6/10/14
AFS discourages an and all visits from family members during your exchange.... but I'm in paradise, how could I resist sharing my amazing life with my favorite person in the world?
Yes, I had my mom visit! And, yes, it was an amazing trip. It was so good to see her after four whole months. Really it was surreal, for four months, I had been in this new life, completely different then the one I have back home. When my mom came, it felt like photo shopping her into a bunch of familiar images.
Our first day together was mostly just driving from the airport in Alajuela to Buenos Aires. To be honest, I was a little concerned about how my two different families would interact and if anything would be awkward at all, but my mom adored my host family and my host family seemed to like her as well. We had coffee in Perez and it was dark by the time we got home, so my mom had her first Costa Rican dinner and we all headed off to bed! The next day I showed her all around my family's farm, restaurant, and the tiny town. We were done by three, and spent the rest of the day relaxing and soaking up the Pura Vida.
After that we got to go up to Durika. Durika is a mountain that looms over the town of Buenos Aires. It takes about an hour of bumpy, off road driving to get to this community of about 100 people with about thirty people who live there permanently. They built this village from scratch using horses to bring resources up the mountain, deciding to do this after noticing the deterioration of the forests caused by the growing population and pineapple farming. The people strive to live off the grid in an eco responsible way, using hydraulically created electricity, eating vegetarian food created in their garden, and tending to about 30 goats. This place is endlessly fascinating, and
you should read more about it!
My mom and I arrived a little late, we had just long enough to look around this magically beautiful place before the sun went down. The green forest and cold climate create a beautiful landscape of flowers and clouds that surround the cabins and make you ask yourself if you've stepped into a fantasy book. Plus, while I am a meat lover, I loved the vegetarian food! Over our meal of fresh goat cheese empanadas and vegetable soup, we met a friend from Brazil who was staying in the community for free for three weeks, working in the fields cutting grass for goats. It was so cold that night, definitely a change from what I had grown used to! Never-the-less, we rose early that morning to participate in morning yoga. It was a favorite moment of mine to be struggling to do some yoga pose while the sun rose and colored the world. If that wasn't good enough, at that moment a man herding the goats passed by, making for some hilarious photos!
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| Yoga and Goats! |
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| Love my mom! |
After that we got to hike to some amazingly beautiful waterfalls. Along the way we got a guided hike from our local guide, the sweetest person I've ever met! She lives in the community permanently, and she's engaged to another person who lives there. She showed us their banana plantation, the coffee fields, pointed out orchids and dangerous plants, and even found an injured hummingbird and a nest full of eggs. So beautiful! Apparently she runs along the hike we went on every day, which I found very impressive.
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| What a champ! |
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| Model Status ;) |
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| Coffee Fields |
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| Bird Eggs |
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| View of Buenos Aires from above! |
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| Our Cabin |
After a magical stay it was back down to reality and Buenos Aires! But we didn't stay there for long, my family was generous enough to take us to Manuel Antonio, the most famous national park in Costa Rica. And let me tell you, it's the most famous for a reason! This place was amazing! So much wildlife and beautiful landscape! Plus, the food was delicious. We saw so many monkies, and even a sloth, which was on my bucket list. Woohoo! They also had an abundance of tourist shops. This place was lined with souvenirs!
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| The whole family <3 |
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| A sloth! YAY! |
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| These guys were everywhere. |
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| I've never seen water so turquoise. |
After Manuel Antonio my mom and I decided to part ways with our host family and rent a car last minute to drive up to the cloud forests in Monteverde. Who says making last minute plans is a bad thing! Never mind that it took us forever to actually get our car... And the road up to Monteverde was a tad more treacherous than we had expected... and it was closed for a few hours... Well, we did get to pass through Jaco, a previous destination of Jolann and I. And we got to see beautiful Costa Rica by car! Instead of the gritty (aka gross) hostel we were staying in the night before when my host family left, I booked us a private room in a cute little hostel. So luxurious. Monteverde is a cute little town with amazing food and a lot of great shopping for tourists. We ate dinner in a treehouse that night, which was as cool as it sounds. And in the morning, we got to go ziplining! Another item crossed off my bucket list! Even though it's called the cloud forests, the clouds were lacking on the day we were there. Oh well, we still got to see amazing forests while zipping through the air and feeling like the famous Quetzal birds or superman. Then we got to go on a hike featuring thirteen hanging bridges that offer the most amazing views of the forest ever! Oh, and the wildlife didn't skimp out on this place either. There were HUNDREDS of humingbirds. What an amazing way to experience Costa Rica.
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| Eating inside a tree house! |
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| Cloud Bridges |
On our way out to leave Monteverde, I just had to ask our hotel owner about the spot on the map that said, "Climb up the inside of a tree." and I'm glad I did! Because I literally got to climb up the inside of a tree. I felt like I was a hundred feet high! And I could have gone higher if I wasn't afraid of death.
With Monteverde behind us we had Alajuela in our sights. Back to the airport and back to the U.S. Not gonna lie, I cried like a baby when I left my mom. I love her more than anyone else, and even though it was only one more month until I got to see her again, being with her once more felt so great and leaving her felt so horrible. So that's why AFS doesn't recommend it... In the end, I was fine. I cried it out on the bus home (I'm sure all the ticos were wondering what was wrong with me) and by the time I got back to my host family, I remembered why I was here! For this last month, Buenos Aires is where I belong! And I can't wait to live out the rest of my days here!
