Costa Rica makes you late for everything including blogging

Ok here we go. This might have to be split up into some different blog posts because the last time i blogged was about Halloween. Geez I am a horrible blogger.



Let's start with white water rafting in Costa Rica, boy was it an adventure. Of course the Adventure Crew went :Colleen, Garrett, Meaghan, Danyelle and myself. We had some crazy but awesome guides who were hilarious and silly. Before we went out they were already cracking jokes like crazy which made our trip even more interesting. Also Garrett and I sat together and were first asked if we were dating then when we laughed no they said oh you must be brother and sister which was quite funny. Although I was not prepared and did not bring a change of clothes (I do not know what I was thinking I've been at least 10 times) I had loads of fun. We rode on mostly rapids of mostly 3's and 4's and it we got soaked. Also my goal this time was to not fall out of the boat since last time I went I fell out for the first time however I did not reach my goal we had many close calls and then a final fail . On one of the latter 4's the whole right side which I had just moved to fell out because we hit a rock and man was the water FREAZING. Garrett landed on a rock and immediately stood up and got in the boat however Meaghan and I had to float down the river to other help. A kayaker tried to help Meaghan but failed and then her and I were picked up by a boat of I think German men. It was quite embarassing I must say to be pulled up and almost chocked (by a guy who did not know what he was doing) and land on my head in front of many rather good looking men I did not know. Meaghan was lucky enough to be pulled up by the men's guide. But anyway besides that little mishap we had SOO much fun I would do it all again if I could.



Ok I think Panama was our next adventure and we had quite a lot of people in this group. Im not sure how many exactly but probably about 20 or so went. We went to Bocos del toro and stayed in a hostel called the Aqua Lounge which held true to it's name because it was literally over the water. There were cracks in the wooden floor where you could see the water underneath us, it was crazy. There was also a pool which was a pool sized cut out of the deck with a high diving board which brought upon a few diving contests. We also had to take water taxis to go everywhere which cool and a little annoying at times but it was always fun. On friday the weather was not that pleasing so we decided to play Mafia (i think this was my idea) with a large group of us and it was crazy. People were yelling BURN HER, KILL HIM, I KNOW HE IS THE MAFIA, NO TRUST ME, it was the funniest, craziest, longest, largest, and most intense and enjoyable games of Mafia i've ever played. And literally throughout the whole weekend we played Mafia every chance we got. Whenever I think of Panama I think of Mafia, oh man those were some good times! Lets see what else, we also made a lot of food here at this hostel I remember making pasta and really specifically watching banana pancakes being made by Meaghan and Danyelle whilst singing Banana Pancakes by Jack Johnson -that was fun and rather interesting. Another adventure occurred here as well with a few members of the Adventure Crew: Danyelle, Meaghan and myself and with the addition of Jordan. We set out to find some rather interesting sounding caves that were next to the beach. So we took a water taxi to the big island, took another taxi for as long as we could and then decided to walk to the rest of the way. Keep in mind though that it had been raining the previous day so it was quite muddy but got on the beach and it was easier. We found some cute lizards and a WHALE (very exciting), interesting objects like a random flag , we played "baseball" on the way and Meaghan and Jordan bombarded Danyelle and I like we were in war- which was quite hilarious, fake gun noises and all. But we walked for what felt like 2 hours and found no such caves. We walked to where we couldnt go any further it was just trees upon trees and rocks upon rocks which made it impossible for us to pass. On the way back we all started to get rather tired and sore from all of the walking and we weren't particularly wearing the best clothes or shoes for that long of a walk- I think Jordan gave up his shoes so that Meaghan could wear them because hers kept falling off. The tide started to come in so we had to walk on the road which was really muddy by this time and passed some rather interesting people on the way. It was a group of maybe four guys and one kid who was holding a machette! yes it was very large and they were quite intimidating! Nothing happened but we were still freaked out. Anyways after our even longer walk back (it was nighttime by now) we found a really cool tree house looking bar and stopped to clean up (we were completely covered it mud half was there because of walking and the other half from Danyelle jumping in puddles like a kid lol), get some water and they called a taxi for us. Luckily no one was really at our hostel when we got there so we got to shower and clean up well before everyone had to smell us. Im not sure if this was Saturday night or not but anyhow on Saturday night our hostel was apparently the place to be. The music was pumping and it seemed like everyone on the islands was there. Yes Aqua Lounge was apparently the place to be in Bocos Del Toro on a Saturday night and luckily for us we had to sleep there as well. The music was pumping loudly and everyone was dancing and partying. Oh I guess I should add in a thing about the music: it was mostly techno, black peas (generally the I Got A Feeling song and it’s remixes) and some song that started off with 1,2,3,4 uno dos tres cuatro. Anyways I danced to the techno songs and laughed while others made a fool of themselves dancing and being drunk, drunk people are extremely funny and even more funny when they dance. After a while of dancing and looking at the fishes pass by under us, I realized that a few of our friends were well beyond drunk and headed straight to towards completely wasted. We had two group rooms in the hostel one was just our group and the other was a mixture of people we didn’t know. It would be good to note here that there were about 6 bunk beds in our group room each with 2 girls sleeping on the bottom and 1 boy on top because the owners said it was possible that the top bunks could break with 2 people- awesome! Moving on, people from our group threw up in both of these rooms which I found lovely and decided along with Danyelle to hide from the crowd of drunk people that were beginning to act crazy. People were hitting other people, drunk girls were crying after they spilled their hearts out about who they liked, guys were jumping on motor boats nearby for no reason, very interesting stuff and weird stuff. We hid in a corner and started talking and I think Meaghan came by to get away from scary men hitting on her but then later left and then Daniel came too to get away from girls who were throwing themselves on him. The three of us stayed here for a while, talked and watched as Garrett swam in the ocean, tried to climb a pole, walk across loose and thin boards and steal a boat all whilst being blazingly wasted which proved both entertaining and scary. I think 3 or 4 people threw up that night including Garrett so it was all and all quite an interesting night.

