What happens in Los Lagos, stays in Los Lagos.

Hola!

What an INCREDIBLE day. I am completely exhausted and I am surprised that I even have the energy left to type this post. We left the hotel around 7:30am to head to the river to go white water rafting. On the way, we stopped and this cute little market where we all bought all kinds of fruits and also water shoes (water chooose) to wear on the raft. Quique also walked around the market and pointed out the exotic fruits and roots native to Costa Rica. Most memorably, he gave us a sniff of nonie, which I then renamed as ass-fruit. Can you guess what it smelled like?

Once we got back on the bus to head to the Balsa river, Quique gave us some fun facts about Costa Rica. I´m sure it comes as no surprise, but I found the most interesting facts to be about their education system. For those who don´t know, Costa Rica is similar to Switzerland in that it has no army and is completely neutral. In 1948, the president of Costa Rica abolished the army and transferred all of the funds originally allocated to the military and put it into the education system. What a crazy concept!!!!!! Costa Rica now has an incredible education system that is completely affordable for everyone, due to the amount of scholarship money provided by the government each year. They have four universities, and they are the four best schools in all of Central America. Imagine... if the United States took all of the money that they have been spending on our armed forces and recent wars and put it towards education, just think about how much more affordable our education system would be. An interesting observation by one of our group members said that this is most likely possible for Costa Rica because they don´t have oil. It´s sad, but unfortunately true. Speaking of oil, I also learned that the number one industry in Costa Rica above bananas, pineapples, coffee, etc, is actually technology. They are the homebase for Intel and make the smallest computer chips in the world.

After Quinque´s history lesson, Alberto (our white water rafting tour guide) then gave us a test on pineapples, which I aced because I already learned about pineapples on the Dole plantation in Hawaii (thanks, Nyssa!). We finally reached the Balsa river and suited up for the craziest ride of my life. Alberto and Quique thought it would be funny to use me as the example during the safety demonstration. We got into the rafts and once we got settled, Alberto told me to get out of the raft. Once out of the raft he told me to jump off of the rock into the rapids. Um... what? At first I thought it was a huge joke but it turns out he wanted to demonstrate how to save someone from the fierce, unforgiving rush of the water. Great. I was scared out of my mind while we were suiting up but at this point I just looked down, took a deep breath, and jumped. As soon as I landed in the water I went into the the rescue position and started swimming when I was instructed to. After being pulled back up on the raft I realized that all of my nerves were completely gone and the smile did not leave my face until five hours and nine miles of river later when Alberto told us that we were going to shore for lunch.

When we signed up for the excursion, they told us that the river is a grade 3 and 4 for the rapids. When we got on the river, Alberto told us that it was actually more of a 4 and 5 grade. To give you an idea of how intense that is, a grade 6 is the highest it goes, and those are strictly reserved for professionals. Either way, I can not remember the last time that I had this much fun. What an adrenaline rush! After about two hours of rafting, we pulled over to the side and geared up to rapell down a 150 meter rushing waterfall. I was still so hyped up from the adrenaline of the rafting that I just strapped on that harness, forgot about my fear of heights and dropping, and let go of the rope. It was a gorgeous waterfall. There was just something so exhilarating about taking control of the rope while fighting the rush of the waterfall pounding down on your entire body. Once we got to the bottom, Alberto had laid out a delicious spread of cut up watermelon and pineapples. SO. DELICIOUS. After basking in our awesomeness, we got back into the raft and fought the rapids the rest of the way down the river. At one point on the way back, the waters were relatively calm for a few meters. During that time, Alberto thought it would be funny to throw me off the raft. After Raina´s unsuccessful attempt to rescue me, he and Quique then proceeded to throw everyone else off of the raft. Once we realized that there really was no reason at that time to get back in the boat, we all just swam around for awhile messing around and laughing our heads off. We eventually got back in the boat, went down one more rapid and then said goodbye to the Balsa river. Alberto then took us over to an ex-president´s house and we were fed an incredible meal. I didn´t think I would love the food here this much. It reminds me so much of the Cuban food I ate growing up and it was just a plateful of all of my favorites. There was chicken, picadillo, rice and beans, yuca, and plantain chips. We then went to a hut behind the house to learn about how sugarcane is turned into sugar and also sugarcane juice. He also showed us a tree that´s roots are used to make the Chanel perfume.

We got back on the bus and checked into the next hotel, only to leave ten minutes later for the hot lava springs. This resort is made up of ten spring pools, each pool at a different temperature. We all started in the main pool that had a water slide and a bar INSIDE the pool. You basically just swim up to the counter and order your drink. A couple of us went around to try a few of the different pools. We went up to the top and just sat there in one of the pools, relaxing our muscles from the rafting and listening to the sounds of the surrounding jungle. We then changed out of our bathing suits and walked over to the connecting restaurant for yet another delicious meal. This time I had the tilapia followed by a small slice of tres leche and, of course, it was incredible.

This has been such an incredible tríp so far. I never thought that I would have the guts to do any of these things and after surviving a day like today, I just feel so confident and fearless. We just got back to the hotel in La Fortuna and I am so ready to curl up in my bed. On the agenda for tomorrow we have what they call the Extreme Volcano Hike. This is basically a six hour hike up the side of the Arenal volcano. This is one of the 10 most active volcanoes in the world. Anyways, I´m exhausted and we have to get up super early tomorrow.

Pura vida!!!

E

P.S. Another fun trivia fact: In England, the term "knackered" comes from where they used to send horses before they were shot. So if you say I´m knackered, what you´re saying is that you´re on your last legs and ready to be shot. Interesting, yes?