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Wednesday, June 22, 2011
Spanish Tutorial Assignment
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Blog Number 13
Blog number 13
Hola!
Today is our LAST DAY! Ahhh I can’t believe that its here! I will be so sad when we actually have to leave the airport and fly out of Costa Rica for good L Today is going to be dedicated to….SHOPPING! This is absolutely my favorite activity ever, and I have A LOT of people to shop for! First we took the bus to a few shops, and then we went back to the hotel. Then, Kristen, michelle, and I went to town with Johnny and went shopping there. We found a lot of stuff for our friends and family and then actually ate at a mcdonald’s! The funny part was that there were rice and beans on the menu!! After shopping around for a bit, we met a guy named Irvin who was really nice. He talked about going out with us later that night and showing us a good time. We are actually friends on facebook with him now!! After we were done shopping, we went back to the hotel and took a lot of time to pack up our suitcases. Mine was definitely over 50 lbs! Our last night in san jose we only slept for about 4 hours and then we were up and ready to go to the airport at 4 in the morning! It is very sad to finally be leaving, but I have to admit I’m a little homesick! Costa Rica was an amazing country to visit, and I fully expect to go back someday very soon! I had a great time getting to know everyone on this trip and believe that we will all still continue to be great friends in the future!
Hasta la proxima!
-Taylor
Blog Number 12
Blog Number 12
Hola!
Today we have planned to go kayaking for 3 hours! I am very excited and a little nervous because I have never been kayaking before in my life! Luckily some people in our group had been, so the weaker ones got paired with someone who was better at it. We arrived at 8 in the morning and started learning the basics. He taught us how to paddle out without getting knocked over by a wave, how to turn around, and how to use the paddle properly. Once we were out in the ocean, it was about a solid 20 or 30 min paddle out to the little chunk of island where we were gonna go snorkeling. When we arrived, we put on our masks, flippers, and life vests and jumped it! I saw many colorful fish and even some with bioluminescent pores! I think these fish are so fascinating because they glow to attract prey and to hide from enemies! We snorkeled for about an hour and then we made our way back to shore for some freshly cut pineapple ! It was absolutely delicious! I had no idea how hungry I was because we had been so busy! We were supposed to return by 11, but we were running very late and didn’t get back til almost 1 oclock! Poor Johnny had to wait for us in the bus! After we returned to land, we rushed to the bus, went back to the hotel, packed up, ate a great lunch, and then jumped back on the road again for a 4 hour ride back to San Jose! Once we arrived in San Jose, we got settled, packed up, got some food and then had some fun! Then it was time for bed, because everyone was POOPED!
Blog Number 11
Blog Number 11
Hola!
We were up bright and early again today! It’s finally time for the beach! WOO HOO!! We are all very excited to get some rays on the beautiful beach of samara! The beach is not that far away, so we got there pretty early in the morning. We immediately got ready, put on our bathing suits and sunscreen, and headed for the beach! We were out there all day! We had a great lunch and got a lot of sun!! After we were done laying out all day, we went back to the hotel to get ready for our night on the town. We went to dinner at a restaurant right next to the one we ate at for lunch. The food was great and the atmosphere was beautiful. We were supposed to go out that night, but much to jeff’s dismay, it was raining and all the girls were predictably tired.
Blog Number 11
Blog Number 11
Hola!
Today we woke up at 4:30am, and surprisingly, everyone else was awake already too. That’s what time our host son has to wake up everyday to make it to school on time. Today we are supposed to hike up to the top of a mountain with a local guide who will take us on the trail. We have no idea how long the trail is, but it sounds like its about two miles up and back down. Boy were we wrong! That was the longest hike of my life! I think I lost about 3 lbs in 2 hours walking up that mountain! It was the longest, hardest hike I have ever been on, but it was so much fun! I felt so proud of myself for making it all the way to the top! It was by far the most beautiful view I have ever had the pleasure of seeing in person. After we hiked back down, we went back to our respective houses, ate lunch, and then got ready for the second part of our day: the boat tour! I was very excited for this part of the trip because I love boat tours! It was very nice that our whole community came and shared the experience with us. We got to see some crocodiles get scared and flip quickly under the water as we passed by. We also got to see many colorful birds and different types of iguanas. The massive amounts of rain were a little depressing, but at the same time the rain was fun to run away from when the time came to get on the bus! After a full day of activities, we were absolutely exhausted! We went back to our homes again, took showers, ate dinner, and passed out! I was pretty sad to leave the next day. Although Zulay was very quiet and shy, she was very funny and sweet, and I will miss her for sure! I would love to go back to corral de piedra again some day!
