Student Beaching

Our last (full) weekend together was very bittersweet.  The seven of us went to San Jose on Friday after school and hopped on the bus to head back to Manuel Antonio.  We had booked a new hostel that no one had been to before and it was one of our favorites that we had been to.  It had a downstairs with the bathroom, a bed, and a couch, and an upstairs with a porch, a king sized bed, a queen sized bed, and a twin sized bed.  Up another set of stairs was a little landing that had swings and a beautiful view of the surrounding plant life as well as the ocean.  Plus, the hostel had breakfast and cute little kitties! :)

View from the swings on the roof

Part of the upstairs in our little hostel apartment

Part of the upstairs in our little hostel apartment

On Friday, I slept the whole bus ride to Manuel- around 3ish hours.  As soon as we checked into the hostel and Sophie and I claimed our beds, I hopped in and passed out again.  I don't know what came over me but I was so tired.  Sophie tried waking me up a couple times but otherwise I slept straight through until morning!  Once everyone was up, we went downstairs and had breakfast.  The hostel served a typical Costa Rican breakfast- scrambled eggs, bread and butter/jam, and beans and rice.

After breakfast, we got ready, then took the bus down to the public beach.  We were going to go to the beach at Manuel Antonio National Park but because it is now tourist season, the prices had gone up and we didn't want to pay $16 just to lay in the sand so we went to the public beach instead.  It was fun regardless.  The waves were big and powerful, I didn't spend as much time in them as last weekend.  We mostly enjoyed spending time with each other on our last weekend together.

Sophie, Me, and Darcy and the beach!

The tide began coming in quick in the early afternoon, so we left a little after 2 and went back to the hostel and jumped in the pool for a bit before getting ready for dinner.

Pool at the hostel

A little after five, we took the bus to my favorite restaurant- El Lagarto.  It was the one we went to the last time I was in Manuel with the delicious potatoes.  You could see the sun set from the restaurant and it was absolutely gorgeous.  I will definitely miss the beach sun sets here!  We took the time after dinner to go around and pick our favorite part about the trip.  It was definitely a difficult task, there are so many amazing memories.

We went back to the hostel after dinner and had a little wine night, hung out, and danced.  It was hard to accept that this was our last weekend.

I woke up this morning early, a little after 6, and sat out on the porch reading.  I figured I had to soak up all the beautiful weather that I could before heading back home where it will be cold and snowy for the next 5 months.  Once everyone was up and ready, we took the bus back to Quepos and had Subway for lunch before boarding the bus home.

In other news, this past week was fun.  Since this week is the students' last week of school, we finished up most of their course work last week.  They have been researching the solar system and then using the information to write stories which they will be sharing this week.  Of course I had to write one and I actually rather impressed myself with it.  The kids are super excited for it too.  My teacher and I have been working with the kids on creating decorations for the season.  We made snowmen out of lanterns and styrofoam cups last week and have been working a Christmas Tree made out of triangular prisms which I will hopefully finish up tomorrow.

A week or so ago we went to a movie (as we do every Wednesday) and on the bus ride home I ended up sitting next to this random guy who would not stop talking to me.  At least it was in English, but it was still so funny.  I swear he just about grilled me for my life story- in a friendly way of course.  He said he had only been practicing English for 5 months but it was much better than my Spanish has ever been so I wasn't sure I believed him.  He kept wanting to hear me speak Spanish but of course I got all shy and skirted my way around it.  Luckily he got off many stops before me.  He was nice and all but I didn't want him to know where I lived.

I am excited for Wednesday night movies because we are going to see Horrible Bosses 2 and then on Thursday for Thanksgiving we are going to see The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 and have KFC for dinner because we figured chicken and potatoes is pretty close to turkey and potatoes.  It will be nice to have Thanksgiving 'dinner' with my honorary family here.

