Saturday. We left Selina at 6am to get to the bus station for our 6:30 bus to Monteverde. The journey was incredibly scenic but I regrettably missed much of it as I slept. The final hour, I saw much more however, as we got closer and closer to the rainforest regions of Monteverde.
We arrived in Monteverde at about 10:30 which was earlier than we had hoped. So we dropped our bags at the hostel and headed straight out to Santa Elena cloud forest where we hiked the three trails in the park. We also went up the observation tower where, on a good day, you can see the four major volcanoes in Costa Rica. It was not a good day. We could see only cloud and trees but it was still really cool to be up there among the clouds.
The girls and I stayed in a really small hostel where I met another traveller from the UK. She was from Burnley which is only about half an hour from my home! The hostel owners and managers were really nice and even though the rooms were small, it was a good place to spend the night because it was so cheap.
We wandered around Santa Elena that evening going into shops and buying gifts and souvenirs. I bought a new shot glass to add to my growing collection – one from each new state or country I visit. We then ate dinner at this really cute restaurant called the Treehouse, that was a multilayer place with a tree growing up through the centre with the stairway built into it. The atmosphere was really nice and they had a live performer who was excellent. We ate chocolate ice cream at the hostel before going to bed.
Sunday. It’s adventure time!
We got up Sunday morning to go to Extremo Monteverde, a nearby ziplining adventure park. It was a lot of fun as we zipped above treetops and through the cloud forest canopy. I loved the superman style ziplines, especially the subterranean one. The Tarzan Swing, which involved a 50m drop and swing down to ground level, was also so much fun.
We then went to a café in Santa Elena and got some lunch before meeting back up with the guys. Another 4 hour bus ride back brought us back to San Jose.
Monday. We began with more prototyping. After our prototype evaluation on Friday, we iterated on our design deciding to focus on the comfort and compression aspects of our device for this week. This involved looking into different methods of fastening the elastic we used for compression and researching how compression was measured. We discovered that there are 4 grades of compression socks – over the counter and medical grades 1, 2 and 3. They each have varying levels of compression and we found that medical grade 1, 20-30 mmHg, was the most commonly used.
We made two more sock prototypes over the course of the week trying velcro, buttons and small buckles as fastening methods. Our aim was to use elastic to match the compression level of a medical grade one sock. We also iterated to make the device easier to use in terms of placing and securing the TENS pads. We tested different locations that the pad would need to go in and changed our pad placement idea to make the device easier to put on and activate the TENS therapy. This now involves small holes specifically placed in the sock to allow the wires to come out of the sock while the TENS pads remain in contact with the foot.
We finished the week with another prototype evaluation of our latest prototype. This was now a medical grade one compression sock, adjusted to allow TENS pads to be placed on the foot. We also added elastic straps which are secured with velcro to provide additional adjustable compression, and an ankle holder to secure the TENS device in an easy to reach location to adjust the intensity of the therapy.
Friday. The day began with a trip to the Spirogyra Butterfly Garden. At this butterfly garden they breed and protect over 20 species of butterfly which you can walk around and see among a wide variety of interesting plants and flowers. There were also many nature trails that we walked down, arriving at the banks of the river. It was a peaceful start to our very busy weekend. We went out for dinner with some ULACIT students we met earlier in the week. They took us to a restaurant in Barrio Escalante and then to ‘La Destileria’ which was a really cool place to dance and hang out. Despite having to get up early the following day, we stayed out with the ULACIT students pretty late. Shoutout to Jake for ordering McDonalds when we got back to Selina. We all went up to the rooftop to play pool, chat and eat.
That’s all for now. The week’s adventures were tiring so I’ll write more next week.