Blog Number 10
Blog Number 10
Hola!
Today we woke up, excited to take the canopy tour! After looking outside at the rain, we discovered that it got canceled L we were very sad, but we did get to leave a little earlier to get to our business site. W e were also able to arrive a little earlier to our second homestay. The business we visited is called ad astra. They are a developing rocket company with lots of new and cool ideas to save money and be more efficient. Their main goal right now is to be able to travel to mars and back in less than a year. The time it takes now is about 2 full years. That’s a long time! After visiting this rocket company we headed to our next homestay. This homestay was located in corral de piedra. Upon arriving, there was a greeting plocated in corral de piedra. Upon arriving, there was a greeting party for us! All the little girls of the town had dressed up in traditional dresses and danced about 3 or 4 traditional dances for us to welcome us to their town. They also cooked some traditional foods for us and showed us some of their homemade jewelry. The jewelry is amazing to look at because it is cut very intricately. Once the party was over, we split up into groups with our host families and then went to our respective houses. I was partnered with Michelle and our host mom’s name was Zulay. I thought this was such a beautiful name. It was totally appropriate for her because she was absolutely gorgeous! She also had a son Harold who went to school an hour away on bike everyday! WheW! What a long day! Especially if it rained.. After settling in, we ate dinner with our host families and went to bed pretty early because we had a LONG day ahead of us the next day!
Blog Number 9
Blog Number 9
Hola!
Bright and early once again! We’re leaving the beautiful eco-lodge today at 6am! We’re seeing Arenal and then heading off to Rincon de la Vieja national park. Once we got to the park, we discovered we were going on a beautiful nature hike! Our goal for the day was to see a sloth! We put on our bugspray, left poor, injured Brianna behind, and set off into the forest! We were able to experience something very unique and rare upon entering the forest. We got to see a troupe of spider monkeys! They practically followed us 15 minutes into the hike.! It was really fun to try and take pictures of them because they only travel on the canopy of the forest. Javier said that he has never seen that many spide monkeys on this tour in the forest and he has been doing it for 20 years! We also got to hike through some different terrain. As we were walking along the trail we got to see a horse and a mule grazing next to us. We knew they were tame because their manes were cut and their front feet were tied together so they couldn’t run away or attack visitors. We also saw many steaming mud pits! The mud was so hot it was boiling and splashing all over the place!! After we left the park, we headed to our next hotel, which was another eco lodge. Upon arrival, we checked in, unpacked our stuff, and did some yoga! This was a really fun part of the day because it was the first time I had worked out since we began this trip. I knew my abs and hip flexors were gonna hurt later from that! I also managed to pull something in the back of my upper leg. I never really figured out what it was, but it really freakin hurt! We finished the evening with a lovely meal, and then some of us hung out at the bar and then went to bed!
Blog Number 8
Blog Number 8
Hola!
Today we awoke to a delicious breakfast at our eco lodge and then a meeting with the owner of the eco-lodge. She told us about the struggle they’ve had to get the eco lodge up and running. She also explained that they’ve only owned it themselves for about 6 years and that there were a lot of financial loopholes to jump through for them to get it and keep it. I was very impressed by their determination to make the eco lodge a success. They knew it was a great idea and a great location and even though they didn’t have enough money, someone else had faith in their idea and helped them and now they have a great little eco lodge set up! It was such a great experience to stay there and see the different types of sustainability. After our meeting there was an opportunity to go to a waterfall. I actually didn’t go, but I got to see a lot of great pictures of the waterfall! I chose to stay by the pool and get a little tan and take a nap! After everyone returned from the waterfall visit, we started getting ready to go to visit the maleku tribe! The maleku tribe is an indigenous tribe of Costa Rica. There actual village is located in another area, but we were able to see a lot of their traditions and customs at the reserve we went to. We were also able to purchase souvenirs made by their people as a way of earning income! They showed us a bunch of different masks and they each had different meanings. My favorite mask of all was the mask with the two macaws. This mask symbolizes mates for life. I chose to buy a small shell with this symbol on it for my grandparents because they have been married for 54 years and are very happy together! The reservation was very beautiful and lush and had a lot of interesting wildlife and insects and other funny little animals.(ducks with funny head puffs!)