A few of us (Meaghan, Amy, Judah, Betsy, Tony, Nicole, Sarah S., Daniel, Garret, me and Antonio came a day later) went to Granada, Nicaragua the next weekend which is awesome. The bus ride was very long but we luckily had extremely nice buses where you could lean back rather far and there were cushioned foot rest- it was quite pleasant. On our way to the hostel some of us took a taxi while Amy, Garrett and Daniel got to take a little horse drawn wagon which i find hiliarious. Our hostel was small but comfortable and there was a really adorable but very skinny kitty who lived there. That night we tried to look for some bars but there wasnt really much going on in any but we did find a karwokee bar which sounded like there were a lot of people there but there was only 2 couples us and an old man who sang practically the whole time. We decided to sing but the only 2 songs in English were Hotel California and My Heart Will Go One so Amy, Daniel and Judah did Hotel California which ended up really only being Daniel and that song ended up being a really bad song this type of thing because it was extremely slow and not exciting. However them singing was incredibly funny, we promptly left after that. We were all really excited about breakfast that was included with the very cheap price of the hostel as well because we were told we could have fruit, bread, coffee, eggs and gallo pinto (rice and beans). However the next morning we had iddy biddy rolls, old fruit (white pineapple) and coffee, no gallo pinto or eggs. Apparently they ment to say gallo pinto eggs or fruit and bread - not cool, hostel people, not cool. Therefore we went out to eat which was good and cheap, everything in Nicaragua is CHEAP which is always lovely. This was our first full day so we decided to climb a volcano and go into a bat cave. The walk there was long and the climb wasnt steap but it was very long and it was extremely hot as well of course but the view at the top proved to be well worth it and almost undescribable. The volcano itself was HUGE and then the view around it and across Granada was absolutely gorgeous. We then walked around the volcano and went down into a bat cave which wasnt too long but really cool. We wore helmets and carried barely useable flashlights which proved to be interesting. At one point Daniel, Garrett and I were farther back than the others and I stopped for Daniel to take my picture and I turned around and hit my head extremely hard on the ceiling. The noise was really loud and then i was like AHHHH MAN THAT HURT and of course everyone else was far ahead of us with the guide who had found the bats and just said you have to be very quiet around them so was immediately Shussssshed which Daniel apparently found rather funny. Once we got to the bats we watched them for a while and they were very small and cute. We also turned off all of our flashlights and listened to the sounds of the bats which was awesome. On the way back to the hostel we got a ride with a bus taxi which was an old school bus with hole in the floor and loads of people in it. We also went to a market neayby in town called Masaya and this i will NEVER forget. Everyone said this market was the place to go but no one explained thoroughly why. When you first see the market it just looks like one strip of market horizontal on the street with a lot of stuff HOWEVER you walk into the market and there are streets upon streets of venders side by side with tons of stuff trickling off their wooden frame. It is incredible and hard to imagine with out seeing just how huge this place is. You walk in and look to your left, right and forward and never see the end -its absolutely crazy. We tried to all walk together at the beginning but that proved too hard so we split up. It ended up being just Daniel and I walking around for hours and im sure we did not see all the shops because there were just too many. I was looking around just in awe and i could not even think of what i wanted to buy because there just soo much stuff it was like senses overload. We looked for some t-shirts for him and asked for help but they would say oh walk 3 streets that way then turn left and walk another 5 streets up and you'll find them and then you'd get there and not see any and then they would tell you somewhere else to go - it was darn crazy. I remember he asked me what i was looking for and i was just like uh uh i dont know there is just so much so we just started to walk around aimlessly for a while. We passed shoes (really nice and brands like nike shocks), shirts, woodwork, stuffed real animals, toys, souvenirs, food, beds, furniture, and we actually ended up walking straight into a place where they hung huge dead animals and bones - it was disgusting and it smelled awful- he found that funny too. Anyway a lot of people ended up buying a lot of things and i bought nothing thats right not a thing, i feel stupid now but honestly at that moment it was just too much for me to handle at once oddly enough. I think later that night we went out to eat at a really good restaurant that was on a very popular street where they had live music and little kids in costumes (one was a really tall lady made of paper mache and they was short man with a huge head made of paper mache too) dancing for money it was saddening and kind of weird but entertaining nevertheless. There were also kids who were breakdancing and this one little tiny kid was getting thrown up extremely high in the air and landing on his feet and then doing crazy cartwheels and stuff it was awesome. Then this other kid came up to me and asked if he could make something for me out of some sort of plant for a like a dollar, i told him i didnt have any money left to give him but he made a rose for me anyway. I said thank you but felt bad, found him gave it back and gave him the very little spare change i had and apologized and thanked him. Later though more people came to our table and he came back and asked antonio and he bought them for all of the girls at our table. This time though the kid made a heart with arrow through it and wrote i love ..... and wrote our names but i dont think he had had much schooling sadly because he spelled all of our names wrong. It was so touching but extremely sad at the same time. To top it off when he got to me and took out the rose and attached it and said for you my love, it was sooo sweet and cute, it brought tears to my eyes. Oh my goodness that little kid touched my heart that night and i will never forget him. I think after that we looked around at some bars but either they were way too expensive or nobody was there. We did find a place that made some really good smoothies though. Also Daniel, Tony and I needed to use the restroom so we decided to walk into a really nice hotel and pretend like we were staying there and use their nice bathrooms. It worked and the hotel didnt notice and it was extremely nice and pretty. I had to leave the next morning but the others got to stay a day or two longer. But in the end it was an enjoyable and interesting weekend.