Hello from Puerto Viejo de Sarapiqui we have arrived here for our week of free travel. The last week we were in Gandoca close to the Costa Rican and Panamanian border where we helped with leatherback turtles. We would either have to go out from 8 pm to 12 am or 12 am to 4 am on the beach to patrol. Once on the beach we would be lead by a guide where we would walk in one of two areas and look for turtles who were laying eggs. It was a tough job having to be awake so late into the night and sacrificing our bodies to tons of mosquitoes and sand flies. We learned alot about the turtles and the orginization and how important the turtles are to the local community. We left Gandoca on Thursday and took around a 5 hour bus ride to Sarapiqui where we will just relax and some people may go horseback riding or white water tubing. We are all living in one house with a shared kitchen so everyone is stocking on groceries and cooking their own meals. We are excited for this week and the next week for Scuba in Roatan.
Trivia
Gandoca had a population of 400.
The first time that leatherbacks come onto the beach they can lay up to 150 eggs.
Each turtle lays small eggs that won´t hatch to help keep a good temperature for the rest of the eggs.
The organization we worked with was a women´s organization.
Sarapiqui has a population of 49,327 and is divided into 5 districts.
Saturday, April 24, 2010
Friday, April 16, 2010
Our group with Tyler and Chloe of Parque Maderas at our Carpe Prom. Look at how real we look...we dressed up as best we could for the occasion.
All geared up for the longest zip line in Nicaragua...except for the three chicas at the end who were too cool to put their helmets back on for the photo.
Beautiful sunset in San Juan del Sur..
Hannah, Brian, and Heather went Volcano boarding outside Leon...we had such sweet outfits to wear.
Street art in Leon during Easter Week AKA Semana SantaZippy maybe the Zippiest
Hola from Costa Rica!
After traveling on bus for most of yesterday we made it. But before we got here we did some awesome things at Parque Mederas. We helped the family to build the kiln for Tyler and even got to try our hands at spinning a pot on the foot powered wheel, its a lot harder than it looks or sounds. Before we left we even got to see the kiln in action as it glowed red and smoked all day firing pots. We also volunteered at Barrio Plantas, an NGO in San Juan del Sur that an american started a few years back. At Barrio Plantas kids come after school to learn English, classes taught entirely in English, paint, glue dream catchers and glitter together and salsa dance with hips that do not lie. We helped out in classes on two afternoons entertaining them during recess and refereeing glue usage in art class, as well as trying our rythm during the dance class. We also headed to an adult education school and each of us took on a student for an hour and worked at teaching the students English. We all have a much deeper appreciation for our Spanish teachers and the ESL teachers around the states, English is hard! Not to mention that we all speak in slang normally anyway and most of our words have two meanings depending on spelling, or at least multiple pronounciations depending on which bit of the states were from. But it was a totally awesome experience that we all enjoyed.
Wednesday we embraced our last day in Nicaragua and headed off zip-lining! It was absolutely fantastic! We strapped into our harnesses, buckled our helmets, pulled on our leather - please slow me down!- gloves and headed to the top of the 17 seperate lines. It was amazing zooming across the wires and being treated to amazing views of the ocean and San Juan del Sur. We even saw a sloth in a tree next to a path near the wires. By the time we got to the last line and finished our foray with almost flying, we all wanted to do it again. Instead of hopping back on the lines though, we had another amazing meal from Tyler and spent the afternoon catching the last waves surfing and sunning on the beach. That night we threw a prom for those missing it at home. It was a great excuse to scrub up in the shower and dig through our bags for clothes smelling faintly better than average and possibly even making us look like our former US selves. Needless to say it was a riot and we even included those awkward prom photos in front of the amazing Parque Mederas sunset. Yesterday we crossed the border, with customs line even more ridiculous than in an airport - if you can believe it- but we finally made it to our awesome hostel in San Jose, Costa Rica. We spent the day shopping and relaxing, working up to another long bus ride tomorrow to our turtle project near the Panama boarder. Were all super excited to walk the beachs and save some eggs!
