Hola otra vez!!!

Howdy folks! Turns out I´m not much of a blogger...obviously. Sorry ´bout that, um, but here I am again/still! The last month (2 months) have been absolutely incredible, such that I´m not going to be able to do them justice here. My homestay turned out to be all that I could have hoped. Let´s see--they hosted a big BBQ for all 31 of us CIEEers which was really fun, complete with a boombox and the neighbors` kids dancing around the two grills we had going. A week or so later, my host dad Enoc took his only son Sebastian (13) and I for an all night river crayfish spearing expedition that was like nothing I´ve ever done before. We took an hour taxi outside of Monteverde, then walked a halfhour down this random dirt road to a river (climbing a fig tree on the way), where, at 600 pm we had a tuna sandwich and beer dinner. Then, we began to walk up the middle of the river (my rubber boots were immediately useless, filling with water every other step) looking with my two headlamps and a crappy flashlight for little crayfish (which, luck would have it, are scared of light). We had two spearthingies (basically a 4 foot metal pole with a jumbo prong-fork attached to the end) and the idea was basically to spear the crap out of any crayfish you saw (and some of them were pretty darn big--like small lobsters). We continued to hike upriver (at one point having to climb the wall of this gorge-type-dealie, during which I dropped my spear and Enoc had to lasso it with his belt). At about 200 we stopped, absolutely exhausted (at least Sebas and me), and had another dinner. Then, we hiked an hour up a very uphill road to the ´main` road, where we passed out in the grass on the side until 500am, when we jumped on the back of a milk truck and rode back to town, picking up milk jugs the whole way. Pretty badass, if I do say so myself. We caught two plastic bags full of crayfish, and that night it was delicious (and I dont even like shellfish). So that was awesome.

Um...lets see, during the month of may, we were all working on our inividual research projects. Mine was really fun--a brief summary-- theres a govt program that pays landowners to protect forest on their land, but its very hard for small farmers to participate and its not clear that it actually results in more forest. So, I interviewed 20 landowners in the MV region about their participation (or not) in this program (Pagos por Servicios Ambientales). Most interviews went really well, and sometimes we would just talk for a while about global warming, how proud they are of CR`s conservation mindset, how stupid the US is for spending so much damn money on weapons, and how big powerful countries need to do their part conserving (this is from them, not me). Anyway, so it was really fun and great for my spanish. The end of the program was a lot of studying, paper writing, test taking, etc. but then we finished the semester off with water slides, and an open bar at a hot springs near Volcan Arenal!!!

So theeen, I went with Garrison Loope and 6 other CIEEers to chill on the beach at Montezuma for a couple days, before I left to pick up my parents and sister in Liberia. So then we went to Moteverde. Now, the roads there are infamously bad, so we took the one recommended to us by my professors. However, we actually didnt take it--instead we drove farth enough in the wrong direction to find a sign pointing to MV that took us on an extra bumpy/muddy/steep back-back road to MV. Even my dad, driving our 4x4 rental SUV was nervous. GAaahhh!! When we finally got there, all in one piece, I gave them a brief tour of the MV cloud forest (proving my nerdbomber status spouting off all the random scientific names and natural history I have in my head from the semester). Then we had a really hectic, cute, fun dinner at my host family`s house (my real family speaks no Spanish), where I ended up accidentally translating English to my tico parents and Spanish to my real parents and it was great. Next we went down to the Guanacaste coast to our rental house in Nosara (when we got there, a bunch of construction workers were swimming in the pool-HA!). We made it there just in time for the biggest freaking tropical storm/almost hurricane to hit CR in 120 years!!! We had no power for 3 days, had rain flying through the windows (making the tile floor a skating rink), and had loads of fun driving around the horrible fallen tree-ridden roads of Nosara, trying to find the elusive town center. Eventually the sun came out and the power came back on and we had 2 fantastic nights on the beach withh incredible sunsets. Oh, and Em and I went ziplining and surfing!

Okay, so then they left and I went to San Jose with a plan to meet Garrison in the south of the country to hike the tallest mountain (Chirripo). More on this later (we made it), but we have to go catch our bus to the beach!

PURA VIDA--sorry I suck at blogging!