Hi everyone! So I haven’t been good
at updating this yet, but we've actually done a lot since arriving on Friday
morning. After a long night of traveling on Friday, we arrived into San
Jose where Ingrid, the taxi driver for Maximo Nivel picked us up. We hung
out there for awhile, and then decided to take a trip to Manuel Antonio
National Park for the weekend, which I'm glad we did because we didn't know
what else to do around San Jose for the weekend! So we took a 20 min cab ride
into downtown San Jose to the Coca Cola bus station, and our taxi driver bought
our tickets as we stayed inside with doors locked. Everything feels
pretty safe around here, but certain areas you have to be more careful!
Anyways, we took a four hour
bus ride on Saturday morning to Manuel Antonio through the mountains, beautiful
views, and interesting driving! We arrived at out Backpackers hostel and
headed top the beach. Although, the touristy atmosphere added to the cost of
dinners and lunches, the beach was beautiful, and we even saw a monkey eating a
banana on the side of the road. We shared a hostel with about 6 others,
and the entire hostel atmosphere was perfect. We met other travelers from
around the world, hung out on the sofas Saturday night. The next morning
we awoke early, then went to the National Park where we bargained with a tour
guide, then took a tour of the national park. The guide used his
telescope to spot sloths, frogs, monkeys, etc. in the trees! The beaches were
our next priority, where the water felt like a bath and the sand was bordered
by palm trees and forests. Oh and the monkeys trying to steal people's
things.
Our host family is awesome... there
are many volunteers that stay there, and there are probably 9 extra rooms in
the house. Our host mom, Marita, cooks delicious food and is very laid back
about our comings and goings.
Our volunteer placement is at a
government run foster house, PANI, where about 10 kids live. I was very
impressed with the house, as it even has an in ground swimming pool. This
morning when we arrived, Abby and Stephanie immediately were given the task of
washing all the windows, and I was given the 2 month old, Jedrech to burp and
hold for 2 hours. He is absolutely adorable, and I learned a lot about
caring for tiny babies in the first day! I found out from one of the
caregivers, called "Auntie" that he has a sickness from his mom using
drugs during pregnancy. We did some exercises to help increase his
movement.
Anyways, I love it down here! The
people are very nice, food is good, and I am very happy with the volunteer
placement.
If you've read this far, I apologize
for how choppy my writing is, I’m in a hurry! I will write more later in the
week, and I hope you are all doing well!