Trivia for the week
- the zip line we flew down is one of the longest in Nicaragua, over 2 km
-the people in Costa Rica call themselves Ticos
-Ticos call San Jose, Chepe
- San Jose houses over one third of all Costa Ricans
After traveling on bus for most of yesterday we made it. But before we got here we did some awesome things at Parque Mederas. We helped the family to build the kiln for Tyler and even got to try our hands at spinning a pot on the foot powered wheel, its a lot harder than it looks or sounds. Before we left we even got to see the kiln in action as it glowed red and smoked all day firing pots. We also volunteered at Barrio Plantas, an NGO in San Juan del Sur that an american started a few years back. At Barrio Plantas kids come after school to learn English, classes taught entirely in English, paint, glue dream catchers and glitter together and salsa dance with hips that do not lie. We helped out in classes on two afternoons entertaining them during recess and refereeing glue usage in art class, as well as trying our rythm during the dance class. We also headed to an adult education school and each of us took on a student for an hour and worked at teaching the students English. We all have a much deeper appreciation for our Spanish teachers and the ESL teachers around the states, English is hard! Not to mention that we all speak in slang normally anyway and most of our words have two meanings depending on spelling, or at least multiple pronounciations depending on which bit of the states were from. But it was a totally awesome experience that we all enjoyed.
Wednesday we embraced our last day in Nicaragua and headed off zip-lining! It was absolutely fantastic! We strapped into our harnesses, buckled our helmets, pulled on our leather - please slow me down!- gloves and headed to the top of the 17 seperate lines. It was amazing zooming across the wires and being treated to amazing views of the ocean and San Juan del Sur. We even saw a sloth in a tree next to a path near the wires. By the time we got to the last line and finished our foray with almost flying, we all wanted to do it again. Instead of hopping back on the lines though, we had another amazing meal from Tyler and spent the afternoon catching the last waves surfing and sunning on the beach. That night we threw a prom for those missing it at home. It was a great excuse to scrub up in the shower and dig through our bags for clothes smelling faintly better than average and possibly even making us look like our former US selves. Needless to say it was a riot and we even included those awkward prom photos in front of the amazing Parque Mederas sunset. Yesterday we crossed the border, with customs line even more ridiculous than in an airport - if you can believe it- but we finally made it to our awesome hostel in San Jose, Costa Rica. We spent the day shopping and relaxing, working up to another long bus ride tomorrow to our turtle project near the Panama boarder. Were all super excited to walk the beachs and save some eggs!
Trivia for the week
- the zip line we flew down is one of the longest in Nicaragua, over 2 km
-the people in Costa Rica call themselves Ticos
-Ticos call San Jose, Chepe
- San Jose houses over one third of all Costa Ricans
Thursday, April 8, 2010
Wet Maybe the Wetest
Hola from San Juan Del Sur!!! The weeks been going amazing, we arrived after a nice 4 hour bus ride from Leon Monday afternoon and everyone really seems to be enjoying themselves. Were staying at a hostel called Parque Maderas, which is incredible we can see the beutiful beach down the hill and in the and in the afternoons the temperature cools down, which has been a nice change from Leon.
The days have been full of the nicest surfing which everyone has enjoyed, the first day the group took lessons from two local surfers which was great since everyone learned so fast and now were all going out on our own.
The project for the week is to make a kilm for the upcoming art studio at Parque Maderas. A local family of potters are coming to help design and build the kilm, after it is complete it will be used for local art students and anyone staying at Parque Maderas.
This week end we plan to go on a boat trip and are going to try to snorkle in preperation for our upcoming scuba trip.
Besides that all is well and the food has been great!
And heres the trivia of the week...
Parque Maderas is a really cool project that Tyler has been working on for eight years. He originally came down to central america to start a bar with his friends, but he ended up in Nicaragua starting an incredible business. His vision is to have a hostel and restaurant for business purposes but he also has a huge garden for medicinal plants and is building and art stuido where he wants local artists to be able so stay and study. There will also be a small clinic with information about natural healing where locals can come learn and even take many of the plants home to their families. To check out more, you can go to his website http://www.parquemaderas.com/
The days have been full of the nicest surfing which everyone has enjoyed, the first day the group took lessons from two local surfers which was great since everyone learned so fast and now were all going out on our own.
The project for the week is to make a kilm for the upcoming art studio at Parque Maderas. A local family of potters are coming to help design and build the kilm, after it is complete it will be used for local art students and anyone staying at Parque Maderas.
This week end we plan to go on a boat trip and are going to try to snorkle in preperation for our upcoming scuba trip.
