Monteverde = Mind-blowing

i promised myself i wouldn't go a week without blogging again. oopsies. thanks for being one of my followers, dad! so now my followers are: myself, laura- who was with me when i started it and i asked her to follow me, my boyfriend, harris- who asked me to start blogging, and my dad. shout out to them!

another weekend for the record books! we just got back from a truly mind-blowing weekend in monteverde. sometimes things just blow your mind! for example, climbing the INSIDE of a fig tree or seeing a butterfly hatch from a golden cocoon are examples of mind-blowing events. we made the quick, 3 hour jaunt up what can only be described as a vomit-inducing, 1-car-wide, edge-of-a-cliff strip of gravel to the lovely mountain town of monteverde. they didn't rack their brains too hard to name it, as it is the greenest place on earth. even the curbs of the road were green with moss. we stayed in a little cabina, complete with a matress on top of the bathroom just for sophie.

we spent saturday ziplining through costa rica's famous cloud forest, hiking to the suspension bridges, touring the butterfly gardens, shopping and eating ice cream. ziplining was on a completely different level than in montezuma. in montezuma, it was fun being lower to the ground, going over waterfalls and rivers, and seeing monkeys, but monteverde is known for the country's best ziplining for a reason. we were hundreds of feet high and one of the cables was around 600 feet long and took over a minute! we did a free fall jump that also blew my mind. i lost a shoe, then a sock, as they tried to slow me down. the suspension bridges (8 in all) and hiking were very beautiful and unique. we saw toucans, butterflies, lots of mossy greenery, and rainbow colored beetles. next, we toured the butterfly gardens. i might challenge laura's opinion of ants being the most fascinating insects. google butterflies. we saw them at every stage of their life, even when the go to the coolest place in the garden to die. shopping and eating ice cream self-explanatory.

sunday we went on a hike to what we thought was a wild goose chase to a "fig tree." a 20 minute hike turned into almost an hour and a half hike and ended at the most mind-blowing fig tree. you have to look at my pictures to see what i'm talking about. the hike back was, in fact, 20 minutes and we had a very cultural experience for lunch: salads with lettuce, cooked carrots, mayo, white vinegar and sugar, among other ingredients. we walked around town browsing the shops some more before heading back to good ol' puriscal.

it's nice being so familiar with everything now: the routes, the stores, the town, the people, the staff, the school "schedule," etc. it makes the second half of the trip a completely different experience than the first half. i also know most of the students names and they are very accustomed to having us there now. courtney was sick today, so i was on my own and it was really neat coming up with the lesson plans and teaching on my own.

i feel very refreshed getting out of the u.s. for awhile, being isolated from technology (well, you know...), being creative in a different way, and being immersed in a different culture. i've learned a lot about myself and i've learned a lot about others. i love spending the day with kids that live a completely different life than i did at their age. it's very interesting and humbling.

"travel is fatal to prejudice, bigotry and narrow-mindedness... and many of our people need it sorely on these accounts. broad, wholesome, charitable views of men and things cannot be acquired by vegetating in one little corner of the earth all one's lifetime." -mark twain