Last night was one of those nights when your head hits the pillow (in my case the small Madagascar themed pillow), you are out. After walking from 8:15am to 2:30pm and climbing a smaller inactive volcano next to volcan Arenal called cerro chato, I was more than ready to sleep. Although my feet are still recovering, it was completely worth the effort. I made the trip with my new friend Lindsay who has been living here since last April. Her favorite hike is this hike up through the rainforest to cerro chato where you can see the crater lake that has formed there. Unfortunately for us, the cloud rain forest near the top of the mountain was indeed cloudy, and thus, we could only see about 25 feet in front of us at the lake, but that just means I will be going back. The rain forest itself was also incredible- there was so much green! Lindsay described the trees as having green fur coats, which was the perfect description of the green moss covering everything. This moss added with the hanging vines, huge green plants, and massive roots of the countless trees, I felt like I should be swinging around with Tarzan and Mogli. The number of different flowers here is also incredible. I took photos of several of these flowers which you can see in my most recent photo post (The Beginning of the hike Cerro Chato); however, the photos are only of the first part of the hike, before we got into the rain forest and to the crater lake because I, being the forgetful person I can be, forgot to bring the extra battery that I bought specifically for this trip. Although I was quite upset (especially as a Mass Communication student that studied how to use cameras), it just gives me more reason to make this trip again. When we made our return down the cerro chato, we both felt like our legs were in auto drive. We made a pit stop at the Arenal river nearby, took off our hiking boots, and let the cold water run over our feet, such a rejuvenating feeling. Encouraged to leave by some creepy guys paying us too much attention, we went back to town and purchased some much deserved and delicious fresh smoothies of banana, pineapple, orange, and papaya.
Today I am enjoying a lazy day in the beautiful place with a good run and reading my beloved Kindle in the park. Although I am missing my road bike D’Artagnan, I’m glad it is not my only means of transportation like so many people here. Today I had to duck under a 15-foot pipe of some sort that a talented tico (name for Costa Rican men) rode his bike while carrying this pipe. I can also tell my Spanish is improving just slightly every day, although it is still frustrating at times. I am also trying to remember to only use the term “usted” for “you” as the informal form “tú” is not used in this part of Costa Rica.
With it being black history month in the U.S., I’m also finding it interesting how people of African American descent are viewed here. Without a doubt, racism is very prominent here. People point out when someone is black and my host “mom” Evi explained to me that racism is present here and that many Costa Ricans view black people as not equal and somewhat dangerous. I guess unfortunately, racism is still a big problem all over the world. Although unrelated to that last observation, I’ve also noticed that it is quite common for women here to have children quite young here. Evi had her daughter at 19, and I have seen several other young women who have to be around my age carrying young toddlers around.
As far as classes are going, last night there seemed to be quite a lot going on as all but two of the police were out working late; thus, I had a short one-on-one class with one of the older, very kind police officers. He told me about how he had lived in New Orleans and worked in the Miami airport for a while. I was glad to have a more laid back class after my adventure earlier in the day.
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