una colección

de recuerdos

de costa rica

THE WALK TO BREAKFAST

7:28 am

15 MAY

brief walk up a slight hill in the light morning rain sends my roommates and I to breakfast, where we smell the rice and beans early and hope this will be one of the days where there are eggs to accompany them. The room is filled with the faces of my 21 newest friends,

my new favorite teacher, the cute boy from the “other” group I met who’s eyes I catch as I look for a place to sit. My plate has a scoop of rice and beans, yellow eggs with vibrant specks of color, and fruit I don’t recognize. Breakfast picks up once everyone stops taking snapchats of their food (darn mess wall wifi!) and conversation flows cutely between people who know a strange variety of things about each other, but not the things that make conversation flow. Initially meal times were pleasantly quiet with bursts of sentences, occasional laughter, and “will you pass the’s.” But we’ve grown accustomed to this and with more information gained are able to carry stumbling stories into connections. Most recent table topic being “so who’s your crush back in Athens and what are you going to do about it.” A great lead. Conversation flows forth.

Breakfast ends around 8am and I have no responsibilities until 10:30, while most of the other are in class. The first few days, I attended the drawing and painting class, but soon discovered this time frame was the one of the only

alone down time that I’d get, and I started taking naps in hammocks, reading, and catching up on homework. 8 -10:30 is amazing. These days became few and far between, as we started going on little half day adventures, and I became even more thankful that I had them in the first place. At 10:30 I have to be in the Chachalaka classroom for Graphic Design.

Here we are doing a post card project, where we take photos we’ve taken and make a set of 6 postcards, with text one them, one of which to send home. Our second project will be to build a travel journal filled with our photos, artifacts we’ve found, and journals from the trip. [ This is one of them ] This class has been fun, and I’ve enjoyed the low pressure environment since I’m one of 3 graphic design majors in the class. I also really like the teacher, Julie, who will teach me in the fall back in Athens. In this classroom, there are lots of bugs. As I write this, I share my computer with a little spider. It crawls around the frame of my screen, on my screen, explores the metallic wall, out of my sight. We share the keyboard, as I imagine he’d want to type something out, “hi” maybe. I see his jerky movements and keep my eye on him as I work. Time flies through this class, though, and I’ve lost sight of my spider friend and consequently he’s become by enemy and I freak out.

Suddenly I hear loud sounds in my room. People are moving chairs, zipping and unzipping, a flushing toilet. I open my eyes. Every morning I have I wondered about the way the body wakes up. The room has been alive for 30 minutes, and I am the last to know. One moment I am deep in a dream and in another I am attuned to

the noise in the room, regaining consciousness, I see that it is time to start the day.

A

Mornings

Mornings

One morning we got up extra early to go down to the cattle farm. We each got to take a turn milking the cows. It’s much more difficult than I thought, and only a little bit of milk comes out. The man showing us how to do it does this everyday, for all 5 mothers!

We visited a man named Olamar at his home and coffee farm. He and his family plus any volunteers pick coffee beans and produce organic coffee right next to their home. His wife poured us all some dark roast and we got to enjoy it in their cute and colorful kitchen.

In the cloud forest, we road a skylift for 15 minutes so high up, above all of the tree canopies. There were a series of 10 ziplines, all 1/4 - 1 mile long! The best part was being in a cloud of white, the green tree tops below you, and looking ahead at the black cable line shooting through the blanket sky ahead.

We also visited another coffee farm of a man named Alvero. Alvero makes coffee, processes sugar can, and has a little cafe with his family. Here we got to see actual coffee plants, try a new fruit called Guaba, and taste pure liquid sugar cane. And of course, lunch was amazing.

Some mornings, we’d go on group hikes to look at plants and wildlife. One of my favorite naturalists, Louise, took us on this hike, where I discorvered the fascinating Leaf Cutter ants. There are many fun and hilly trails on campus, where we saw lots of monkeys, a few tarantulas, and many amazing birds.

MOUNTAIN CLEARINGIN SAN LUIZ

4:23 pm

20 MAY

MOUNTAIN CLEARINGIN SAN LUIZ

4:23 pm

ost lunch, graphic design class meets again on the porch, just as some open studio time, but I have to go to Astronomy class. I thought astronomy was going to be full of fun facts

and learning how space works, but instead it’s full of chemistry and physics and theories and I’m finding it very difficult. I think I failed the first test, but did much better on the second. It is so hard to understand these concepts since they take place so much further away than I can imagine, and everything that happens takes literally tens of millions of years. Astronomy feels like the longest class ever, but luckily when we get out we usually have free time until dinner at 6.