Blog Number 7
Blog Number 7
Hola!
The next day we woke up and milked a cow! We were very sad to leave after meeting this great family and having delicious food, but it was still exciting to set off to the next location on our adventure! The homestay visit was a very humbling experience for me. It was eyeopening in the sense that there are people who live out there with a lot less than us that are happy and content in life.
The rest of the day was dedicated to…DRIVING! For about 5 hours! …but finally, after all the driving, we arrived to the most beautiful hotel I had ever seen with the best view of a volcano in the whole wide world! It was an ECO-lodge in la fortuna, and it was absolutely gorgeous! The pool by itself was marvelous! We immediately ran to our rooms, out on our suits, and jumped in the pool! It was so refreshing! Then we went to a great restaurant recommended to us by Javier and ate good food and drank a pina colada out of a pineapple! Lastly, we got to visit an amazing hot spring! Boy was that relaxing after all the days of business visits and staying in san marcos! I felt like a new person after we left that night! We also got to enjoy a delicious dinner provided by the hot springs place. We ate steak, fish, chicken, salad, rice and beans, and got to drink a really good fruit punch with dinner. We got to meet a lot of different people there and enjoy a really neat experience. This was my first time going to hot springs, and I hope it won’t be my last!
Blog Number 6
Blog Number 6
Hola!
Second day in homestay: Our homestay mother and father were sooo cute! And soooo SWEEET! They were very accommodating and seemed to have essentially all the same necessities that we have. It was VERY hot in San Marcos. It is probably the hottest place I have ever traveled to. Even our host mother, Felicia, said that she has lived there for 18 years and still isn’t accustomed to the weather! We slept great the first night and woke up around 6. The first thing we saw in San Marcos was the pineapple fields and the other crops they harvest. I thought it was very interesting that the farmers hand plant each pineapple! They only make 3 colones per pineapple! After the tour, our host father showed us his barn and how they made cheese everyday. He also chopped open a coconut for us so we could try the milk. It tasted NOTHING like coconut in the US. We enhance the flavor so much! After that we got to see all his cattle.. They poop…A LOT! Then we got to rest for awhile and eat some lunch and take a nap. Later we got to play soccer with Christopher and his friends in the evening and then we left to see a beautiful view of a river in the community. After a full day we passed out at around 8 or 9 oclock!
Blog Number 5
Blog Number 5
Hola!
YAY! ITS FINALLY HERE! Today we are leaving San Jose to see a volcano, a coffee plantation, and travel to our first homestay! This was the part of the trip I was really looking forward to! It was a lot of driving, but ABSOLUTELY worth it. The volcano was crazy to look at! The top of it look green almost. It smelled very strongly of sulfur and was smoking like crazy. We were told that it erupted 18 times the day before! Buttttt it didn’t erupt for us L We also walked to a lagoon that had a GORGEOUS view and some really beautiful birds (which Javier spotted of course) and then we walked back and bought some souvenirs and food at the store near the volcano.
The coffee plantation was amazing! They let us sample some of their coffee upon arrival, and then we started the tour. I thought the process of how they made coffee was very interesting, but a little outdated compared to the systems in the US. It works for them, though, and that’s what matters. The most interesting part of the tour to me was the explanation of the peaberry. The peaberry is the best coffee bean of all. It is grown inside of a cherry and then the cherry is peeled away after they are picked. It is a whole bean as opposed to a half bean like the others, and that is why it is considered to be the best! The pickers get paid by the bucket and can only make up to 24 dollars a day. A lot of them travel from Nicaragua and live on the plantation until the picking season is over. The plantation houses them during their stay so they don’t have to pay for lodging. I would still LOVE to go and pick for a summer despite what everyone says about me never doing it!!!!! haha
The drive to the homestay was about 3 or 4 hours. We got there after dark and the dirt road that we took to get there was like 30 miles long! What a butt massage! We arrived very late and went right to sleep after settling in!