Friday we're going to stay in a hotel in San Jose as half the crew leaves to head back to the states early on Saturday morning.  Sophie, Becca and I are going to be staying again on Saturday night after (hopefully) spending the day outside at the pool enjoying the sun and beautiful weather for one last time before I head back home Sunday morning.

It is crazy how fast the past two months have flown by.  Although I miss everyone and I miss sleeping in my own bed, it is going to be incredibly hard to leave this all behind.

You can find all travel posts from Hey Dreamer Blog here.

Santa Teresa

While everyone at home was spending the weekend getting snowed on in below freezing weather, I spent the weekend with my wonderful friends at the beach where it was pushing 90 degrees!  Not to brag or anything... ;)

Last week was the first full week of school I have had in awhile.  Even though it was five days, it flew by!  On Monday and Tuesday my teacher was in the States so I was left in charge of the class (with a sub of course).  My teacher and I had planned out everything the week before so I wasn't worried about it at all.  Everything went great and the kids loved having me teach them.

Wednesday my teacher came back but the students had a presentation to go to which took up the first two periods.  A bunch of people from the bank came to present to them about money. They got to do various activities such as being a doctor or soccer player and got "paid" for their duties in paper money.  They then had to go to the bank to deposit it.  The bankers talked to them about credit cards and other banking functions.  Even though it was all in Spanish, I understood the vast majority of it.  Before coming here, I would have said listening to Spanish was my weakest skill when it came to the language, but that is definitely not true anymore!  After the presentation they had a quiz and then Spanish for the rest of the afternoon.

Thursday was our field trip and Friday flew by as well.  They had Spanish in the morning followed by art, a test, and then the last of their standardized testing.  Although it went quick, I was definitely ready for vacation by Friday!

Brittany, Darcy, David, Sophie, and I left Santa Ana around 5:30PM in our shuttle so we could make it to the ferry in Puntarena before it departed the dock at 8.  It was the same ferry we took over the Gulf of Nicoya to Montezuma a couple weekends ago so we were familiar with the process.  Right before we had reached the ferry, our driver had to slam on the breaks.  Sophie and Darcy literally went FLYING forward into the seat in front of them.  Seat belts aren't a big thing here like they are in the states but I had caught myself.  Sophie and Darcy were both fine but we could not stop laughing at how funny it had been.  Our driver apologized profusely, we had to keep reassuring him everyone was fine.  We boarded the ferry and sat up on top again to feel the cool air.  A little boy sitting on the bench facing us had gotten a hold of his mom's phone and started taking pictures of Brittany.  She posed for them as we watched and laughed.

By 10PM we were in our next shuttle for the second leg of the trip.  I personally thought the road from the dock to Santa Teresa was the worst of all the roads we have driven on.  I actually think that the roads had more holes than actual driving space.  Anyway, we checked into our hostel and went to our room.  Right outside the door there was a huge grasshopper! Lengthwise, it was probably about as long as my middle finger, if not longer.  David thought it would be funny to bring in the room and tease us with it.  He was wrong.  It was not funny.

Saturday morning we woke up and had breakfast/snacks that we had brought with us.  Once everyone was ready, we made the short hike down to the beach.  We laid our towels down jumped right in! The waves were crazy.  They were so big which meant there were a lot of surfers.  We had a blast jumping in them (or maybe I should say getting tackled by them...)  At one point, Brittany and I severely underestimated the size of the waves coming at us.  We jumped but apparently not high enough because the wave was still a good foot over our heads.  Both of us went down but came back up soon after laughing our heads off, despite all the water now lodged in our sinuses.

After spending some time laying in the sun, I went on a walk with David down the beach so I could collect some shells.  The beach stretched on forever.  I love walking on the beach because there are so many little critters to see.  There were crabs of all sizes, and even some hermit crabs!  At one point during our walk there was a large pile of rocks, however if you stopped and stared at it you could see a bunch of moving rocks.  Turns out the rocks were covered in hermit crabs.  Most of them were pretty small but there were a few larger ones.  It was cool to see how well the crabs and hermit crabs blended into their surroundings.  I was so worried I would step on one since they were so hard to detect.

