Today and yesterday we had the opportunity to visit some beautiful national parks of Costa Rica. Volcan Irazu was around 45 minutes from our hotel and Volcan Poas was around 2 hours. Irazu is the highest volcano in Costa Rica at 3,400 m tall and Poas is the third tallest at 2,708 m tall. Poas is still active and you can see steam rising from the lake.

Dinner today was amazing, it was a tapas restaurant, which I had never tried before, and we got to meet 6 other study abroad students from all different colleges in the United States that came through the CIS program to study in the nearby university. So the students we met today are all living with a host family and taking Spanish classes at the University. The food was great as well as the company.

The restaurant was right near the train track and a couple of trains went by during dinner so that was interesting. The ambiance in the restaurant was very interesting, the whole place smelled like incense and there were strings of beads for curtains between sections. There were lots of mannequins strategically placed in the restaurant/bar as well. Thank you Lisa and Heidi for coordinating this meetup!

Today we visited Hologic Surgical Products where they produce medical equipment like Boston Scientific. They produce equipment that help doctors treat women that have breast cancer. It was the first time we have met female Costa Rican business people.

Other than that, I’m looking forward to going home this Saturday, I miss my bed and driving. It’s been getting expensive eating out as well so hopefully I can start finding some cheaper alternatives. I tried Subway today and it was very comparable to what I would get at home so I was happy.

The past 2 days have been great. I went ziplining which was scary but really fun. It was also a lot of walking between some of the platforms which was a good workout. The weather was pleasant while we were there, and we met lots of different tourists from different colleges, different programs, and from all sorts of places. At first braking on the zipline was difficult but after the first few cables we got used to it. There was lots of cute little dogs in Monteverde as well. People stayed out late because the town felt safe and there was one place, the Treehouse Café that had live music. All in all it was a great birthday.

Today we had another neat experience looking at colonoscopy equipment at Boston Scientific. It made me realize how long people’s intestines are. I hope I never have to get a colonoscopy. The building was really nice and our hosts were very hospitable.

After a bumpy but scenic ride on the Pan American highway and up a mountain, we have arrived at the Monteverde Villa Lodge. There is a much higher concentration of wildlife and fauna here compared to San Jose, as well as more bugs! My stomach has not been taking the food well so recently, so I’ve decided to stick bread and fruit mostly. There are a lot of tourists here, many other college-age students as well, so I’m hearing a lot of English. The room we are staying in is beautiful with wood paneling on all the walls and ceiling. I’m thinking of Sunday to celebrate my birthday with the group and try one of the famous ziplines. I might chicken out so we’ll see how that goes. Have to wake up early tomorrow for our rainforest tour 🙂

It’s been another adventure-filled day in Costa Rica. I’ve been having a little trouble with the food, but I’m hoping I’ll get better on what to order now that I’ve had some experience. Today we visited a milk and ice cream company called Dos Pinos. It is the main dairy company in Costa Rica, and keeps international brands for milk out of Costa Rica. The tour was all in Spanish unfortunately, but luckily we have a member of our group who is very fluent in Spanish and helped translate. Poor guy has been stuck translating for all of us! i’m so grateful we have at least one native Spanish speaker with us though. My favorite part of the day was getting samples of ice cream at Dos Pinos.

The much awaited day is almost here. I’ve been buying random things for the past month and now I’m finally going to get to use them! I’m not exactly sure how everything will be but I have high hopes for this trip…

Someone told me that even though they never used to drink coffee while they were in Costa Rica the coffee was so good they drank it everyday. I want to see if this is true for me as I usually don’t like the taste of coffee.