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Today was a pretty relaxing a day, and it was our last full day in Costa Rica. We woke up early to depart for our raft safari. They arrived late to pick us up, and that's when we found out that we were with nearly 60 others who would be entering the water at pretty much the same time.
The weather held up quite nicely. No rain at all, and we had abundant sunshine and temperatures in the low to mid 80s. We were split between two rafts, so we saw some different subsets of wildlife. The raft with most of the boys, for example, saw a crocodile. The raft with adults and two boys did not. Well, we saw the group behind us seeing one, but that didn't quite feel satisfying. We did see toucans, though. A taste of our adventure is shown below. Of course, taking photos is difficult because we're in the water and we have to paddle at times.
Below are monkeys. A lot of them. We saw plenty of groups of them on the tour.
We saw so many iguanas, we almost got tired of them.
Some lovely birds as well. There's definitely a blue heron below. The other one...who knows. They might both be blue herons. Either way, they are lovely birds.
What an awesome turtle. We saw a couple more as well.
We saw other stuff too, such as termite nests, vultures, and plenty of birds.
The tour ended with a snack of tortillas, plantains, cheese, coffee and sugar cane. And we received a cocoa/chocolate demonstration afterwards (shown below). Of course, given the Don Juan tour we enjoyed on Monday, we didn't learn anything new - and we could barely even hear what the guide was saying anyway. It's also easy to see how many people were there.
We didn't get back to the hotel until after 12:30. The boys wanted pizza by the pool again, and that's what they got. They had some relaxing pool time without us adults.
Today was the first time we had a view of the volcano that pretty much showed the whole thing. This photo is from our hotel.
We had some more free time before walking downtown. We then walked there to shop and explore, and we had our final Costa Rican meal as a group. The photo below was taken in the park in the center of town.
After dinner, we walked home and started packing. We checked the boys in at 9:30 and made sure they were at least mostly packed. Things looked pretty good.
Time for a student reflection! We'll try to get the last one posted tomorrow.
Ismael was like the little brother I never had. During the short period of time we were together we built Lego figures and played with his dog Olivia. Ismael and his mom Fabiola welcomed me into their home and treated me like family. Each day we would talk about school, our home, or some random topic about Costa Rica. The food was great, and although I was only with them for less than a week, it was sad that I had to go. I will hopefully stay in touch with them.
- Dennis Soria Fuentes '29
If all goes according to plan - and we are certainly hoping that it will - we will be picked up at 4:30am and taken to the San Jose airport, a ride that will take 3-4 hours. It's going to be a long day of travel, but we are all at the point of the trip where we can sense the end and are excited to get home. We are looking forward to a few days that aren't so scheduled before school starts up again.
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