Some news after so much time!

13-28/06/2011

Long time without giving any news… It’s not that I’m dead but just that I didn’t have a second to give news.

The past two weeks went flying by! 2 different groups, I said goodbye to UNC Greensboro after a memorable farewell dinner. I did my first “love circle” where everyone needs to tell what she/he brought to the group and what he/she gained from the group. It was a new experience and it was interesting.

I dropped part of the group on Saturday afternoon and on Sunday morning I took the bus to go to Flamingo to receive my new group. During the journey I take care of the STV passengers because we had to wait 1 hour for a student who “forgot” he had transportation to Flamingo this morning…

On the way we stopped to have lunch and received a nice visit: wild parrots! Nice view and off course, as a good tourist, my camera always with me, I could have good shots. (Well for photo’ specialists they won’t be good but for any other person, they will be good enough to enjoy)

Heavy rain welcomed us to Flamingo… which was very nice for those in the bus, looking at it through the windows… it was a bit less nice for me who was jumping out the bus to check which student the families were waiting for. To see it on the positive side: I had free showers ;)

I got to the school at 4:30pm and my group was already waiting for me there. I dropped them at their houses and went to my apartment. I shared with Ciera, another chaperone I had already met in Heredia.

Not a lot to say about this week apart that it went very quick. The group was nice and quite easy to deal with. They were only 21 kids aged from 16 to 18 and the 3 teachers were good and helpful. We did the canopy which was nice because in the middle of the forest but nothing to compare from the Canopy in Monteverde. The storm caught us in the middle of the tour and we finished soaked wet! The rain was so hard that you couldn’t keep your eyes open…quite scary when you are suppose to brake to stop…but we managed it and all finished alive. Or at least I came back with the same number of studends...can't promise it was the same, but the number was correct :P

The HUGE thing about this week was the boat tour we did on Wednesday. That was one of the best tour I’ve done so far. We were on a boat with free open bar… don’t look at me like that: it was non alcoholic drinks for us. The catamaran headed though the deep water and after an hour navigating, we reached a creek where we were able to do some snorkeling. The water wasn’t very clear but we were able to see some very nice fishes and shellfishes. During the entire journey we were able to relax listening to music: PURA VIDA.

Don't ask question....please don't ;)

One of the girls in my group wanted to see the pictures I took with my camera. After telling her to be careful, she put the safety strap of the camera around her arm but keep the protective pouch in the other hand. I wasn’t looking at her but hear a “Ooooh” and knew at once that something wrong had happen…well to be polite, I would say that my student try to teach to my other battery and my money how to swing…except that it didn’t work and my battery and money are now in the middle of the sea. Of course, the time she asked me what had fallen into the sea, the battery and the 20 000 colones bill (=40$ =30€) which was stuck inside the plastic case were far away and far under the sea level…no hope to have it back. I was a “bit” annoyed but managed to keep cool and laugh about it… well there was nothing else I could do, screaming and crying wouldn’t have changed anything! Better taking it smoothly and be relaxed. The worst part being that I bought the battery especially for this trip because I wanted to be able to take a lot of pictures without ever being without battery… Well I’ll have to be careful and plan the “charge” stop during our trekking in Panama and Colombia.

Apart from that, we had a blast!

It was Paige birthday and I must admit the tour was a perfect gift for her. I myself offered her an unforgettable gift, a typical “Clara” one…I helped her to skip from the boat… Ok ok… I admit it…I pushed her from the boat… BUT I wasn’t alone so it’s less severe no? Ok ok I planned it with the boys…I’m unforgivable… and I’m not sorry at all! I will do it without any doubt!

The time spent at the beach was nice even if rain came to see us a lot of time: can’t complain, it’s the wet season here. The crazy smoothie lady came back:

My kids did love me a lot: one even tattooed my name on her arm ;)

 

After the Mora group I had 3 days off. That was quite funny because when Arelys called me to tell me I was free, she didn’t stop before saying “there is a transportation for Monteverde…”. I think that everyone know I’m a Monteverde addict and that there is no point of wanting sending me somewhere else when I can go there. Some of you can say it’s stupid to always to back there and that I should take this time to discover more about Costa Rica. They would be right but at the same time, I already saw a lot of Costa Rica and where I didn’t go, I can’t go just for 2 days because the transportation takes 5 hours and leave at midday. And well to be honest, I enjoyed so much Monteverde that I want to take advantage of it as much as I can.

The second day I was there, my “son” was waiting for me in front of my house. How did he know I was back and I was living there again, I had no idea but he was waiting for me! That made me very happy! I had brought him a little ball and a bone and he enjoyed them immensely.

 One of the nights I was able to sit outside my flat to work because the weather was just perfect. Meggie, my wonderful flatmate (she made a wonderful Gallo Pinto just for me!!!) took me in the action!

My last day in Monteverde was synonyms of shopping and fun! First I had to say goodbye to my flipflop, it was time for them…RIP. So I went down town to buy a new pair. And when you buy a pair of shoes you need to buy a dress it’s the rule isn’t it? Oo it’s not? Well too late… :D

At night we went out with Meggie to have a farewell drink together. I passed at the school to give some stuffs to Royner. I was sure he wouldn’t come because he was tired so I just try the “Come on, let’s go, you don’t have the choice, it’s my last night in Monteverde!” and I was amazed…it worked! There we met 3 Americans studying at CPI and we had a lot of fun. I made them tried the “Clara Fire” and they liked it. I’m going to be famous for that ;)

 

 Clara Fire!