Ok, so for the second summer in a row I have ventured to the untamed country of Costa Rica, and it was no let down again this year. The trip was on a school exchange program, and so I was not aloud to just venture out into the rainforest in search of tropical fish and reptiles. Me and 8 others (6 students, 2 teachers) left from Syracuse, Ny on July 8th at 8 a.m. and arrived in San Jose, CR at 1:35 p.m. (3:35 EST, CR is one hour behind, but they have now DST so it's two hours). We then took the hour drive to the Northern territory to a city called Naranjo, from there we met up with our host families and went our seperate ways. For adventures this year we went to Hotel Barcelo at Tambor Beach and started there fr 3 days, and if you get the chance to go there, do, it's amazing, plus they have an amzing aray of animals on their "eco-tour"...from Chuckwallas, Iguanas, Caimans, Macaws, Red-Capped Lories, and enormous 9 foot snakes of questionable venomamity. We ventured to the foot hills on Volcano Arenal and soaked in the luxurious hot springs, and enjoyed the view of lava flowing down the sides of it at dusk. For the second year I got to enjoy and re-enjoy doing a Canopy tour with the largest zipline being 250 Ft. over a raging river. For towns we visited Naranjo, Zarcero, Sarchi, Grecia, San Ramon, San Carlos, San Jose, and a few others which names escape me. For the first time in my life I rode a horse by myself, and I think I may go and get one now just because it was so much fun. I crawled through small holes, crawled on my hands and knees while water rushed over my shoulders, and scaled cave walls in the dark, as me and my host toured an enormous cave system (guided of course). I even saw Harry Potter numero 7 in English there. Our return to the US began in San Jose from the Juan SantaMaria International Airport on July 29th. Our flight left for Charlotte, Nc at 2:30 p.m. and we didn't land in Charlotte until 9:42 p.m. EST, at this point we had to go through Immigration, go get our luggage, go back through immigration, drop of our bags, go bck through security, and get to our gate, all before the plane left at 10:09!. Me and this other kid from the exchange had to rush ahead and stop the plane, but when we got there found out the plane was delayed and were angry that we wasted all that effort to get to a late plane. However something amazing happened when I got on the plane, I asked the pilot, "Do all those buttons serve purposes or are some just there for decoration?", and so she took me into the cockpit and had me input the data to get to Syracuse to show me they all did have a purpose, it was incredible. We finally landed in Syracuse at 1:00 a.m. July 30th, got on a school bus back to Afton, and arrived back home at 4:45 a.m. It was an incredible trip, and if any of you get the chance to go abroad, Costa Rica is the place to go. Yes, the main language is Spanish, but if you go to more touristy destinations they all speak some english, for the most part. This is a country of great beauty and majesticness, something I will never forget for years to come.
