The Last Entry

My journey has come to an end. I write this as I sit in window seat 17A of Airbus A319…California is only moments away. Three months have gone by in flash and Christmas is somehow now just 3 days away. I’ve spent the last week in bliss, traveling alone through Costa Rica and really getting to spend my last few days on purely enjoying life. I’ve grown so much from this experience and am thankful to my parents for supporting me through it.

I have such mixed emotions right now, I really fell in love with Costa Rica, although I’ll admit it took a while. Culture shock set in for the first month or so, I even felt as though my Spanish was getting worse. At the time, I had the genuine fear that I wouldn’t progress at all, although writing this now, progress was inevitable. I just had to give it time. There is this magical moment when fear and discomfort dissolve and suddenly you find yourself with a brilliant confidence. That moment came for me this past week when I no longer felt like I had to mentally rehearse a question or approach, the words just came.

They say ‘reverse’ culture shock hits you even harder. How do you ‘sum’ up three months? At what point does your experience become reduced to ‘Costa Rica was awesome, I had a lot of fun’? There are no words. I cherish these moments that have fleeted so quickly and find comfort in thoughts of home and family.

I’m really not one for good-byes, I feel like for the most part I’ve said and done it all while I had the chance. After all, all we really have is the moment. And what fantastic moments have they been! In my travels I’ve met some really incredible people from all over the world…France, Belgium, China, Australia, Holland, Japan, Spain, Canada, Germany, Switzerland, Nicaragua, England, the US and of course Costa Rica, amongst others. It’s those hundreds of tiny cosmic convergences that build any experience and influence the future ones to come. Life is so beautiful like that.

My host mom, Doña Mayra, will continue to inspire me beyond our time together. I’m so glad that she came into my life. She is such a strong and absolutely selfless woman. I can see how she was such a successful athlete in her youth, she’s one tough cookie and a champion through and through. She took my roommate Steph and I out to a lovely lunch at ‘La Casita’ restaurant on our last day together. The three of us shared a wonderful steaming platter of chuletas, carne, pollo, beans & plantains…yum!

The last post that I wrote was about my visit to Montazuma. I can honestly say that was funnest place I went, so fun actually…that I went back. My classes ended last Tuesday and while most of my new friends went right home, I booked my ticket for 6 days later. This time around the bus ride over was like clockwork, none of that tire popping crap. I’ve been on a bus for over 100 hours since I’ve been in Costa Rica and an evil curse has made it so that I am incapable of getting an ounce of shut eye. Despite not having slept a wink in honor of my last night in San Jose, I rolled up to the bus station in utter delirium. About 6 hours later I was back in wonderful Montazuma.

While I never actually had stayed at the hostel ‘Luz en el Cielo’, they already felt like my vagabond family. I walked up the big hill to the ‘light in the sky’ with some new found friends from Seattle, Ethan and Layla, whom I had just met on the bus. We dropped off our things and jetted down to the ocean for a liberating swim. I knew that my Belgium friend from my previous trip, Franqious, was still in Montazuma trying to find a job and sure enough without any of the ‘cell phone technology’, Francqious found me floating in the waves.

A main goal for my trip was to surf my brains out, I hadn’t surfed in about a year since my knee injury last January…it felt like time. One of the guys working at the hostel, Ben, was a financial analyst gone surf bum cutie. Later that evening we hiked to ‘Playa Grande’ for a sunset surf. The journey to Grande was an adventure in itself, it was about a thirty-five minute walk down a jungly beach. Since it was low tide we were able to take the tide pool route which involved a whole lot of rock hopping and intrepid log crossing action. Once we hit open beach, Ben broke into a sprint for the surf. Since we only had one board to share between the two of us, I swam out under the heavy glass to meet him.

The beach was vacant, it was ours. It was that special time of day, dusk, the transition to evening when the sky is stunning and the water looks golden, I felt renewed, like nothing could ever be wrong. Ben caught a few waves, undid his leash and pushed the board towards me. It was an overpowering emotional moment as I paddled for my first wave, I was overtaken as I felt the intensity of the wave build behind me. I popped up to my feet like second nature and glided across glass into freedom. For the next five days I spent just about all day every day in the water from morning till night. Whenever I was hungry, a ripe papaya or mango was never too far out of reach and whenever I was thirsty, a coconut was only a tree shake away. One of these days I will be back there, under the Costa Rican sun - but until then my dreams will have to do. I feel blessed, thank you.

I want to thank those who followed my blog. You guys rock! It has been a pleasure writing this, I hope you enjoyed!

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year amigos :)

Over & Out,
Kelsey

Photo Credit: Quinn Miller-Bedell

Photo Credit: Quinn Miller-Bedell

PURA VIDA

Tree Root Hop-Scotch

It was one of those weekends where split second decisions and chance encounters could take you in any new direction, not a single plan other than the pursuit of ‘awesome’. Montezuma is one of the most beautiful places I have ever seen, hands down. I’m literally itching to go back (I have like 100 bug bites).

