Puerto Viejo Weekend

Heidi, Diane, and I on the beach in Manzanillo. It was beutiful.

Out by the water during our bonfire at our resort.

Our destination after we hiked down the beach. A frog...like you see in pictures. ha
At the Chiquita plantation. This lady is putting the stickers on the bananas.
A monkey!! We got to see this one up close !
Laying out and trying to catch some rays. I got burnt during this overcast beach time.
The view from our beautiful resort hotel.

We just got back from another long trip. This time we went to the Caribbean side of the country which was a lot different.

We started off our trip by driving to La Selva Research Station on Thursday. While we were there, we went on two nature hikes and learned more about the rainforest. We saw a lot of poisonous frogs and they were all bright colors (mainly red). We also saw more monkeys and wild pigs. We learned about strangler figs for about the fifth time too. They are trees that grow up and around other trees until they can block sunlight from getting to the main tree, then the main tree dies. Its pretty interesting the first time you hear it!

We left from La Selva on Friday morning then headed to the Chiquita plantation which was an experience. We watched a video on the project they started and got a tour of part of the plantation. You´ll hear more about it in my banana blog. After Chiquita we headed to Puerty Viejo and spent the night there. A bunch of us went out to a club on the beach which was a blast. They played music from the US which was super comforting.

Saturday morning we got up very early and headed out to snorkel. It was alot more shallow in the Caribbean and the coral reefs were very pretty. They weren´t so pretty though after you jam your knee in to them...whoops!

After snorkeling we headed to Manzanillo and settled into our dream resort that we had all been waiting for. It was right on the beach, the bathrooms were nice (not common), there was a nice pool, the food was AMAZING, and the sun was shining. We spent the rest of the day at the hotel. Sunday morning, 4 of us got up really early and went for a 3 mile run. It was my best run yet! We ran a really fast two miles then ran the last part on the beach which is a lot harder than I thought it would be! Either way, it started my day off great. After breakfast we took a hike out to this big lookout point. It was beautifual. Once we got back to the hotel we relaxed during the afternoon because it was raining. It was still very nice to just relax. I tried wine from Chile last night which is supposed to be really good and I agree, it was delicious.

Now we are back in San Jose for the rest of the trip. We have classes tomorrow then group presentations and our final on Wednesday. It seems like it will be a little stressful these first two days but Thursday and Friday should be nice!