After the beach, we took the long way back to our hostel, hoping to find something to eat since it was already late afternoon.  We ended up just getting smoothies with plans for a larger dinner. Once we had all showered and de-sanded to the best of our abilities, we quickly walked back to the beach to see the sun set.  Santa Teresa is said to have one of the most beautiful sunsets, and it most certainly was!

From there, we went to a restaurant on the beach for dinner.  They had 2 for 1 drinks, so Sophie and I each had a margarita which went great with my Chicken Parmesan.  One of the stray dogs came in and sat with us for dinner.  Plopped right in between Darcy and I, we couldn't help but fawn over its cuteness.  We went back to the hostel and hung out for awhile before falling asleep to a peaceful nights sleep.

Just kidding.  It wasn't so peaceful.  I woke up to Sophie and Brittany talking somewhere around 2AM.  They sounded concerned so I automatically assumed there was something in the room, given our history with hostels and all.  I just prayed it wasn't another skunk.  With the three of us awake, we tried to figure out what it was.  The girls had heard a bug-sounding noise so we had an idea what to look for.  Sure enough, we found a giant beetle the length of my pointed finger and the width of my big toe.  If it was just a bug, it wouldn't have been so bothersome, but the fact that it could fly....we weren't havin' any of that!  All of a sudden it started flying and we all screamed and jumped back into our beds.  We squealed again after finding it under Brittany's bed which woke up Darcy and David.  Then it was flying again making us scream once more.  Sophie and I finally spotted it on Brittany's swim suit hanging off the beds and since David was now awake, we recruited him to get it out of the room.  With us girls all huddled on mine and Sophie's bed, David took a shoe and swatted it off the swim suit and onto the floor.  He then proceeded to whack it with the shoe until it was outside.  With the nasty bug out of the room, we went back to bed.

Sunday morning we woke up, got ready, and went into town for breakfast.We found a nice little restaurant with what sort of felt like air conditioning and ate there.  By the time we left Santa Teresa at 11AM it was 84 degrees and we were happy to be in the air conditioned shuttle.  We took the bumpy road back to the ferry, the ferry back to Puntarena, and then the shuttle back to Santa Ana.

Not ready for the weekend to end, Darcy, Sophie, David, and I went to Multiplaza to see a movie.  If you haven't seen Let's Be Cops, I highly recommend it.  I can't remember the last time I laughed so hard at a movie!

As I am writing this, I have just completed my second to last Monday in my school here.  I know I say this every time, but I cannot believe how fast time has been going.  13 days and I will be headed back to the states.  I am excited to be home but not ready to leave the friends that I have made here!

You can find all travel posts from Hey Dreamer Blog here.

Fieldtrip

Today I went on a field trip with the whole generation of third graders from my school.  We took the hour bus ride to a place where an indigenous group called Guetares lives.  As a service project, the kids brought in food to bring to the people since they do not have much.  The drive there (and back) was beautiful, but really, driving anywhere here is beautiful.  There are just mountains everywhere!

Anyway, once we got there, a man whose Spanish name was Juan (I forget his indigenous name), gave us a run down about his people and how they live.  The whole field trip was in Spanish; I was surprised and proud at how much I understood.  He told us about how women there can have up to 22 children and that is not considered abnormal.  The hut that we were sitting in was made out of various logs, each which had a symbolic meaning behind it such as cabeza (head) or salud (health).

After Don Juan talked to us, the kids got to go to the little shops the people had set up.  By shops, I mean tables with stuff they had made on them.  There were spears (not dangerous ones), headbands with ribbon, jewelry made from clay, dreamcatchers, and other stuff.  I bought myself a dreamcatcher, partially as an inside joke between my teacher and I since I always have weird nightmares about my kids, and partially because I've always wanted one and it was a cool souvenir to get and support the people we were visiting.  After everyone finished buying things, we split into groups and went to different stations.

