Word of the week: enrollment -- la matrícula
Percent complete: 23%
With more than 75% of our time here left, I still feel like I have experienced a lot of what Costa Rica has to offer. We are really lucky to have Grupo de Kansas here at UCR, because they really make a lot happen with what we would normally would not be possible. This month, along with our orientation classes (writing, history and culture) we have had a day trip every Friday (I think I mentioned that last week). This week, we went to Volcán Poas and Las cataratas de la Paz (The Peace Waterfalls). And we still have two more trips to go, with next week being for the whole weekend! More on this in a second.
This past week we have been doing enrollment stuff for when the semester starts at the beginning of March (yes, our semester hasn't even started yet... pretty crazy). It looks like I am going to have five classes: Costa Rican literature-- which is going to be horrible, because this is a class for Spanish majors at UCR. It would be the equivalent of a UCR student taking English at KU, which are not classes to learn the language, rather analysis and technical stuff. Going to be my hardest class, for sure. Written expression-- another composition class that I need for the Spanish major. I've had classes like this at KU already, but I think this will be slightly more technical. Should help with my written skills for the lit class. Spanish grammar-- mostly about modern Spanish, and the differences between the written and spoken language. I think. This class has been recommended by pretty much every student who has taken it in the past, along with the Grupo coordinators here and my advisors at KU. Needless to say, it's supposed to be great. Other than Spanish classes: Natural History of Costa Rica-- for biology credit. Pretty excited for this because it includes 3 field trips for 1-2 days each. Supposedly to some pretty awesome places that Costa Rica has to offer that aren't as well known. Biology Andy is pumped. And, last but not least, and maybe most excitedly, Portuguese-- yes, I am taking a foreign language, in a foreign language. I have always said I wanted to learn Portuguese once I am fluent in Spanish (which I am not), but I'm just getting a head start on it. That being said, the World Cup is in Brazil next summer, soooo.... anyone want to go? But, I am hoping that Basic 1 will give me a good start on the language. Also, the UCR system for enrollment makes KU's look like a coloring book, so hopefully all of these classes end up being offered when they say they are and that I'm able to get permission to take them. With these, I would have a Monday to Thursday schedule which would allow plenty of time for travel on the weekends... er, plenty of time to study.
Friday morning we left for Volcán Poas, which is actually the most visited national park in Costa Rica. It's not the best in the country, but due to what it has and its proximity to San José, it makes sense (the number one place on my list of places to visit is Corcovado National Park, which is home to something like 5% of the biodiversity in the world, but it is in the very southwest of the country and hard to get to). This was the second volcano that we (the Early Starters, at least) have visited; we went to Volcán Irazú last month, and we are going to Volcán Arenal in two weeks on the Grupo trip. It was a really cool volcano, and much more visible than the day we went to Irazú, so that helped. After that, we went to Las Cataratas de la Paz, which was a hotel/resort/tourist attraction close by. There were lots of Americans there. I was wearing a KU shirt and two old guys MIZ-ZOU'd me.... I'm still skaken up about it. I had always thought that their vacations consisted of Silver Dollar City and Chuck-E-Cheese, but apparently there are a few exceptions. Other than that encounter, it was a really awesome place. They had some exotic animal exhibits along with the waterfalls. I put up more pictures on Facebook, so check those out, but here are some from Friday:
Volcán Poas, with the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica shown at the top right (somewhere under all of those clouds).
First time that I really felt like I was in the middle of the rainforest. Some really cool wildlife all around. This was still in the Poas Volcano National Park. It was a great walk to the lake (below)...
...which used to be the crater of the volcano about 500 years ago (not really sure how the crater can just change). Don't think you can swim in it though because of the sulfur and other stuff. Or at least, I wouldn't try.
Then we went to the waterfalls for the rest of the day. Here is a view of when we first got there, smack dab in the middle of the rainforest as well. We had lunch there, which was a fantastic buffet in a really cool open air restaurant with animals walking around (saw another coati like the one at Irazú). As you can see below, they had exhibits for jungle cats, snakes, butterflies, hummingbirds, exotic birds, monkeys, and some other exotic somethings, as well as the waterfalls themselves. The falls were beautiful, and there were three ranging from 70 feet to 120 feet. Take a look:
The jaguar (tied with the black panther) is my favorite of the jungle cats... There's a chance (about .01%, but it's something) to see one of these in the wild at Corcovado, so when I go I would be beyond ecstatic if that happened. And also absolutely terrified. But chances are I won't have to worry about it.
I think these are poisonous... The green and black one was tough to make out what was what (it kind of just looked like a blob, and here it is obviously not in focus), but I really liked the Jayhawk variant of whatever type of frog this is.
I've never been one for snakes (I get it from my dad), but this looked exactly like a branch until I saw its eyes open. Pretty effective camouflage for whatever it's predator might be.
The hummingbirds were awesome. All sorts of different colors, but nearly impossible to catch unless they were on a feeder (like the one here).
I did get lucky one time though...
There was a really big butterfly exhibit as well. Costa Rica is known for the Blue Morpho butterfly which were in the exhibit, but nearly impossible to catch with their wings open, and I didn't want to spend thirty minutes trying to get a shot of it like I did with the hummingbird. So instead, I though this guy was cool.
Toucan Sam was there! Well, not exactly. This is a Keel-billed Toucan, also known as a Rainbow Billed Toucan. Never seen such vibrant colors on a bird, or an animal.
And we finally got to see a sloth! There was a lemur too, but I didn't get as good of a picture of it. I never saw this guy or his friend move though, other than the slowest blink I have ever witnessed. Not kidding.
This waterfall was the 120ft Magia Blanca. I also tried my luck with a long exposure (below), but I didn't have a tripod so it could have been better. Still pleased with how it came out though!
That about does it for the trip on Friday. We have a couple of big projects due soon for our history, writing and culture classes, so we were all working on that Saturday. We did find a bar that showed the KU-Texas game though, so that was really fun to go and watch on an actual TV, instead of on my computer with a pixelated, delayed connection. Maybe they will have some more, as they only show American broadcasts (they had the American broadcast of the Super Bowl too, but it was too packed by the time we got there on SB Sunday). And we got to see Duke lose. Looks promising for March Madness at the least, and it's close to campus so we could jet over in between classes.
That's it for this week, I hope it was more interesting that the past few have been (other than last week's). Be sure to keep tabs on my Facebook and Flickr for pictures. I will be uploading accordingly. Next week we go to Punta Leona for 3 days which is supposed to be awesome, so I'm looking forward to that already! Until then, vaya con Dios y
¡Pura vida!
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