Written
by Dawn Dallmus
Day
6 - Travel & Hike
I
am exhausted! The trip from San Jose to Quebrada Arroyo was long and
tedious. I finished my second book and started on the third. I think
I think I will finish that book before we get home to Pittsburgh
and that is not good because I will have nothing else to do when we
get on the planes. Once we got to as far as the vans would take us,
it was hiking the rest of the way. At least we didn't have to
carry our bags because the leaders of the camp brought five horses to
carry our stuff. As the last of the horses were being loaded, we
started the long, uphill hike to where we were staying. At first, I
was with the group in front, but then when we came to the hills, I
started to lose my breath and fell away to the back of the group. I
also didn't have my water bottle because I had not filled it up. We
were told we could fill them where the horses were but there was
nothing to fill them up with. I felt like I was going to cry walking
up the hills because my body wasn't fully used to hiking up steep
hills, especially for an hour. There were so many beautiful
waterfalls and flowers and views along the trail as well. I wish I
had my camera or a camera to capture these beautiful shots. After an
hour of pain and breathlessness, I finally reached the camp that we
were going to be staying at for the next couple days. Everything is
just so beautiful here and I wish I could share it with my family and
my boyfriend. Speaking of, I miss them a lot! At times, I wish I
could see them and hear their voices.
Day
7 - Service Work & Waterfall
Today
we started doing service work and the work was
backbreaking...literally! We had to put dirt on the road and flatten
it out for people and cars. We had to do this for four hours and the
majority of the work was in the sun. That made working harder because
the sun soaked up all our energy and we had to take many water
breaks. I was so happy when Alfredo said we could go back to the camp
and change, I was sweating like crazy. Someone even passed out
because of heat exhaustion. When we got back we had lunch and Alfredo
said we could go into the waterfall just below us. The waterfall was
gorgeous and it looked like it was something out of a movie. We were
able to get right under the waterfall as well! It was like a dream to
be able to swim near and in a waterfall. I felt so happy when I saw
it and I was ecstatic to be able to swim in it. After the waterfall,
the leader of Quebrada Arroyo, Miguel, took some of us to see some
squirrel monkeys. They were so cute and small. I wish I had my camera
so I could have taken pictures of the monkeys and the waterfalls
because they were such beautiful sites. Being in the rainforest makes
me so happy because of all the cool and beautiful things within it.
Day
8 – Service Work, Soccer, & Waterfall
Today
has been even more exhausting than yesterday. We had to hike half an
hour just to get to where we were working. Then, I had to carry many
bags of heavy sand and dirt up and down hills in order to make cement
for a rock wall. I had to stop every once in a while because I was
getting winded a lot. I cannot wait to be done with the manual labor
tomorrow so the next day we can have fun and shop. I hate doing
manual labor because it is so exhausting and back breaking. When we
finished working, we had lunch and then changed to go play soccer
with some of the Costa Ricans in Quebrada Arroyo. I watched as nine
of my peers and one teacher played and slipped around on the muddy
field. Not long after, a group of us stayed to play more soccer and
the rest of us went to swim in a new waterfall pool. This pool was
much deeper and I was able to dive in and do cannonballs. I had a lot
more fun at this waterfall than at the other one because of the depth
of the water. After that, we had a chance to change and dry off
before dinner. Before dinner we had our meeting where we were asked
two questions: “What was the funniest thing on our trip so far?”
and “What was your victory?”. The answer to the first question
was when we were in La Carpio and all the kids imitated Josh falling
and ripping his pants when playing soccer. The answer to the second
question was losing weight because of the rice and beans diet.
Something that was really scary so far has been the size of the
spiders and the cockroaches. We saw two giant cockroaches as big as a
dollar bill (width and length) and the spider was as big as my hand.
Yeah, my arachnophobia is kicking in big time. ¡No
me gusta araña's!
Day
9 – Service Work, Tree-planting, & Waterfall
I
was so glad that today was the last day of working because I am
tired. Today I mixed cement by hand and it was so difficult. After
that, a group of us followed Miguel to collect baby trees that we
were to plant. When he collected about 40 tree saplings, we walked
just past the camp and crossed a stream so we could plant them. After
we planted all of them we came back for lunch and then we got ready
for the waterfall. We went to the waterfall from the first day we
worked and I wasn't too happy. I wasn't happy because I preferred the
other waterfall pool because it was deeper. We only had a little bit
of time there because it was getting ready to storm. Once we got back
from the waterfall, we saw a lot of different animals. I got to see
an iguana, a toucan, more beautiful butterflies, and lots more of the
squirrel monkeys. All of these made me so happy because we hadn't
seen too much wildlife since we have been in the rainforest. I was so
happy to see the squirrel monkeys again because I hadn't been able to
get a picture since I didn't have a camera the first time I saw them.
Today they were so close and way more photo-genic because they were
coming so close to us. I used the call that I learned from Miguel to
bring them somewhat closer and that excited me a lot. I also learned
that they are an endemic species and that means you can only find
them in one country in the entire world.
