I have to say that this weekend was the best one yet. And it was FREE! Sweet, eh? I went on the first of my 2 trips for my Ecology class to Curu, a little preserve on the Pacific.

Saturday morning we hopped on a bus and headed to Curu. I'm using the term morning very loosely, my alarm woke me up at 3:30. 3:30 is not an uncommon time for me to be awake but it's sure as hell not because I'm getting up then. Oh well. So I made me lonely trek in the dark down the ever dangerous streets of Zapote to the bus where I hopped on for my pre-COD ride to the Pacific. We had to be at Puntarenas for the 8:30 ferry. We arrived at 7:30. Yes, that's right, I could have slept for an extra hour. Grrrr. At 7:30 it was only about 87 degrees so we searched for somewhere to eat breakfast and warm up.

After an interminable boat ride through the same boring islands in the same boring ocean (I'm kidding) we finally arrived at the hotel, dropped off our stuff, and headed to Curu, which is a privately owned wildlife refuge. We walked through the park and saw a bunch of mangroves, which aren't really that interesting to me but we're studying them in class. Work work work. Then we saw monkeys. Lots and lots of monkeys. One tried to shit on us. He seriously did it on purpose too. I was unimpressed. Almost at the end of our walk through the park we saw 4 scarlet macaws flying away. Not bad considering that there are only about 50 of them in the entire country.

The rest of the day was spent snorkeling. There weren't enough fins for us small-footed types so I ventured in the sea sans-flippers. I'm a strong swimmer, no big deal. Haha, yeah right. I'm a strong swimmer but the current is stronger. Or so I heard it saying as it bashed my knees repeatedly against the coral covered rocks. Stupid current. If you disregard the pain and blood, which is actually pretty easy, it was really fun. There were muchos pezes. I even saw a puffer fish!

The next morning we got to sleep in until 5:30 and then it was back in the boat for more snorkeling. That Jorge is a slave driver. This time I got flippers though, although I'm not sure that is a good thing. They managed to rub half of the skin of the top of my right foot and now I'm stuck wearing tennis shoes on this 80+ degree day. I think it was worth it though. I got to see a lot more fishes (yes, fishes) and the current seemed to have relented in its full out assault on my personage. We laid around on the beach for awhile after that but then it was time to go home. We took the noon-thirty ferry this time. Holy hot Batman. I was seriously wishing that I could send about 25 degrees your guys' way. I was a delicious medium-medium rare when I disembarked. Thanks to mom's SPF 77 I was only cooked on the inside though. So yeah, it was a great weekend. Especially since I only spent about 5000 colones, that all on beverages. It's daaaamn hot over yonder.

Now it's Monday and I'm sitting here waiting for my Ecology class to start. I would really very much prefer to be just about anywhere else. Except for in Michigan, of course. Pura Vida.
- posted by Jaime @ 1:56 PM