During this time, typically I go to the library and do homework. But sometimes, if we haven’t gone on a hike that day or recently, I am dying for some exercise. One day I went on a run, and it was one of the most memorable moments of my life! I didn’t bring anything, no camera or water, and just started running down this road that went in several directions, so I just went down all of them just walking when I got tired, and exploring.

One path in particular looked interesting, branching off the main road. It was just this long winding path that went around a big hill and had lots of cows and goats. So I followed it, and it led me to the most beautiful clearing, where I could see very far out. It was awesome! I just walked and walked further and further, stopping and trying to talk to all the cows, but all but one ignored me. And the one that didn’t was strangely interested in me, stopped eatting the grass and followed me with its eyes all the way out of sight. Later on the path, there were two cows grazing right on the path. Part of me was really excited, and half terrified. Suddenly having a cow charge at me and trample me seemed likely.

Then I walked all the way past campus in the other direction, and saw a little waterfall and saw a lot of houses, and a pizzeria, where we have got out for pizza since then. Everything around is all just beautiful, and so quiet except for the wind blowing, and the cows mooing. I got back a little before dinner and took a shower and ate lots of food.

By the end of graphic design we are all starving again, and it’s noon, time for lunch. Lunch is always delicious and a nice break where all the groups stop doing work and come together.

P

Afternoons

UGA provides jobs for many Ticos in Monteverde. The cooks in the kitchen prepare a typical Costa Rican dish called Casado: rice, beans, fried plantains, cabbage salad, tomatoes and a meat, usually chicken.

Between afternoon showers one day, this full rainbow appeared in front of me on my way to lunch. If you look closely, you can even see another one behind some clouds right over it. Luckily I snapped a picture, because it was only in the sky for about 2 minutes.

One afternoon, about 8 other girls and I walked up the steepest hills I have ever climbed. We had been driving up and down these hills in our bus and it was terriyfing. And here we were, walking for a solid hour up these 4 long hills to catch the sunset. And it turns out, most of it was blocked by a mountain. But it was still worth it, just to say that we did it.

We visited a man from Boston named Bob. He scouts and picks his coffee beans himself, and makes incredible chocolate using no chemicals. We got to taste the chocolate every step of the way, from the bean to the smooth, bitter dark chocolate.

In the Monteverde Cloud Forest, my group had a guide named Oscar. Oscar was so humble, yet he knew so much about the forest. He was very patient and helped us see the Quetzal, a highly endangered bird in Costa Rica. We also saw many monkeys!

SUNSET OVER LAKE ARENAL

5:47PM

24 MAY

Evenings

he sun goes down around 5:50, just before our 6pm dinner. During dinner the world gets completely dark, it’s like no darkness I’ve ever seen. Dinner is usually more

Cansada - rice, beans, and meat. My favorite is when we have tilapia and garbanzo beans with our rice, because I’m getting a little tired of black beans. After dinner I either go to my room or the library and knock some school work out. This is a nice quiet two hours, since I don’t have class until my 9pm lab. Sometimes I take a short nap, and when I don’t have a lot of schoolwork, I get to read. Later, Lab is fun because we are all so tired, and there are only 6 of us all together, so we have room to be goofy. Understanding the material is much harder at night, since we often carry over

leftover notes from class time, and we laugh a lot at our inability to process these big ideas when we’re so tired. I really feel like I’ve learned a lot though, because I can point about about 6 stars in the sky, and about 10 constellations! The best part, though, has been looking at jupiter, mars, and saturn through the telescope. For some reason, our scopes wouldn’t focus, but for Saturn we were able to see its rings and moons - one of the coolest things I have ever seen. Learning all of these things from a classroom make it seem so fairy-talish, but there is was, bright and hundrerds of thousands of miles away. By the time we get out of lab, because campus is quiet, and we all walk away quietly, basking in our amazement of what we just saw.

Dinner is the most relaxing time of the day for me, because I have a break afterwards while everyone is in class. The sky is completely dark, and the stars begin to come out!

T

Evenings On our last night at campus in Monteverde, we had an art show to show all the other students what the drawing/ painting class & the graphic design students had been working on. The set up looked great, and we called it “Confluence” - a fitting title that sums up our studies in lots of different fields.

One of the first nights we were here, Louise took us on a night hike. We checked out a lot of differnet insects that were crawling on us, and saw that the leaf cutters were still at their work! The best part was seeing this tarantula we named Diane, protecting her babies! She is an orange-kneed tarantula, and lives in this den for around 20 years!