It was Friday afternoon and I was at serious risk of staying in San Jose all weekend to work on my class presentations. Suddenly I noticed a facebook chat message from my friend saying that she was going to Montezuma with a few girls and leaving from the school at 12:40...well I got that message at 12:41. I made a split second decision, ran out the door, sprinted down the street, arrived at the school, got the bus info, sprinted back to my house, packed in 5 minutes, sprinted back down the street and jumped in a taxi with no idea where I was going...This is how the best trips begin.

Literally the only info I had for the driver was ‘Coke Cola Station’…vague at best. The guy tried to assure me that buses don’t leave from there to Montezuma, so I’m thinking ‘shit’ but that was the only thing I had to go on. So I said “just drive”.

Sure enough that guy was talking out of his ass, I hopped on the bus with my friends and we were off. Then one of those trip altering things happened, the bus’s tire blew. Consequently, we missed our ferry to cross the Nicoya channel by about one painful minute. We were stuck in Puntarenas for 4 hours until the next ferry left at 9 pm, keep in mind we still had no idea where we were sleeping that night and hostels don’t stay open that late. So there was really only one thing left to do, drink beer.

This is about the time where worlds collided. My friend, Hannah, from my Spanish class randomly walks into the same bar that I’m at with two guys from Belgium, whom she met on a bus in Panama. In true spontaneous fashion, I ended up hanging out with those guys for the whole weekend.

We finally made it to Montezuma at nearly midnight - one of the girls I had come with had met a guy on the ferry that hooked us up at The Hotel Montezuma. We were all exhausted from a long day of travel but that was no excuse to waste the evening. There was only one bar in town named “Chicos” right on the beach and it was bangin’. There were a ton of people dancing, drinking and smoking. The song “California Girls” by Katy Perry came on and that was my cue to take over the dance floor. After dancing up a sweat, I went for a 3 am swim in the cool pacific. I somehow always end up in the water by the end of the night.

The following morning, the girls I were with wanted to go zip lining but I had already done that. I met up with my friend Hannah and the two guys from Belgium, François & Chris, to hike to the famous waterfalls of Montezuma.



Getting there was like this mystical journey, I felt like Tarzan girl, barefoot climbing up rocks, crossing streams and stepping over/crawling under huge tree roots. We eventually made it to the first waterfall and it was stunning - everything that you envision Costa Rica to be. There was a cool jumping rock and I dived off of it a few times…and then I got a little too daredevily…

Wanna read about my near-death experience?! (sorry mom & dad) …


A whirlpool of water splashed around me as I gazed upwards, I was determined - I wanted to climb the face of the waterfall. I made a huge leap through the tower of water and grabbed the rock behind. Using all my strength, I pulled my body up onto a ledge.

Hanging by the tips of my fingers, I began to muscle my way up the face of the 30 foot monster. I hugged the rocks as tight as I could as a mountain of water cascaded behind me. The blurred outline of those standing at the waterholes edge flickered through the glassy veil. I continued to climb. I extended my arm to grab for a distant rock and then suddenly…time stopped...


The rock gave way… the lifeline grasped between my fingers crumbled in slow motion. Claimed by the jetting force of the water, my body ripped from the wall. I was going down. Falling, I bounced off a lower rock and rolled into the depths beneath. Held down by the plunging turbulence, I kicked hard to break the surface. I gasped for a breath and checked my vitals…

Not a single scratch.

Call me dumb & call me lucky.


Instead of continuing on to the other waterfalls, we decided to go make lunch. The boys and I stopped in at the grocery store and picked up some tropical fruits and all the necessary ingredients for a Mango Guacamole fiesta. We headed back to their hostel, ‘Luz en el Cielo’ and had an awesome lunch. It was really cool hostel too, this badass Colorado raised chick named Abbie started up the place at just 24 years old! She fell in love with Costa Rica and wanted to live there so she drew up a business plan fresh out of college and made things happen.

That night I went back to ‘Chicos’ with all of the Canadian, German and Swiss people I had met up at the hostel. My friend from Belgium, François & I started dancing up a storm. Before I knew it a large circle had formed around us and we we’re the only ones dancing in it. We were in the zone, that’s for sure.

Once again I went for a night swim and marveled at the gazillions of stars that filled the sky. The following morning I bummed a ride back to San Jose from an Ecotourism Class that was on a fieldtrip to Montezuma.

That place is incredible, I’m planning on staying in Costa Rica for 6 extra days after my classes end and I’ve decided that I’m going back to Montezuma and going to check out Santa Teresa and surf ‘Mal Pais’. Sorry for the lack of photos to accompany this entry, I forgot my camera in my hasty 5 minute pack job.