Blog Number 4
Blog Number 4
Hola!
WHEW! Finally a more relaxing day! Today we are going to visit the University of Costa Rica and going to the National Museum of Costa Rica. My first impression of the campus of UCR was wow! What a gorgeous campus!...but then I took a closer look and saw that it was very dirty and there was a lot of graffiti and trash! I was especially surprised by the trash because of Costa Rica’s attempt to go green. I was also a little shocked because our campus at ASU is very clean and we aren’t even the greenest campus. The butterfly garden we visited was absolutely magical and the courtyard in the middle of the economics building was gorgeous and open and totally unexpected.
The museum really wasn’t as interesting as I thought it was going to be. I think in the US we put a lot more time and effort into creating a museum with a lot of interesting things and a lot of information about everything. I thought it was a lot larger than it actually was, but the exhibits really weren’t very extensive. When we first went in, I couldn’t figure out why it was so cheap , but then I realized how few exhibits there were and thought maybe that was why. All in all though, it was a nice visit compared to business visits and was also right next to a great market!
Blog Number 3
Blog Number 3
Hola!
It’s day number three and we’re up again at 5am, and the sun is already shining. Today we are going to be visiting three hospitals: Clinica Biblia, CIMA, and Blanco Cervantes. We will be observing the differences between public and private hospitals and also taking a closer look at medical tourism.
The first hospital we visited was called Clinica Biblia. The hospital was about 80 years old and literally looked like it had been built two years ago! It is, of course, a private hospital and very nice looking. This hospital is very popular for medical tourism because there are nice rooms and many beds for people to recover in after surgery. The hospital is expensive for Costa Ricans, but compared to hospitals in the US, it is dirt cheap! The rooms were extremely nice and very spacious. I was interested to see the neonatal unit. The rooms had a bed for the mother and child and then had a separate room for sitting, feeding, resting, and watching tv! This room was only 500$ a night! That type of room in the US would have been 2 or 3 times that amount.
The second hospital we visited was the public hospital. BOY was it the complete opposite of Clinica Biblia. I felt very unsafe when we drove up to the entrance. We were told to be very careful with all of our belongings because someone might try to steal them from us! This hospital was very big and very crowded. The rooms were a lot smaller and most of them had two beds! This clinic was for the public of course. Costa Rican citizens pay 9% of their income for all of their medical expenses. I thought it was very interesting that ALL medical expenses are covered by this money. So basically if you had cancer and you went to this hospital, they would have to treat you for it no matter how expensive it was. In the US we have to pay for everything separately and most surgeries or treatments are VERY expensive!
The third hospital we visited is called CIMA. This hospital is VERY big on medical tourism. They have many different units and their surgeons actually try not to work in groups, which is quite different than in the US. This hospital was in a more remote location compared to the city and was surrounded by developing hotels. This is a great business opportunity for them because guests coming for medical tourism also have places to stay before and after surgery to recover. We ended this lovely visit with A LOT of rain!!
Blog Number 2
Blog Number 2
Hola!
It’s day number two and we are up bright and EARLY! At 5am this morning the sun was shining right through our window and the city was already lively and pumping with cars and people! That is so different in comparison to the US! No one is up and walking around until around 7 or 8 am! We have two visits today. Our first visit will be with TICO Electronics, and our second one will be with INCAE. I don’t really know anything about either of these places, but I’m interested to find out what they are all about! So far we’ve only driven around really dirty and poor areas of San Jose. I really hope that we can see other places that are more developed and less dangerous!