Station 1:  A man taught the kiddos how to make tortugas with clay.  The kids loved it and they turned out pretty cool.  One of my students gave me his; I am hoping it survives in my suitcase on the way home!

Station 2: From there we went to learn about sugar cane.  The man who was talking to the kids had a bunch of sugar cane and the kids got to try grinding it through the little machine here.  It was fun to watch them struggle with it!  A bunch of liquid would come out as each stick ran through; the man ran each stick through a couple times to get it all out.  What came out what essentially sugar in liquid form.  The kids even got to try drinking some afterwards!

Station 3: The kids learned about how the people make paint.  The lady who was giving the demonstration showed which plant was used to make blue and which plant was used to make brown.  She also showed how they use a type of carrots to make yellow.  She had water boiling over a small fire which had the plants in it and the kids got to paint on a small piece of fabric using these paints.

 

Station 4: A man showed us how he weaves various baskets.  He has some tiny tiny ones the size of the tip of my pinky and some larger ones.  It was really impressive how quick he could cut the grasses that he uses and then weave them.  At this time the students got another opportunity to buy things such as these baskets and wooden machetes (again, not dangerous).
 

Station 5: At our last station, a lady showed us how she made corn tortillas.  She put corn onto a large, flat rock and used a rock shaped like a small rolling pin to continuously roll over and crush the corn kernels.  The kernels were soft like they were fresh or had been stored in water.  As she rolled the corn, she would occasionally add a little more water to the mix.  Once it was very finely crushed, kind of into a dough, she patted it flat onto what looked like a large leaf of some sort and it shaped right into a circle.  Then, she put it in a pan over the fire.  Once it was done cooking, we all got to try a piece and it was DELICIOUS!
 

It was a really neat experience!  It was cool to see how some people native to Costa Rica live and how it is both similar and different to Native Americans.  The kids had a blast too (as you can see!)

You can find all travel posts from Hey Dreamer Blog here.

Best Birthday Party Ever! [Monte Verde]

This weekend the whole crew (Becca, Sierra, Brittany, Sophie, Darcy, David, and I) went to Monte Verde for Darcy's 22nd birthday (November 6) and David's 24th birthday (November 7).  It worked out perfectly because last week was another four day school week so we had an extra long weekend to celebrate!

On Thursday we went to meet our shuttle at the church as always.  David asked the man with the first shuttle that we found if he was there for us.  He told us that he was but he did not know where we were going/who we were or have any paperwork as proof.  A couple of guys around the shuttle were also urging us to go with him.  We were all very doubtful if it was the right one when he told us he was taking us into San Jose where the next guy would pick us up to take us to Monte Verde.  We were not having that.  Another shuttle pulled up and David went to talk to that guy, as the first guy was still trying to convince us he was taking us.  The other guy knew David's name and where we were going so we gladly hopped into his shuttle.  The first man still would not take no for an answer and came over, trying to convince our shuttle guy that he was the one supposed to be taking us.  Eventually he realized there was no way we were getting in his shuttle and left us alone.  As we sat in our shuttle, waiting to leave, we saw the cops pull up and go talk to the guys who were trying to get us to go in the previous shuttle.  They took a flashlight and dug through one of the guys' backpacks.  Nothing happened but we had no problem creating our own theories as to what was going on.  Eventually we took off for Monte Verde.

A little over two hours after leaving Santa Ana, we hit the rough patch.  I will say, it was not nearly as bad as I expected it to be.  The last hour of driving was on a very bumpy gravel road.  Luckily, I had been warned that it would be a crazy ride.  When I saw it was a gravel road, I don't necessarily mean gravel like at home.  It was BASICALLY a long gravel road, except they forgot to crush up the rocks into gravel so it was more like a long dirt road filled with large rocks.  We made it to the Visto al Golfo Hostel and checked in only to find out we were staying in the kitchen.  Okay, well not exactly IN the kitchen but our rooms were accessed by going through the kitchen.  We also were not able to lock our rooms which was a little sketchy but it worked out fine.  The hostel was pretty nice.  It was already almost 10 o'clock so we were ready to lay down and relax.  The rooms were chilly so Becca, Sophie, and I all snuggled into one twin sized bed to keep warm for the night.


