We've made it back to San Jose, our final destination! A common nickname for Jose is "chepe" so a lot of locals refer to San Jose as "chepe" for short. A lot of times Josiah will introduce himself as Jose to Latin Americans so last year my Costa Rican family just started calling him Chepe also. haha. I think it's a cute name for him. We had been planning on spending our last two weeks with my Costa Rican family, but my host mom suddenly got notice that she is receiving more study abroad students. SAD! So, we are just staying in a hostel downtown. I'm doing a lot of reading and studying Spanish, while Josiah is painting and drawing. It's nice to unpack a bit and be in one spot. On Wednesday I get to meet up with my little sisters and take them to the movies. Then on Thursday we are heading over to watch my youngest sister, Nicol do some Tae kwon do (sp?). I'm really excited about still getting to see them and get some quality time in. Josiah has really bonded with Nicol. She is quite the tomboy and loves it when Josiah comes around. They are always playing basketball, soccer, hacky sack, or watching movies together. He's so excited because he's been wanting to see the movie X-Men but I wasn't too excited about it. I told Nicol she could pick the movie we see on Wednesday, and of course she picks X-Men! haha. I love to watch them have so much fun together.
Before coming back to San Jose, we did a bit more traveling around Costa Rica. After Monteverde we went to La Fortuna next to Volcan Arenal. Volcan Arenal is an active volcano that you can see the hot red lava running down during the night hours. We were staying on the opposite side of the lava, so we didn't get to see any. We had a good time. We visited an amazing waterfall and did some swimming (despite the freeeeeeezing water). We later went to Baldi Hot Springs. This place is very resort like and fancy, but also very cool. It was expensive to get in, but somehow we managed getting a discount with our hostel so we each payed 4 dollars. Pretty lucky! It's always so refreshing sitting in a hot tub with steaming hot water you know is heated naturally by the volcano at your side.
We then headed to the Pacific side of Costa Rica for some more beach action. We were on the very tip of the Nicoya Peninsula in two different small towns, Montezuma and Santa Teresa. It was a sad reality when we realized that these were our last few days at the beach. Josiah has really turned into a "beach bum"! He can never feed his appetite for playing in the waves. We rented a surfboard and a boogie board for 5 dollars a day. I just stuck to the boogie board, but I was catching the waves fairly well and having a blast. It was a really relaxing few days, and I treasured every moment.
That about wraps up what our lives look like these days. I'm experiencing my first rainy season in Central America. It's just beginning, but I find it really interesting. In San Jose its beautiful and sunny every morning and then around noon or a little after it starts to downpour for a couple of hours and then its done! It's so intriguing to me the predictability and timing of the rain. So far, it's not so bad. It definitely gets worse throughout the following months. I'll sign off for now, but next week be expecting my blog about "Things i've learned traveling in Central America". Love you guys, and see you in a week and a half!
No comments:
Post a Comment