TICO Electronics was a very interesting facility! I think it is so neat that they do everything by hand! It is amazing to see a company that was so small, grow into something very efficient and successful. They seem like very nice employers that look out for their employees, and they all seem like a big family! The working conditions of the facility were very nice. There were many fans and music so the workers don’t get overheated or bored. The employees also take breaks every hour to stretch their wrists and arms to prevent carpal tunnel injuries and arthritis! There were also many different parts of the building where they focus on different parts that they are manufacturing. I absolutely cannot believe they make all these parts by hand! I was a little disappointed by how much the workers were paid! It was only 4 dollars an hour! No one would be able to survive on that salary in the US, but I guess it’s different because the cost of living is a lot lower in Costa Rica. I believe he said they manufacture 30,000 parts a week! That seems impossible since they’re making the parts by hand, but these workers make them so quickly! I thought this was a very interesting company to visit.
INCAE had the most BEAUTIFUL campus I have ever seen! It is the number one school in Latin America and rated within the top 25 universities of the world. Something that you MUST know about this university is that it is NOT a Costa Rican University! I thought it was very funny how much emphasis the presenter put on this. Apparently it is a common misconception people have that they would like to avoid. They are a very prestigious university that is very careful in their selection of students. They accept students from all countries and have no more 20 percent of each race which is pretty impressive. I have never heard of INCAE before, so I was not surprised to find out that they do not advertise. They figure that people who find them and graduate from their rigorous program will spread word of their amazing school and eventually more people will be interested in applying. I was very interested in their method of teaching. He described it as a “cratic” method. He also compared the university to Harvard. I thought it was interesting that he asked about the movie “Legally Blonde” because in the movie, they describe the method of teaching at Harvard as a “cratic” method as well. SO ha! That movie can teach you some things! I really enjoyed hearing about their different programs for the master’s degrees. I know just from speaking to this man one time that I would NEVER be able to endure this ridiculously hard program!
Blog Number 1
Hey Guys!
I can’t believe it’s finally here!!! It is May 23rd, 2011 and we have just arrived at our hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica!! Our two week adventure has finally begun! I’m very tired from all the travelling, but I’m too excited to explore the surroundings of our hotel to take a nap! I’m very excited to see how different it will be living in a Latin American country! It’s already raining, and I’m sure were in for A LOT more in the weeks ahead, but no worries! We will still have a great time! So far we’ve met our tour guide and our bus driver and they seem very nice! Also, the hotel we are staying in is very nice and our room is huge! Seems like we have a great group of people! I can’t wait to get to know everyone!
Monday, June 20, 2011
Picture
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Thought it was SO awesome that the Del Monte Corp. building was right across the street from our hotel in San Jose! |
Q&A for Questions about Costa Rica
1. In what ways does this book portray Costa
Rica as a place of “alternatives and possibilities” ?
2. Was there a lot of undiscovered artwork by indigenous people because
of racism and oppression?
I think that much of the artwork done by indigenous people was either undiscovered or hidden because they weren’t respected or acknowledged.
3. Was the king able to help the Indians get their land back and keep control
of it?
Yes and no. He was able to help them acquire the land again, but he was unable to control trespassing by locals who wanted to take the land for themselves.
4. Was a policy ever created that limited the number of blacks a company
could hire?
I believe that they eventually created a policy because of the complaints of the unemployed Costa Ricans, but it doesn’t mean that it was enforced or followed.
5. How long can Costa Rica remain passive/neutral?
I believe that the neutrality and passivity of Costa Rica is coming to an end very soon. The citizens of this country are very obviously unsettled about a number of things being done/not being done by the government.
6. What will happen to Costa rica when the “great reserves of uncultivated
land” is used up? This is their “escape valve” for any possible social friction.
People will lose interest in visiting Costa Rica for the lush rainforests if they all disappear. Not only would they lose a lot of business in the tourism industry, they would also lose a lot of heritage that makes their country unique.
7. Will Costa Rica branch out into “difficult enterprises” to gain success and
reward if the economy takes a turn for the worst?
Costa Rica has never been competitive or aggressive in any aspect since they chose to get rid of their military. I think that if the economy went far enough downhill, that they might branch out into different markets and explore all options to get themselves out of the hole.
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