Butterflies and a Volcano

On Tuesday and Wednesday, we went on our last two excursions.  Tuesday we went to a butterfly farm.  Costa Rica has around 14,000 varieties of butterflies and moths.  This is due to the wide variety of microclimates at different altitudes and the fact that it doesn’t freeze here.  The butterfly farm we visited started as just a farm.  They originally operated just to grow butterflies for export to zoos and such.  Now they have it opened for tours.

Because the group that went on Tuesday was all in at least Intermediate 1, we did the whole tour in Spanish.  What was really impressive was how slowly the guide spoke and how he managed to use vocabulary we knew.  There was a big garden with lots of butterflies.  They are not afraid of humans at all, and so lots of them landed on us.  I think I had one hang out on my hand for a good 20 minutes. 

We saw the whole life cycle, from mating butterflies (seriously), to the caterpillars, to the chrysalis (moths have cocoons, butterflies have chrysalis), to butterflies emerging from the chrysalis, to the butterflies flying everywhere.  At the end of the tour, we saw chrysalises and cocoons being sorted and packed for shipping.  It was pretty neat to watch.

Butterfly eggs

A Chrysalis, there were lots of different kinds, but I thought this one was cool.  The metallic color reflects the leaves around it camouflaging it.

Caterpillars

This butterfly has 3 faces.  The first is its real face.  This is the second, see how it looks like a snake or lizard head?

The third face is an owl.

I just think this turned our cool.  I think they might be flirting.

Sorting chrysalis and cocoons for shipping.

 

Oh one interesting fact, did you know there is just liquid inside a chrysalis until right before the butterfly emerges?

Wednesday, we went to the Poas Volcano, the most active volcano (of the 371) in Costa Rica.  Now that sounds a bit scary, but the good thing about it being active is that it is always letting off pressure, so they don’t worry as much about a big eruption.  When we arrived we could hear it rumbling a bit.  Once we got to the main crater we could see the smoke, and smell and taste it.  It was an experience for all the senses.

The water in the main crater is around 50^o C or 120^oF.  The steam for lack of a better term has been measured around 700^oC or 1300^oF.  The smoke is toxic.  Luckily it always blows in the same direction.  Nothing grows on that part of the volcano.

Poas and I

A closer look at the water in the crater

See how nothing is growing in the smoke?

We got back to school on Wednesday just before class started.  So we ran over to the AutoMercado (the grocery store down to block) and grabbed sandwiches to eat at break from class.  Wednesday was the first really bad day I had in class.  I was already kind of grumpy, then we hit vocabulary I didn’t know while we were doing an exercise.  It was one of those things where it wasn’t that I didn’t understand what to do, I just didn’t understand what the words meant.  To make matters worse, the guy right before me kept getting cards that I understood.  So I got even more frustrated.  Ah well… the fact that I went 3 weeks before Spanish class made me want to cry may be a new record.  I don’t know what it is about language class, but I get frustrated enough to cry on a regular basis. 

After class I walked home to get rid of my frustration before I had to interact with people and speak more Spanish.  After dinner, Jorge and Isabel told me I looked tired and should go to bed… it was only 8:30.  I managed to make it to 9:30.  I was really tired… I’m not sure why.

Today (Thursday) we didn’t have an excursion so I slept in.  Then I went to school to upload pictures and hang out.  Not much of note happened.  Class went much better. 

This evening for homework I had to watch and episode of a telenovela (Spanish Soap Opera) for homework.  I’m not sure it I’d have understood it in English.  In 40 min, a woman was drunk in the park but some priests saved her from being arrested, a couple announced they were pregnant, a woman told her husband she wanted to be separated, a man (the son of the drunk woman) found out is girlfriend? Wife? and her mother had been kidnapped by bad guys, and a woman was shivved in jail, and got her release papers.  IN 40 MINUTES!  And I left out some stuff…that was only the more dramatic stuff. 

After the telenovela I sat and talked to Isabel while she ironed clothes.  She is sooo patient when it comes to talking to me.  She has been wonderful about letting me practice Spanish.

We tasted the world's worst spaghetti sauce but the rest of the trip was awesome

July 25 is a national holiday in Costa Rica.  It is a celebration of the annexation of Guanacaste, one of the provinces.  Because of this we had Monday off and therefore a long weekend.  Jenee, Eric, Stacy, Simone, David, and I headed to Manuel Antonio, a national park on the Pacific Coast.

