Tortuguero y Mas Escuela

Hola!

I've been one busy student here in Costa Rica. Last week was more schooling. In spanish, we spend 2 hours going through details of the language then we take another 2 hours talking about whatever we like. It's kind of nice just to talk to familiarize ourselves with the language through normal conversation. In medical instrumentation, we've learned about pulse oximeters, electrogardiographs, anesthesia machines, fluid pumps, and many more. On Friday, we travelled to a hospital here in Costa Rica (San Ramone) to get an idea of a hospital in Central America. Granted, these hospitals were far better off then the ones we were going to in Honduras and Nicaragua, but it's nice to get a hands on experience as well. We spent the day touring the hospital, seeing how things are setup, looking at different rooms, etc. We are returning again this Friday to begin repairing a few of there devices as well, which should be fun.

On Saturday, 20 of us went to Tortuguero. It's on the Caribbean coast and it is a national park dedicated to conservation. It is home to many animal and plants, especially turtles who migrate from all over the Caribbean to lay their eggs here each year. Unfortunately, two of our group members were mugged while waiting for the bus to get to the pickup point. Luckily, nothing valuable was taken, they only managed to take one of their bags (the other one grabbed hers back during the altercation) but the other bag only contained clothes and books while her Ipod and money and valuables were in the jacket she was wearing. Close call but everything turned out as best as it could have been. It took around 3 hours to get there from San Jose and on the way we stopped at a banana plantation as well. It was quite fascinating to see how they grow the bananas (the fields are huge!) and how they process them for exportation. While we were driving, our tour guide was giving us information about Costa Rica as well. As we listened, we began to doubt that his facts were accurate and by the end, we had a consensus he was completely wrong on most of his facts. After that, we had to take a water taxi into Tortuguerro (no cars are found in the area). We had a mini tour of the wildlife (we saw a camine, a few birds, and a monkey). We arrived our hotel which appeared to be like an exotic resort. We had our rooms which looked like mini huts with porches with rocking chairs, two pools, and this was all located in the middle of the jungle. It was gorgeous. Once settled in, we headed out to the village to learn about the turtles, the conservation efforts, and see the actual town. Once back, we hung out by the pool and sat on the porch, very relaxing, while some of the others went to do a night tour of the beach to see if they could spot turtles (unfortunately, they didn't see any). The following day, we had our canal tour, seeing even more wildlife, and then we went for a hike through the jungle (it was hot and humid but we were in the rain forest after all). After that, we headed back to San Jose. Once we were dropped off, a man began to yell at us at the bus stop for no apparent reason. He kept screaming "Gringos! Get out of this country!" along with other profain language. The man did not appear to be in his right mind so we thought nothing of it, but it's one of those things you don't want to happen to you.

Back to school on Monday of course, still not fully rested from all the travelling on the weekend. Later that night, we attended a dance class where we learned some Salsa and Merengue. It was seriously a lot of fun and it was a lot of work (within five minutes of starting we were all breaking out into a sweat). These dances are no slow pace easing going dances, they are upbeat and you have to move your feet constantly (don't forget that it's all in the hips).

We are in the process of planning another trip this weekend, possibly to the beach or to a volcano. Other than that, keeping up with school takes up a lot of time and it is definately keeping me busy. Only a couple weeks left in Costa Rica before we head out to work!















The living room to our house (the place isn't so bad, its quite nice)















The roommates and I celebrating Alex's birthday (the other Alex) with Mamacita(Angela, our host mom)















Trying to give you an idea of the landscape around me. A lot of forests, mountians, and rain.















At the banana plantation, it went on forever.















How they grow the bananas. They keep the bag around them to protect them from bruising.















On the water taxi around Tortuguerro (look at all that dense rain forest).




















The porch with rocking chairs at the hotel.















Un cocodrilo!