                Snugglefest 2014 Part 2

We woke up Friday morning ready for a nice big breakfast provided to us by the hostel.  We each got a plate full of fruit and a pancake the size of our heads. After breakfast, we spent the morning making cat pictures of David for his birthday, because cats are his favorite animal.  (Disclaimer: David hates cats)

Happy 24th birthday, David! You are one cool cat!

Then everyone got ready and headed out into town.  We looked around at some stores and had lunch at a restaurant in town.  Around 1:30 we boarded a bus to take us out to the cheese factory.  We took a tour of the factory first.  They talked about how 11 Quaker families came to Monte Verde from AL because they refused to sign up for the military draft.  These families settled there and utilized that cow farms in the area to open up a cheese factory.  At the end of the tour we got to try 5 different cheeses and a caramel that they make in this factory.  We also bought some ice cream afterwards that was made there.



After the cheese factory, we took the bus back into town where we did some shopping.  We booked a night tour in the rainforest and then went out for dinner.  We went to a place called The Treehouse which was a restaurant with a giant tree in it (hence the name).

We went back to the hostel and put on some warm clothes before catching our shuttle at 8:30PM to our night tour.  The tour was AWESOME!  Our guides name was Donald and he was hilarious.  We each carried flashlights and he pointed out various animals along the way.  His favorite things to say were:

• "Oh my goodness!"
• "We are so lucky!"
• "What the hell are you talking about?"
• "Check this out, check this out!"

We saw a lot of really neat animals.  To name some:

• a two-toed sloth

• a hummingbird
• a cool leaf-looking bug
• a Green Viper snake (deadly)

• a giant grasshopper
• an orange-kneed tarantula

• a scorpion

 

• an emerald toucan
• a kingachu
• a keel-billed toucan (looks like Toucan Sam)
• and my personal favorite: the Red Eyed Tree Frog!

I was so excited when David found the frog because this specific species has been my favorite animal since elementary school!  We went back to the hostel afterwards and hung out for awhile before going to sleep.

Saturday morning we woke up and had another plate of fruit for breakfast with eggs and toast.  We got ready for the day and then hopped on our shuttle to go zip lining.  

When we got there, we had to sign a waiver saying that the company was not liable for injury or death.  I read through the guest book and everyone gushed about how great it was which got me even more excited.  We all got harnessed up and then took off to zip line!

Holy Moly.  It was fantastic.  The company we went through has the longest zip line in Latin America at 1590 meters.  It had multiple zip lines, a rope bridge, a rappel, and a mega Tarzan swing.  I won't lie, I was a little nervous at first, but once we got going it was great!  The first few zip lines were pretty small and not TOO high from the ground.  Once I got to the third or fourth one though....it was so long I could not even see the end!  And it was so high!  I survived though.  The superman one was pretty fun.  There were two superman zip lines.  The first one I freaked out halfway through because I realized that I could just fall straight down a gazillion feet and have no chance of saving myself.  The second one I enjoyed a little more.

My favorite part however was the Mega Tarzan Swing at the end.  I wasn't sure I wanted to do it but a big part of this trip for my is facing my fears and trying new things.  To get to the rope we had to walk out on a bridge that was about 300 feet long and 150 feet up in the air.  While standing on the platform at the end of the bridge, the two instructors hooked you in and got you ready to go.  I kept repeating "Oh my gosh, oh my gosh.." and one of the guys up there kept laughing at me, saying "oh your God, oh your God..."  Then, they open up the little door and off you go!  Its a 148 foot jump and the the rope catches you and you swing!  I don't have any pictures of myself swinging but David took a video which I posted to Facebook if anyone would like to see it.  It was by far the best part of the whole experience, which is saying a lot because zip lining was great.