This is a photo of saturn I took on my phone, pointing into the lense of the telescope. It’s not great, but I can’t believe how far science has come that I can take a photo of Saturn, on my cell phone.

One night for dinner, we went to Beatriz’s dad’s restaurant. We could choose either Tilapia, or pork. I got tilapia, and it came on the whole fish like this! Afterwards, we learned a Costa Rican dance.

Another night, we walked up the road past the campus for about 20 minutes to a small pizzaria owned by some Tica friends. We had delicious pizza and salad, but I could have eaten 5 more peices. We’re all dying for pizza at this point of the trip.

MILKY WAYOVER CAMPUS

11:13 PM

19 MAY

he world of Costa Rica is vibrant with all kinds of life. The flowers are as colorful as the buildings, the bugs are as big as the portions of food, and monkeys actually

swing from trees. There is a continuous spectrum of life, flowing through the people, the plants,

the animals, the bugs, the air. It is lively and ever changing, pouring rain one moment and clears skies in another. The land is green; lush, inviting, safe. It feels as if there is no inside or outside here, nor insiders or outsiders. Everything and everyone has its place. This is where it all flows together.

T

PURA VIDA

FAU

NA

&FL

ORAhile I was trying to fall

alseep in my homestay room, the bugs outside my thin wall resembled

the orcs at Helm’s Deep. It’s as if they think their weight will pummel them through the walls to the light of my laptop that they can faintly see through my window. But I’m not going to think about them tonight. Because this is their home too. Every piece of the land - the bugs, the flowers, the trees, the chickens, the cows - they all have their place here,and I am merely a visitor. The way the Ticas live off

the land is fascinating, efficient, and beautiful. The eggs I eat for breakfast came from the chickens outside, and the bugs I can hear keep other bugs from eating the cilantro I want to eat.

The first morning at my homestay, I felt something hard against my arm, like a rock. I move my arm to find a very large beetles, apparently that I had crushed in my sleep. After letting out an audible gasp, I stayed calm as I flicked it off the bed. I’m getting a little bit better at this.

W

FAU

NA

&

ernan, my homestay father, greeted me at the gate, and we exchanged fairly awkward hellos as he led me into his sweet small home where Cindy, Tatiana, and Eric

greeted me. Tatiana is the cutest 5 year old with long black hair, and she was all dressed up in a blue daisy dress for her uncle’s graduation, which we were going to later. Eric, the baby, has very saggy cheeks and makes cute noises. Cindy had made me some pre-dinner, rice and beans and potatoes, before we left for graduation and celebrated afterwards at her mother’s house. I never thought I’d be able to say that I attended a high school graduation in the cloud forest of Costa Rica, but now I can! It was in this nice hotel, and it was really funny. There were only 10 kids in the graduating class. They played a funny photo slideshow, and 4 kids did a really weird dance to a bunch of songs. My host family kept getting up and walking around and leaving me and it was funny but I tried not to feel weird. Afterwards, we left to go to Cindy’s mother’s house where about 6 of her other family members and

an American couple who is friends with her mom were there. We ate chicken legs and rice and beans and icecream and had wine. We talked about snakes and other funny topics that we could all comminicat together on. This was my first night with the family, and the kids just watched me brush my teeth and baby Eric put my toothbrush in his mouth. There are so many bugs in this house but I am trying not to listen to them.

The next day, I came back over around 5, and we were already more comfortable with eachother. Tatiana and I watched TV, and she painted me a little box. Then we ate dinner, and Tatiana and I communicated quite well at the dinner table. I had tons of homework this night so I read and the kids kept doing silly things to me. Eric kept turning the pages of my textbook and scribbling all over my notes. Very cute. They go to bed very early, around 9, so I am staying up doing a little more homework while I have the time. Class starts tomorrow at 8 and I have a fun and hikey walk ahead of me that I really enjoyed today.

Every student has been assigned a host family to stay with for 3 nights. I was put with Hernan and his wife Cindy. They have two kids, Tatiana who is 5 and Eric who is a little over one year old. This was a great chance to practice my Spanish!

H

Attitude is the difference between an ordeal and an adventure.

“”

WEEKEND IN ARENAL

Our journey to Arenal from the UGA cam-pus in Monteverde was a 3 part track consiting of a 2 hour bus ride, a 45 min-ute boat ride, and another 45 minutes in another bus. This boat ride was surreal, as we were slowly towed across the lake in front of the volcano, surrounded by moun-tains and hills and calm waters.

