A sad goodbye

Written By: Alex Guy

Traveling to the rainforest from San Jose what a good time. At first, everyone was in a bad mood because of the van set up. After we got started, we were all having fun. We stopped several times on the way to take a restroom break and to look at alligators that were about 10-15 feet long. They were amazing especially since I haven’t seen anything like them before.

When we arrived in the rainforest, the first thing our group had to do was to hike about an hour or so to our cabin area. That was a rough time because, not only was most of it up hill but, Mr. Z and I stayed back to walk with Ms. Rob and Andrea because they were having asthma issues. I didn’t mind staying back with them but the four of us still had some good laughs. Then, after we thought we were lost for an hour, we showed up at our cabin area and we met all the other students.

The rain forest amazed me in so many ways. The first evening that we were there, I ate dinner while sitting at this high table and behind the table was the forest. So it was kind of like eating dinner while watching TV except the TV was the forest. It was an amazing view and it was so natural. That was definitely one of the best views of the trip. After our dinner, we all had a meeting and then we just relaxed for the night which was definitely a good idea since we were all exhausted from the day of travel.

The first 3 full days that we were in the rainforest we did service work. One of those days was to even out a road that had a lot of ditches and low parts in it so our team carried bags of rocky sand up a huge hill and unloaded the bags where they needed to be unloaded. That day was particularly difficult because I had blisters on my feet which made it difficult to walk and also I was sweating a lot. I think I drank about 5 liters of water that morning and I literally sweat it all out. My bladder was empty the whole day.

Also, one of the best things about the whole trip was swimming in the natural waterfalls. I loved swimming in them and it was just amazing to see the water fall from so high and hit the clear water below. The water was so clear and so refreshing I wish I could have just stayed there.

The other few days we worked on building a retaining wall. We mixed cement on the ground and we poured it over thick rocks. That also happens to be when I broke my toe from a huge rock falling on it. It was… an interesting experience. That held me back a little bit on our 2 and ½ hour hike the next day. I still tried to get there ASAP because I wanted to stop sweating.

The rest of that day we traveled to the zip line which was amazing. We got to travel through the canopy ad see open valleys and what not. Unfortunately, it started to poor and we all got soaked, the cameras got soaked, and all of our bags on top of the vans got soaked. That was rough, but I didn’t really care because I had a dry pair of clothes for the next day so I enjoyed the rain. It felt good. In a weird way it was very relaxing to just let the rain fall and walk through it. It was especially cool to go on a zip line that is extremely long and having rain smack you in the face. It was pretty sweet.

The next day is the beach day which was also an awesome experience. We went to this beautiful beach that had white sand a warm water. It was an amazing view. Then we headed back to our hotel to pack up and go back to San Jose. Once we got back, we did some shopping and went back to the hotel. Literally when we were all heading to our rooms for the night, Z called us all for a meeting and told us we had to wake up at 4 instead of 6. That was rough.

So we woke up early to go home. The flight process was extremely frustrating. Once we got to the air port in Dallas, I went straight to Wendey’s to get back on my American diet. It tasted so good. All that grease and fried chicken, it was so good. Then we got on the flight back to Pittsburgh and it was good to be home.

The trip was a experience I wouldn’t trade for anything. I learned so much, even throughout the bad times. I learned every moment of the trip and enjoyed most of them. If I were to talk to a student that was thinking about going next year, the first thing I would tell them is that it is a life changing experience that will change the way you live and view life. I wish I could go next year it was so good.