We went to a pizza place for lunch and then did some more shopping before going back to the hostel. We spent the afternoon relaxing and playing games.  For dinner we went to a fancy restaurant with wine bottles and center pieces and lit candles to set the mood.  On our walk back to the hostel we ran into Donald, our tour guide from the night before!

We went back and played games for the  rest of the night.  First we played bowl (which is a lot like charades except a lot more fun); then we played Catch Phrase.  At some point during our game the hostel lady came down and have us a talking to.  She told us that after 10 o'clock we had to talk slowly.  We said okay and then she left.  When she said slowly, she meant quietly, but we still joked about it all night.  There were signs every where with various rules such as "do not take the blankets out of your rooms" and "wash your dishes" and there was a $10 fine if you broke the rule.  We spent the night telling each other to talk slowly or we would be fined $10.  Eventually we hit the hay (another one of Donald's favorite sayings).

We woke up this morning to another breakfast of fruit and giant pancakes.  Check out was at 10AM but the shuttle wasn't coming until 1 so we walked into town to shop, explore, and eat lunch.  We bought souvenirs and ate at Taco Taco for lunch.  Then we had ice cream from a store supplied by the cheese factory before we went back to the hostel to catch our shuttle.

Even though the road was crazy, it was nice to be able to see the scenery of our drive today.  The mountains were beautiful!

Once we got home, Lilliana made Brittany and I dinner.  There was a giant moth sitting on the clock in the kitchen.  By giant, I mean it was the size of my palm.  Brit and I were freaking out a little bit and Lilli went on to tell us that it was a baby moth.  I didn't believe her at first but then she told us about the size of the adult ones and it freaked me out even more!  She tried using her hands to shoo it out the door but it just flew to the light instead so she got the fly swatter to push it out.  It was definitely one of those "you had to be there" moments, but it was so funny.  I thought Brittany and I were both going to choke on our food, we were laughing so hard.

My teacher is in the states tomorrow and Tuesday which means I will be in charge!  Three more weeks left! I can't believe it.  I hear there is snow back home, and as excited as I am to sleep in my own bed again, I don't particularly want to leave the 70-80 degree weather we have here!

You can find all travel posts from Hey Dreamer Blog here.

Montezuma

It has been quite the weekend!

As I mentioned in my previous post, last week was a short, four day week.  I came home after school on Thursday with enough time to pack my bags and watch a scary movie with Brittany before it was time to go.

Around 5PM, Sierra, Sophie, Darcy, David, and I went to the church to meet our shuttle.  From there, we took the 2.5 hour trip to Puntarenas where we boarded a ferry to take us across the Gulf of Nicoya.  It was so dark and the air was nice and cool.  We rode outside on one of the upper levels so we got to enjoy the breeze.  Once we got across, a little over an hour later, we got back in our shuttle and headed for Montezuma.

The last part of that hour and a half ride was rough.  The road was gravel and had more pot holes than actual road space to drive on.  Our driver was driving more in the ditch on the side of the road than on the road itself!  Around 11PM we finally reached Luna Llena Hotel (which was actually a hostel) where we would be spending the weekend.  Since it was already late, we hung out for a little bit and then went to bed.

The view of the ocean from our room at the hostel

We woke up Friday morning and it was a little drizzly.  We got ready and made the short walk into town for breakfast before we went to the beach.  We ended up eating at a place called "El Sano Banano" (The Healthy Banana).  I had the best banana pancakes I had ever eaten.  We went to the beach for a little while and laid out in the sun.  David and I took a stroll and I collected a handful of shells to bring back home.  We even saw some crabs popping up out of their holes.  David tossed a rock at one, making it scurry away.  It was fun to watch it run sideways!  There was a stray dog on the beach that Sierra named Sandy.  The dog took quite a liking to our group.  It didn't take long before it began to drizzle some more, so we headed back into town for a late lunch.  We went back to Sano Banano and I had some spicy pasta. From there we went back up to the hostel and relaxed for awhile.  At one point we were reading outside on on of the cots and we looked up to see a monkey hanging out in the trees, eating flowers!

