Hello from San Jose, Costa Rica

Greetings from Central America. Hope you have all had a wonderful holiday.

Traveling on Christmas Day is great. Few crowds, people in great moods, even the babies were wonderful on the plane. I was greeeted by warm weather, how nice, even though Minnesota hasn´t been very cold this year.

I met a delightful woman upon arriving at the hostel that had been arranged by i-to-i, the organization I´m doing a volunteer expedition with here. She was one of three others that I learned I was to share a room with for the night. Welcome to the communical living of volunteer vacations.

Upon waking the following morning, we quickly firmed up our plans at the soda for breakfast. A soda here is not a pop or carbonated beverage. It´s a greasy spoon, or quick order place. We had more of an American breakfast because they didn´t seem to understand we really did want something Costa Rican. We rented a car, which I got to drive san driver´s license because my new friend Deb doesn´t know how to drive a stick shift. So off we went to Monteverde. We drove on one of the two two- lane highways in the country for two hours, then turned off and were quickly on dirt roads for two more hours. We decided they didn´t pave these roads to minimize the number of people going to the Cloud Forest. It´s worth the trade off. How beautiful it was. We arrived in just enough time to take an evening tour through the rain forest. We saw many small tree frogs and a variety of insects, a raccoon, some indigenous birds and not much more. It was still great to be out in the rain forest and talk with some locals.

This morning we were up early (despite major winds and rain all night keeping us awake) to zip cord through the infamous Cloud Forest, originally settled here by Quakers escaping the U.S. We had an incling of its beauty during the drive up, but had low visibility as we zipped through the clouds. This was great for the one woman who did´t appreciate the heights because we couldn´t see how far up we were nor had much indication of how far we were gliding along the cables. But that made it all the more fun. It was like being Peter Pan in a way. I also played the role of Jane (so named by our guide Diego) as they let us "Tarzan" off one platform. What a grand experience I´d love to repeat if/when I return, hopefully on a sunny day. We had enough time to go to the Frog Pond to see 28 varieties of some 150 indigenous frogs and toads, for which Costa Rica is famous.

We raced back to San Jose to have dinner with other i-to-i volunteers. We have our orientation tomorrow morning, then are off. I was told I was going to the Atlantic coast, but have learned that the team here is sending me to the Pacific coast to Buena Vista. Guess I´ll find out for sure in the morning.

Happy New Year!