I can’t believe I’ve been here for a week and a half already! At the same time, I feel like I’ve been here for much longer.

This past weekend, I went to Isla Tortuga and Volcán Poás. I also explored a little bit of San Jose.

There is this really neat park in San Jose called something like “The National Metropolitan Park.” It has these really cool trees- the bark turns colors and peels as it ages. I would upload a pic of one of the trees if I could, but this internet connection is really bad.

Isla Tortuga was AMAZING! Sarah, Rachel and I took a bus from San Jose to Puntarenas at 6:00AM. It was a 2 hour bus ride, but the scenery was beautiful. I got to see an oxcart bulled by real oxen on the side of the road in a rural town. Once we made it to Puntarenas, a fishing town that smells completely of fish, we boarded the Catamaran and set off on an hour and a half ride to the island. The weather was perfect, so we just layed on the deck and tanned. We passed a ton of little, mountainous islands. This place must have come right out of a Pirates of the Caribbean movie! The beach at Tortuga Island was small but cute. It had palm trees, hammocks, and a little bar. We were served lunch and listened to a live “band” playing Caribbean-esque music. Of course, there was a cat on the island… there’s always a cat.


We relaxed on the beach for a while and then went on a banana boat. I’ve never done that before, and it was a lot of fun! We went on a little tour around the surrounding islands and got dunked in the water a few times. Towards sunset, we loaded up the boat again and started our way back to San Jose.

Sunday, the three of us went to Volcán Poás, and active volcano. The ride wasn’t terribly long, but the uphill walk to see the volcano and Laguna Botos (an extinct water-filled crater) would never end! At first, we could not see the Poás crater at all because of all the clouds. It was a little disappointing, but we decided to walk up to the lake instead. The walk was totally worth it- the lake was beautiful! But, right about this time my camera died L

Afterwards, we decided to go back to Poás to see if the clouds cleared up. They didn’t. We still could not see a single thing. We were disappointed and decided to go get lunch. After lunch, we thought we’d give the volcano one more try. We got really lucky, because right as we got up there the clouds cleared. We were able to see the crater for about 2 minutes before the clouds rolled in again. It was really cool, and not what I expected to see from an active volcano.

The weekend was too short, and Monday came too soon. I might have written this in a previous entry, but at the hospital, the volunteers pretty much just try to entertain the children whose parents aren’t there. Sometimes it’s boring, or you get a screaming kid, but sometimes it’s really fun. Today, I got to spend some time with a few kids that could actually hold a conversation. They were adorable. I was hanging out with a couple kids who had been there a while, and they were such comedians. They joked that they were 24 and studied cooking in college!

Yesterday at the hospital, I met a doctor who specializes in bone tumors and studied at UF for a while. He worked/studied at Shands Hospital, and was telling me that Shands is one of the best hospitals for bone tumors in the world! Go Gators!

This morning I was woken up by my bed shaking. At first, I was a little nervous because I thought it was an earthquake. Then I figured it was just a big bus driving by, since the shaking wasn’t that bad. Later I found out that it was an earthquake! So in the past few days, I’ve seen an active volcano and experienced an earthquake. Very cool.

Adios!