she understands our position. Sonya is going to be with us for the next 3 weeks assisting in any way necessary.  She speaks both Spanish and English, I hope soon to be able to converse with her in Spanish and rely on her less when we are in situations where others only speak spanish.

    For example, on Friday we visited a local market where they were selling fruits and vegetables, many of which I had never seen

or heard of before.  Being immersed in the environment was a bit overwhelming because often a vendor would direct a question, or perhaps statement, at me and I was unsure how to respond. Sonya was there to help, which was good because my mind seemed to freeze as I tried to formulate an answer.  After we walked on to another booth I would think hard and come up with what I SHOULD have said. Usually I was able to come up with an appropriate answer and then felt a bit aggravated that I could not come up with it in the first place.  That experience made me eager for our classes this coming week. I want to be able to converse with locals, I feel like an outsider.  I can only imagine how much more amazing Costa Rica will be when I can take in all there is to offer, including speaking spanish.

 Yesterday we went to LaPaz Waterfall Garden. We had a guide with us, Javiar, who is bilingual and very knowledgable about Costa Rica. He will be with us on some of our other visits around the country as well. At LaPaz we visited the Bird House and Butterfly House.  

Next we entered the Hummingbird Garden, which was beautiful. The birds whizzed around our heads from feeder to feeder, almost as if in a majestic dance.  The picture close up of the hummingbird was a bird which was very protective of his feeder. He sat on this perch for 5 minutes while I watched, leaving only to chase the other hummingbirds away from "his" feeder nearby.

Our group then got to look at a historic Costa Rican home, outside we met a pair of oxen and their beautifully painted cart.  La Paz also had many animals, such as monkeys and big cats. It was also exciting to see the Frog House, where we enjoyed searching and discovering the hiding frogs.   Each different area was interesting because Javiar was very knowledgable about each topic and taught us something new about each plant or animal we came across.

Then we headed to the Waterfalls. They were amazing.  I was able to take a few pictures near the falls.  The entire day was amazing and I learned so much from the whole experience, I cannot wait to learn more and see more.