Rain Forest, Beach, & Home

Written By Mollie Schillinger


After leaving San Jose for the rain forest, the trip got a lot harder. I knew the rain forest was going to be a lot more difficult the moment we started our hike up to Quebrada Arroyo.  That hike was probably one of the hardest things that I ever did at that point. Little did I know that things were just going to get harder. The rain forest wasn't exactly what I expected, but it was still a lot of fun. The amount of work we had to do there was a lot, but we all made it through and we seemed to work together pretty well (for the most part). Overall the rain forest was a lot of fun. I got to practice my Spanish a little more and I got to swim in the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen.

Even though the rain forest was extremely challenging, it was worth it. Regardless of all of the things that happened. I think I enjoyed La Carpio a little more though. There, we had a bit more of a connection with the people we were working with.

The hike out of Quebrda Arroyo was really hard. It was even worse than the hike we had to do to get up there the first day. It was worth it though because right after that, we got to go zip lining. It was really fun, but then it started pouring! Everyone was completely soaked. It rained for quite awhile. When it was time to leave, we had to drive over three different creeks. Since it was raining so hard, the water rose, so it was really scary driving over them. Then, there were trees that fell in front of the road. The men driving out vans got out and started cutting it and moving it out of our way. It was really cool how they all worked together to get it done for us.

The next day, we went to the beach and it was really cool. We went to Manuel Antonio national Park. There were monkeys just running around on the beach, it was really cool. After that, we headed back to San Jose to get all of our stuff together to go home the next morning. There were a few problems with the flight times, but it wasn't too bad. I was really excited to be going home. The trip was a lot of fun but I was ready to go home.

After I got home and saw my family and took a nap in my own bed, I wanted to go back already. I started to miss everything that I experienced the 12 previous days. Overall, the trip was a lot of fun. I would not take any of my experiences back for anything, and I would gladly go back again.