Pura Vida!

photo cred: Hannah Byers-Straus

Things I love about you, San Jose

Dear San Jose,


Some of your streets are filthy and dangerous. At first I was scared of you...terrified actually. It took nearly two months and some courage to get to know the real you, but now that I have, I feel like I'm ready to take our relationship to the next level.

Love,
Gringa

San Jose is actually awesome, there are always people in the streets just going about their business. The streets are so alive, I love the chaos. The market place is so colorful and looks like a patch-work. There is awesome people watching (not in a creepy way) and time doesn't seem to matter here, almost no one wears watches. The bus will take you just about anywhere and its a great way to see the city. The thing I love about it most is that I've never had to sit next to a sketchy bum like in L.A., just everyday normal folk ridin' the bus and doing their thing. I found a really awesome rock climbing gym about a 45 min bus ride into San Jose with two transfers. I have a lot more exploring to do!

Happy Thanksgiving!

Hangin' Out With the Sea Turtles

Imagine a magical place where stars glow in the water and sea turtles line the shore, the moonshine glistens off their shells. It's almost midnight but your eyes have adjusted to the dark, the white sea foam dances in the tide. You run as fast as you can, free as ever, each footstep lighting a burst of luminescence in your wake. You splash kick the water, rearranging the constellations of aqua glow-bugs - they spark, sizzle and fade away into the sea.

This is Ostional, a small beach community on the pacific side of Costa Rica in Puntarenas. It is the nesting site for millions of sea turtles yearly. The turtle eggs are valuable and are extracted by the locals for sales and consumption. A large part of the economy of Ostional is based on this activity. Before you go judging this as 'tragic' as I did before actually seeing it for myself, it is important to know the whole story.

The turtles come to nest monthly in waves of mass arrivals known as 'arribadas' in Spanish. Over the course of about five days, the females will leave as many as 10 million eggs buried in the sand. Due to overcrowding, scavenging animals, fungi, fishing nets, hungry fish and other environmental conditions in and out of the water, only about 1% of all those eggs will mature into surviving baby sea turtles. On the first day of the arrival about 20,000 turtles will come ashore to lay eggs, the following day 30,000. The stretch of beach they come to is only 7 km long, the eggs laid the first two days only have a 15% chance of making it to the last day. The community members only extract eggs on the first two days, each family in the community’s association (about 200 members) is allowed just 200 eggs. In reality, the community has done more to help the turtles then harm them, as seen by the increase in population since Ostional became a community 100 years ago.

A beautiful afternoon, watching the surfers

An "Arribada" of sea turtles
I got to see this turtle dig a hole, lay her eggs, discretely cover them up and then wiggle back into the sea
She laid about 150 eggs in 40 minutes
A local showing his family's artisanal craftwork The turtle eggs can be consumed in a variety of fashions, one way is by taking a shot...
As you can tell, it didn't go down quite as smoothly as I had hoped

The Jungle Ghost

This entry is rather overdue, so a very very belated ‘boo!’ to you!

Over Halloween weekend, my Tropical Ecology class took our first fieldtrip into the jungle and it was most certainly a memorable one. We went to ‘La Selva Biological Station’ in Sarapiquí on the Caribbean side of the country. The trip was an incredible learning experience and gave me the chance to apply what I have learned about ecological processes in a real world setting. I even got to see one of the world’s deadliest snakes!

A bit about the biological station:
My class spent two days and one night at the research facility and our job was to observe and learn as much as we could. The Organization for Tropical Studies (OTS) is a non-profit organization that runs the La Selva as well as two other stations in Costa Rica; Las Cruces and Palo Verde. La Selva is the second largest reserve (4037 acres) and was founded in 1963. The topography of the southern region is extreme; La Selva sits at approximately 35 meters in elevation and quickly jets up to approx. 3,000 m at its southern border, Braulio Carrillo National Park. Over 61 km of trails run throughout the reserve and are used by scientists, students and faculty daily. So basically…biologist Disneyland! A collection of every piece of research ever conducted in La Selva is on reserve in the station’s library, that place rocks. During my short time there I really only got a small taste of what La Selva has to offer.

In the evening we went on a nocturnal adventure into the jungle. The forest is as alive as ever at night and feels completely different from the day time world. Equipped with nothing more than some flashlights and nerves of steel, we followed one another down the dark path. Our guide would shine his light into the vegetation and we would all look for the reflection of animal eyes. This reflection was key in finding various species of frogs, bats, birds and bugs. As we walked along, I couldn’t help but feel a ghostly presence tracing along behind. It was probably just my imagination running amuck but the deeper we went into the forest, the closer we came to booming muffled bass drum, BOOM.BOOM.BOOM - Much like the one from Lord of the Rings when one of the dumb hobbits awakens the troll in the Dwarf cave. It could have been a group of biologists have a 'field day' (literally) or something that I never care to find out. All I know is that it all too suddenly just...disappeared.