Stacy had bought our bus tickets on Friday.  We met at the bus station for our 9 AM bus and headed to the coast.  The closer we got to sea level, the hotter it got.  There isn’t much exciting from the bus ride except for the fact that I ended up sitting next to a pre-med student from Dallas. So we ended up talking about the medical school application process in Texas.  He has one interview already.  We also got to talking about my research a bit (he asked).  Neither were things that I expected to talk about on a bus in Costa Rica.

We arrived in Quepos, the town near Manuel Antonio Park, where we were actually staying.  The hostel we stayed at probably has the prettiest grounds of any hostel I have stayed at, but otherwise it was definitely not my favorite.  But that’s ok, we didn’t spend much time there.  Once we got checked in, we headed to the public beach at Manuel Antonio. 

While it was muggy and still in Quepos, the weather was perfect at the beach.  The breeze coming in off the ocean, kept things cool enough.  The water was the perfect temperature.  We took turns playing in the water and watching our stuff.  Some laid out… I, of the pasty skin, applied sunscreen religiously.  There were pretty good waves coming in so we had a great time jumping in them, getting knocked over, laughing at each other when we got a face full of sea water.  It was awesome.

Since we had skipped a real lunch, we got hungry eventually and headed back to Quepos.  One of the teachers at the Institute had recommended a pizza restaurant.  We were very sad when it was not open.  We wandered around and finally found a way to feed ourselves.  When we got back to the hostel, the rest of the group got in the pool.  I was tired of being wet, so I took a shower and dried off.  Some of the group went dancing later, I went to bed.

The dorm wasn’t terrible, but it wasn’t real great either.  During the day, it was pretty uncomfortable, so Jenee, Stacy, and I decided to upgrade to a room with its own shower, and more importantly A/C.  We then headed to the National Park.

A couple other students had been to the National Park earlier in the month.  They had strongly advised us to get a guide that we would see many more animals that way.  Boy, were they right.  We were discussing whether or not to pay the extra money and this guide comes up and offers his services for half-price.  (The discussion had included the fact that we weren’t sure we’d want to pay $20 a person.)  It turns out it was the same guide the others had had, and it really was half price.  BUT it was TOTALLY worth the money.  We got to see lots of things we wouldn’t have seen otherwise.

William our guide and a walking stick.

A crab

Colorful grasshopper

Red Dragonfly

Howler monkey

Sleeping baby Howler

3-toed sloth and baby

2-toed sloth and baby

Jesus Christ Lizard. The name comes from the fact it will run across water.

Africanized Bees

 

At the end of the tour, William took us to his favorite beach in the park.  We found a nice shady spot to set up camp then started heading out into the water.  It was beautiful.  The public beach was nice but the beach in the national park was nice.  It was great…  One cool thing that happened was that Jenee and Eric headed to find a geocache.  They ran into a group of monkeys.  One of them even started throwing stuff and Eric.

"Our" beach

View from where I was sitting

See I was there

 

After having another great time at the beach it was the middle of the afternoon and we had skipped lunch again.  So we headed out of the national park to find lunch.  We decided to eat at the first place that “looks decent.”  This was not a great plan.  It was one of the worst if not the worst restaurant any of us had eaten in.  If you don’t mind bad food and bad service for a high price, it was ok.  Jenee said her spaghetti sauce was the worst she had ever eaten.  We all thought it was an exaggeration…nope… it was really, really bad… unless you like stewed tomatoes with a distinct metallic taste.

So we then headed to another restaurant to try again.  While at the restaurant, I realized I was turning red.  I still had been using lots and lots of sunscreen, but I still burned.  Everyone else was heading out to the beach.  I headed back to our air conditioned room.  I had to wait an hour (or at least it seemed like it) to check into our new room.  I kept getting pitying looks from people.  I didn’t know why until I looked in the mirror.  I was pretty red. 

After everyone got back, we hung out in the air conditioned room, then went for ice cream.  Some of us hung out in the common area of the hostel and learned a card game from some Israeli newlyweds.

OH one other thing of note from Sunday, that even though I didn’t get to watch it.  Uruguay won the Copa America.  Soy celeste.

Since I was already pretty burnt, I knew I couldn’t go to the beach again really.  I found a mangrove tour to go on that was on a covered boat.  Stacy also did a tour, but she went kayaking.  On my tour there was a family from Panama.  They were really nice.  I got to see some more new things.

Mangroves

Lots of locals were out fishing on the holiday

After the tour, Stacy and I headed to the beach to meet the others.  I had given the others money to rent and umbrella and chairs at the beach.  So I hid from the sun and took a nap.  It was still really fun.  We ate lunch then headed back to Quepos to get cleaned up and ready to catch the bus.  Just after we got back to the hostel, it down poured.  We thought it would rain on us all weekend, but the weather was beautiful.  So we were really fortunate to have the rain hold off til we were ready to go.