There was a Halloween party at the hostel but it seemed to be mostly kids from town so we didn't go to it.  Around 8PM we went back into town for dinner.  I had a nutella and banana crepe; not exactly dinner food but it was delicious!  Afterwards, we went to the only bar in town for their Halloween party.  Chico's was definitely poppin'!  It was interesting to see all the costumes the Ticos were wearing.  I even saw a girl wearing a MN Vikings jersey! (Randy Moss at that).  They had various contests for people to win things.  Often times this involved the contestants dancing on the stage like Superman here:

People watching is just as fun here as it is as home!  One girl was dressed up in a knee length rain coat, rain boots, and a mask.  She randomly took off her boots and poured out water next to the stage in the middle of the party.  We were all very amused by her.  We danced and people-watched until around 1:30 in the morning when we decided to head back to the hostel.  

Saturday morning we slept in until about 9 before getting ready for the day.  We went to a restaurant for a late lunch before heading to the beach.  It was PERFECT beach weather.  There were a few small sprinkles during the day, but it wasn't bad.  As soon as we got there, we all rushed into the water and played in the waves.  I was knocked down more than a few times due to my lack of balance.  We spent the next 5 hours or so laying in the sun, walking on the beach, and enjoying the water.  Sandy the dog found us again and David and Sierra both humored her and played fetch with a coconut.

At 4PM we walked over to a hatchery where they were digging up sea turtles to send them out into the ocean.  They had various plots where eggs were buried, waiting for the turtles to hatch.  We didn't stay long enough for them to be released, but we watched them get dug up which was pretty neat in itself.

The turtles are in the metal bowl; it is hard to see them as they are still covered in sand

Covered in sand from the beach, we headed back to the hostel to shower off.  We went out for dinner and between the five of us, we demolished four pizzas with no problem.  Laying in the sun all day really takes a lot out of you!  We had some gelato from Ice Dream down the street and then went back to the hostel to hang out for the rest of the night.

I was woken up somewhere around 2AM to Darcy yelling something about a skunk.  She flipped the light on and found us all in confusion.  Apparently she heard some rustling around and using a flashlight, her and David found an open cracker package under the bed and a skunk climbing in the window.  The skunk had already been in the room, and in David's bag, to steal his crackers.  After searching the room we found the skunk had left but not after freaking us out (well, freaking me out anyway).  David attempted to use a water bottle to block the hole where the skunk came in but it didn't stop me from having nightmares about skunks the rest of the night.

This morning we got up and went back to El Sano Banano for breakfast.  We decided to eat outside this time, something that will never happen ever, ever again.  As we were sitting there, a bird flew by and sat on a chair at the table next to us.  At first we thought it was pretty cool.

After ordering and eating most of our food, David thought it would be fun to feed the bird a piece of fruit off of his fork.  It was funny at first, until three more birds flew over to us.  One was in the tree above and decided to take care of business.......right on Sophie's plate.  Luckily, she was done eating!  They seemed to be closing in on us so we decided to go back into the restaurant and pay the bill.  The second we left, the birds swarmed the table to eat our food.

David feeding the bird

After eating we went to a couple of shops and then back up to our hostel to check out.  At quarter after 11, our shuttle picked us back up and we headed for the ferry.  The ferry ride on Thursday evening had been dark and cool.  This ride was much warmer, and therefore not as fun.  We were very happy to get off the ferry and back into our air-conditioned shuttle for the ride back to Santa Ana.

Sophie, Sierra, Darcy, Me, and David on the ferry

Now I have another four day week ahead of me, and then we will be headed to Monteverde for Darcy and David's birthdays next weekend!

You can find all travel posts from Hey Dreamer Blog here.