This is what we pulled up to, arriving in Arenal. A beautiful hotel, with the most amazing view of the volcano. It was called the Arenal Observatory Lodge, and they had two great spots to look out with bird and animal information to help you scout them out. We spent 3 nights here and they were wonderful.

From the reception, we had a short trail walk and then a long swinging bridge to cross. Only four people could cross at a time! This was the view on both sides of the bridge - thick tropical forest, wildly green.

WEEKEND IN ARENAL

y favorite part of the trip to Arenal was the last day we were there, the day before my birthday. Me, Brynn, and Caroline went on a short but really difficult hike on the Old Lava Trail, where the lava of the volcano once flowed when it erupted

in 1986. There were tons of little frogs everywhere, and really cool red, black, and grey lava rocks. We raced back up the steel trail to catch the sunset. Exhausted, I scarfed down dinner and went off the grid for a little while, since everyone had class. I got in the huge private hot tub, and finished the novel I was reading ,and just soaked there for 45 minutes. Then I went and took a long shower. I had 3 whole hours to myself, where I saw no one, which hadn’t happened the whole trip. I felt fully recharged, and relaxed.

This was my room! With a perfect view of the side of the volcano, nice facilities, and free time was the perfect mid-trip refresher. Waking up in a comfy white double bed to the sound of the birds talking and monkeys howling...definitely unforgettable.

This is where we had class. This is one of the observatory rooms -will windows on all sides for all the amazing views. On the right is the volcano and straigth ahead is the beautiful lake. Here the sun is setting just after class. There were ex-catly 6 chairs for all of us and this was definitely my coolest classroom learning experience I’ll ever have.

When we went on a long hike around the whole perimeter of the observatory and its trails, it started pouring. These horses came right over to us, and we all basked in the rain together.

M

inishing the trip off with a relaxing beach weekend was perfect. Me and the other astronomy students had to take our final right when we got there, but luckily, I felt good about the test and that positivity

sent me on a relaxing and fun filled Samara experience. By now, the whole group is really close and we are almost finished with school work, so carefree attitudes finally allowed us to let loose and enjoy the sun. I got a huge king-size bed in a luxurious room with one of my closest friends from the trip, Allie. The second morning, we got up before 7 since our bodies were so used to it, and we went on a long walk on the beach, collecting shells and being silly. Later that day we went kayaking and snorkling, which ended up being terrifying and tiring. But the grand finale was dinner at a unique restaurant with huge wood fire grills. I ordered pork tenderloin wrapped in bacon and cheese, and I will never forget it.

F

SAMARA BEACH

The resort we stayed at, Villa Beach Samara, was reall amazing. The villas were white, with lively green ivy and so many iguanas you practically had to step over them., and the beach was only a short walk, past the pool and the villas of my new friends.

The part of the beach we were on was exclusive to our resort, so it was mostly empty during our stay. The tropical palm trees stood out among the forest covered mountains and flowery bushes.

This trip has been full of unbeliebvale sunsets, and this was our last. The sillohettes of the people and boats out on the water created great contrast to the bright sunrays. I took this first picture before hopping in the water, fighting the mighty waves as as the sky became dark, and our last day at this beautiful place came to an end.

love this poem because of the great perspective it adds to every part of life. To me it helps me live life just as it is, not wishing for anything different, taking in

each day’s beauties and terrors and everything in between. I remember racing back up a trail to get back in time to see the sunset, dying to reach the top, regretting how sweaty I was getting and cursing my throbbing legs. The only way was almost a straight up incline, dodging roots and random bursts of sprinting to avoide the ever-persistent horse flies. Yet 25 minutes later, I was standing on top of a beautiful porch, with a volcano to my right and the setting sun ahead of me. Often life feels like its moving a million miles an hour, but this quote reminds me that every moment can be equally as rewarding — if we make it so.

When life requires more than we think we can give, time seems to go slow, drag on, and feeling like it’ll never end. I think it’s just as hard for us to take the beautiful things slowly. Like sunsets over the vast Lake Arenal, we should sit still, through the whole thing, soaking it in, for as long as we can.

— every moment

can be equally as rewarding

if we make it so.

During my trip, I could not stop thinking about these words from one of my favorite poets, Rainer Maria Rilke.

I

Let everything happen to you:beauty and terror.Just keep going. No feeling is final.

— RILKE

Leaf-Cutting Ants, my favorite insect of the trip, are featured here, hauling the leaves they’ve cut up to carry back to their homes.

julie rodriguez • maymester 2014

And you, what are youlooking for?