Started the third week off strong by waking up at 5:30 AM on Saturday for a 4 hour bus ride to Monteverde. Though I slept most of the way there, I woke up just in time near the end to stare out the window and admire the scenery. It was so incredibly beautiful the drive up the mountain. There is literally no change in elevation in Dallas so it was so refreshing to see so much greenery and nature.
Once we got off the bus station, the girls went to a hostel nearby, called Mi Casa Tica. It was small and we had to sneak in a fifth person (since we only booked two double rooms), but it was very cozy and the owners were very sweet. We met Valentino (a grumpy but cute cat) and later that night, a hedgehog. Which was pretty cool. We met up with the guys and took a shuttle to the Santa Elena cloud forest reserve. The first stop on our hike was an observation deck. On a good day, you can see four volcanoes from the top. But it was super cloudy so it basically felt like we were standing in the middle of a cloud. Which was cool also. Walsh managed to drop my hydro flask from the very top of the deck and then rescue it. It surprisingly is still ok, just more dented and slightly leaky at the top if tipped over. Thanks Walsh. After a bag of nerd clusters, a quick round of the silent game, and probably over a hundred photos and videos taken on my phone, we hiked a combination of all the trails in about 4 hours. In total, I think it was about 5 or 6 miles. There were many uphills and downs but the views were so worth it. That evening, the girls went exploring in the town near our hostel. There were many souvenir shops so we spent some time in there before grabbing dinner at Treehouse Cafe. It was very cute and we had some good pizza. Yum.
Walsh after dropping my waterbottle…
Photos from Santa Elena cloud forest.
Our hostel, Mi Casa Tica.
The next morning, the girls went to Monteverde Extremo Park for ziplining. This was my second time ziplining, so I was very excited to do it again. There were a total of 9 cables – one of them was a 2-person one (probably one of my favorites), and two of them included superman-style ziplining (where you went on your stomach). It literally felt like flying through the sky, especially since there were clouds to my right. The last cable was a superman-style zipline through a tunnel, which was actually a little scary because I couldn’t see anything. But my favorite out of the entire experience was the Tarzan swing at the end. We were essentially dropped 50 meters on a swinging rope. The first 3 seconds were the scariest because I was essentially freefalling, but as I swung back and forth it was nice admiring the scenery below. After an eventful morning, we explored the town a little bit before heading back to San Jose. It felt really nice to shower back at Selina.
The girls before ziplining 🙂
Me ziplining woohoo
Throughout the week, Brendan, Jeff, and I have made some progress on our prototype. We started experimenting more with the shape and weight of the spinning end of our device, and we also started 3D printing a box to hold all of our electrical components. We did some initial rounds of testing, and from what we’ve collected we’ve made improvements to our device and how we will fix testing procedures moving forward. Once our materials arrive (hopefully soon), we plan to do more rounds of testing on other students besides us and finalize the components to our design. In the evenings, it’s been more of the same – cooking dinners (Alice was in charge of making burgers one day), playing music in the kitchen, and even watching the season finale of Stranger Things 4. Even though I had already watched it, I watched it again with Brendan, Jeff, and Leticia because it was so good.
3D printed electronics box, featuring Jeff.
James with burger. We made some good guac that night.
On Friday (aka today), we went to the butterfly sanctuary as a part of one of our observation assignments. I loved the butterfly garden area. Although it was small, there were so many butterflies within the space, and I wasn’t expecting some of them to be so big. One landed on my head at one point 🙂 We had fun exploring some of the trails outside the garden area, and Leticia, Jake, and I ventured down to the river and sat by the rocks right next to it. We were probably there for about 30 minutes just sitting there peacefully, and it was really nice. I honestly could’ve stayed there all day. When we got back to Selina later, the ULACIT students took us out to dinner. We went to a cafe and I got a chicken pesto panini (which was quite good), and I enjoyed talking to the students about our lives and unpopular opinions. I talked to Jose about volleyball and he offered to let me join one of their practices, which was really nice of him…we’ll see if I actually have time though. They then took us out to a bar, but I decided to leave early because 1) I have to finish this assignment, 2) I have another assignment due for 350, and 3) the girls have a very long day planned for tomorrow. We rented a car and plan on driving to Arenal and La Fortuna for the day, then going to Playa Hermosa on Sunday. Will we be able to do it? I don’t know. But it’s crazy that we only have a week left and I want to make the most of it.
Pretty butterfly from the garden.
Jake, Leticia, and I sitting by the river.
La Destileria
See you next week! Hopefully.
Other random photos:
Sarah 🙂