Besides that all is well and the food has been great!
And heres the trivia of the week...
Parque Maderas is a really cool project that Tyler has been working on for eight years. He originally came down to central america to start a bar with his friends, but he ended up in Nicaragua starting an incredible business. His vision is to have a hostel and restaurant for business purposes but he also has a huge garden for medicinal plants and is building and art stuido where he wants local artists to be able so stay and study. There will also be a small clinic with information about natural healing where locals can come learn and even take many of the plants home to their families. To check out more, you can go to his website http://www.parquemaderas.com/
Saturday, April 3, 2010
Photos
All of us in Heather and Adams appartment during our potluck in Xela
The view from the top of the Devils Nose on our third trek day. It was totally worth it to get up at 4 just to see this sunrise over Lake Atitlan.
Do you see that tiny tiny building on the tippy top of the tallest peak in the right hand corner...?Thats where we watched the sunrise from then we hiked down the face on this side to the bottom at Lake Atitlan. 
Our Lava Extravaganza. Griffin, Brian and Heather lingering to check everything out before our guide comes with the marshmellows for roasting. Nice and toasty. 
Friday, April 2, 2010
Sweaty Definitley the Sweatiest
Greetings from Nicaragua!!!
We arrived in the extremely hot city of Leon Sunday afternoon. The flight was rather short and we were all very excited to arrive in a new country. It was only a short busride from the airport and we learned that this part of Nicaragua is surprisingly less mountain filled than Guatemala. almost all of us are in doubles this week so we settled into our last homestays of the trip and enjoyed a nice day of relaxation and rest before our busy week ahead. We began our last week of launguage monday morning. We quickly learned that the people in Nicaragua have completely differet accents than the guatemalan ones we were used to. This week in Semana Santa so it is pretty crazy in the afternoon. We have seen various religious processions during the days all in preparation for easter. The first day we saw these beautiful murals on the streets that are made out of saw dust in various colors. They are beautiful. They take many hours of preparation and are destroyed in one day. We also went to the large cathedral in town to view some live music. The way the music echoed in the cathedral was incredible. After two days in this crazy heat we took an afternoon to go to the beach. Definitley an amazing treat after three days of spanish school. Today we completed our last day of language school and everyone was definitley excited. As we head into this extrememly religious weekend there will be even more processions in the streets and I definitely think that the temperature has rose even more. This afternoon we are going to some pretty unique festivities and then have an amazing easter to look forward to. The next post will be from the beach to we are all looking forward to that. Until then, adios.
TRIVIA
Leon was relocated to its current location in 1614 due to a volcano erruption
Alfombraas ( translates to ¨carpet¨ in spanish) are the names of the sawdust murals. These murals often depict Christ´s life, his time with his disciples, and the lives of saints.
We arrived in the extremely hot city of Leon Sunday afternoon. The flight was rather short and we were all very excited to arrive in a new country. It was only a short busride from the airport and we learned that this part of Nicaragua is surprisingly less mountain filled than Guatemala. almost all of us are in doubles this week so we settled into our last homestays of the trip and enjoyed a nice day of relaxation and rest before our busy week ahead. We began our last week of launguage monday morning. We quickly learned that the people in Nicaragua have completely differet accents than the guatemalan ones we were used to. This week in Semana Santa so it is pretty crazy in the afternoon. We have seen various religious processions during the days all in preparation for easter. The first day we saw these beautiful murals on the streets that are made out of saw dust in various colors. They are beautiful. They take many hours of preparation and are destroyed in one day. We also went to the large cathedral in town to view some live music. The way the music echoed in the cathedral was incredible. After two days in this crazy heat we took an afternoon to go to the beach. Definitley an amazing treat after three days of spanish school. Today we completed our last day of language school and everyone was definitley excited. As we head into this extrememly religious weekend there will be even more processions in the streets and I definitely think that the temperature has rose even more. This afternoon we are going to some pretty unique festivities and then have an amazing easter to look forward to. The next post will be from the beach to we are all looking forward to that. Until then, adios.
TRIVIA
Leon was relocated to its current location in 1614 due to a volcano erruption
Alfombraas ( translates to ¨carpet¨ in spanish) are the names of the sawdust murals. These murals often depict Christ´s life, his time with his disciples, and the lives of saints.
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