Day
10 – Hike & Zip-line
Today
we had to hike two and a half hours to where a pair of vans would
take us to a place where we would zip-line through the canopy of the
rainforest that was an hour away. I was not looking forward to this
hike. We had to walk the half an hour to where we were doing the
service work for the past two days and then two more hours of walking
up and down hills. I was glad that I was wearing my bathing suit
because it helped to absorb most of the sweat. The van ride was
boring and then we got to the zip-line place. We got hooked up in our
zip-line gear and learned the basics of zip-lining. When we were
ready, we got hooked up and ready to zip-line through the rainforest
canopy of Costa Rica. What an amazing site and experience this was!
The rainforest was gorgeous and the view was even better. About 5 or
6 zip-lines in (we were signed up to do a total of 10 zip-lines) it
started to rain. At first it wasn't too bad and then it hit harder.
About the 7 or 8 zip-line is where it started a torrential downpour.
If anyone brought cameras and had them in their pockets while
zip-lining, they were destroyed. We were literally soaked from
head-to-toe. I certainly was glad that I was wearing my bathing suit.
When we got back to where we were hooked up, we were served lunch and
were able to dry off a bit more. Did I forget to mention that our
bags were on top of the vans without any sort of cover over them?
Yeah, all our bags and the contents within them were soaked and that
sucked! When the rain let up a little bit, we made a run for the
vans. When we were all in the vans, we started to head back down the
way we came and we hit our very first obstacle. The storm was so bad
that it took down a tree and the tree landed in the middle of the
road. One of the guides that took us on the zip-line took an ATV and
went to get help. He came back with a guy and a machete. The guy
started attacking the tree with the machete and eventually got it cut
and moved out of the way. Then we came to the next obstacle, the
waterfall overtaking the road. There were 4 or 5 of these obstacles
but we made it through them all. Then we headed to Manuel Antonio
National Park where we would stay overnight. When we got there, that
was when we found out that all our stuff was soaked. I was so upset
because that meant I had to wear wet jeans the next day along with my
wet bathing suit. I just knew I was gonna be miserable the next day.
Day
11 – Beach & Travel back to San José
Today
was fun with everything that happened at the beach. When we first got
to the beach, there was a raccoon that was sniffing around in
everyone's stuff trying to find food. The funny thing was that when
he did find food, he would actually go inside your bag and grab
whatever it was and drag it into the rainforest. He wasn't able to
get away with anything because people would throw sand at him or make
some loud sound to make him move away. Then the white-faced capuchin
monkeys showed up to entertain us all and allow us to take a lot of
really neat, up-close pictures. They were literally only 1-2 feet
away from the public which I thought was really cool. Most animals
try to avoid the public at all costs. When we got back to the hotel,
we packed up our things and got into two vans and traveled to the
town of Quepos where we had lunch before starting our 3 hour trip to
San José. I was so
uncomfortable the entire trip because I was wearing my wet bathing
suit that still had sand and salt water on it, wet jeans that
irritated the inside of my thighs and the A/C was on so I was cold
because I was in all those wet clothes. When we got back to San José,
we were allowed to shop for 45 minutes in a little market area just
across from the National Museum of Costa Rica. I bought a few things
for my boyfriend and something for me. Then we headed to Las
Orquiedas where we had dry clothes from the bags that we had left at
the hotel when we went into the rainforest. Then we had dinner and
had to fill out a little survey about our experience on this trip. We
also received t-shirts from the company that hosted the trip for us
and got a picture with Alfredo. Then we packed up because we had to
be at the airport by 6 AM.
Day
12 – Travel Home & Final Thoughts
I
could not wait to get back home! Even though I had fun in Costa Rica,
being able to see my mother and stepfather and little siblings was an
awesome site. I missed them all so much and I hated not being able to
see or hear them for the past 12 days. When we landed in Pittsburgh
International Airport at 8:10 PM, I called my mom and said that we
had landed and were safe. She told me that she was waiting for me at
baggage claim and that she would see me shortly. That got me really
excited! When we got to baggage claim, I saw her all the way at the
baggage claim where our bags would be and I ran. I ran like crazy
right into my mother's arms and cried. Then I went and got my bag and
we headed home to where I had a nice warm bed waiting for me and a
lot of dry clothes and technology.
This
trip has taught me a lot more about poverty and how not everyone in
the world has everything that they may want. They may have very
little and any sort of help means the world to them. There are other
people where they have just enough to get by and have the basics if
not a few extra things. The people in La Carpio and Quebrada Arroyo
were so thankful and gracious for all the hard work that we did to
help them make their community a better and safer place. I was really
glad to be able to go on this trip and I encourage anyone and
everyone to give this trip a chance. There are things that you may be
scared of such as bugs, spiders, or heights, but this trip is worth
it no matter what you are scared of.
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