We got home around 9 Monday night.  I took a shower and went to bed.

The World's Biggest... (That's a Corner Gas Joke)

OK time for Catch Up.  I’ve got internet at home tonight. Somewhat ironic since I had finally given up and posted that I didn't have internet earlier today.

Let’s see… Monday was normal school day.  We didn’t have anything in the morning.  We all actually seem to really enjoy that.  We get to school around 10, then hang out til class time.

Tuesday we went to the Orosi Valley.  There is a debate about where the name came from.  Option 1: Named after a native chief named… well Orosi.  2.  Named after the fact the Spanish thought they found gold there.  Oro (gold) si (yes).  Turns out it was fools gold.  It was really pretty.  We went to an overlook, enjoyed the view, then played on the playground.

Orosi Valley

Jenee and Stacy on the TeeterTotter (SubeAbajo)

 

We then went into the town of Orosi and saw one of the oldest (if not the oldest) church in Costa Rica.  It was built in 1743.  Apparently it’s tough to keep buildings standing for 100’s of years if you have trouble with earthquakes, floods, and volcanoes.  It was very pretty.

Igelsia de Orosi

 

When we left we got to see ash/ smoke/ steam coming out of a volcano.

That's not a cloud on the left hand side of the picture.  That's Ash/ steam from an active volcano.

 

We stopped in Cartago to see the “Ruins of Cartago.”  It is a church building that they tried to build several times, but the roof kept caving in.  This could be due to the fact that 1. The priest who was supposed to be in charge of the church fell in love with his brother’s girlfriend and tried to kill his brother, or something… OR 2. There are lots of earthquakes.  The inside they turned into a really pretty garden.

The "Secret Garden" in the Ruins of Cartago

 

Wednesday we went to the Café Britt coffee factory.  It was really interesting.  I know a lot more about how coffee is made and I’ve got lots more advice about how to make coffee now.  I still don’t like it.  I did try some again.

Our very fun guides telling us about coffee regions in Costa Rica.

Planting stages of coffee plants.

Unripe coffee berries.

Arabica coffee is best grown in the shade.  The shiny plants in the bottom of the picture are coffee bushes.

Good (left, for gourmet coffee) verses bad (right, for instant coffee) coffee beans.

Coffee roaster.  Did you know that 2-3 minutes makes a difference in light or dark roast?  And another minute or two will ruin the coffee?

One way they make coffee in Costa Rica is through a coffee sock.  They put the grounds in a sock and pour water through a time or two.  Our guide says he collects it once then pours it through a second time.

Cathy learning to be a coffee taster.  Slurping is very important.

 

OK, I know this is going to be a long post, but if you are interested, sometime ask me about Juan Valdez and Costa Rican coffee.  It’s a funny story.

Thursday we went to Grecia and Sarchi.  Both are relatively small country towns surrounded by coffee and/ or sugar cane fields.  Grecia’s claim to fame it that it has an all metal church that was shipped from Belgium in the late 1800’s.  It was really pretty.  They were having mass, so we didn’t go inside.

Can you see something funny about the church?  I made some crack about whether they changed the colors.  Then we realized they were painting it.  Its always red, but apparently the shade of red changes.

 

We then headed to Sarchi which is known for handcrafted and painted oxcarts and other wood crafts.  Costa Ricans traditionally hauled everything by oxcart.  At some point they started painting them.  First we stopped to see the World’s Biggest Oxcart. 

World's Biggest Oxcart.  We need Babe the Blue Ox.

Next we headed to a place where they make oxcarts and other woodcrafts.  It was particularly cool because they had a waterwheel that powered several of the tools.

The over 100 year old workshop which houses the water wheel.

The waterwheel... notice the belts running from it.

Waterwheel powered bansaw.

Hand painting an oxcart.

 Afterwords, we went shopping.  Woohoo.

This afternoon in class we had a test… which we’ll see… there is some stuff I know I messed up.  BUT we got an out an hour early, which gave us time to go to El Rio (the restaurant we go to everyday after class) and order nachos… which were good… but turned out that the big plate cost about $14.  We also had time to stop by the Outlet Mall which is on the way home.  We couldn’t figure out why it was an outlet mall.

Well… now you are caught up.  As I said in my short update earlier, this weekend we are heading to Manuel Antonio National Park which is on the Pacific Coast.  I look forward to talking about beaches and monkeys.  We have Monday off for a national holiday, so it’s a good time to go on a trip.