Costa Rican Adventure

In June of 2013 for a wonderful 10 days in Costa Rica. This wonderful Latin American Country is located between Nicaragua and Panama. I, along with 12 other students from my high schools Spanish and Art Club, 3 chaperones, and the two club directors, got to go on this magical adventure through EF Tours. If you haven’t heard of EF Tours, they are a company that provides fun, educational, culturally immersive, tours all over the world.  They handle all the travel planning, you provide the funds. At the time I took this trip it costed me $2,200.00 to spend 10 days in Costa Rica. This included my lodging, meals, excursions, travel, and the payment of our bus driver and tour guide. We got to tour the whole country and experience some pretty amazing things and got to plant a tree in the EF reserve in the rain forest leaving our mark on this beautiful country. I hope to someday go back to Costa Rica. EF Tours is a really great company and puts together some amazing trips that are extremely fun and educational (though you have so much fun you don’t even realize that you are learning). These trips are very safe and well managed so there is no worries for anyone.

We started off in San Jose (the capitol) and went around the whole country.  We visited a nature reserve and a biological reserve to be able to explore the different rain forest types and see the animals in their natural habitat. We also went on a Nocturnal hike which was neat to see the critters of the night awake and going about their cute little furry lives. While we were off in an area to hike and explore a volcano, we also got to relax in some hot springs that were naturally heated by the volcano, as well as kayak (my first time kayaking and what started my love of it) in a lake that was at the base of the volcano. We spent some time learning the arts of their country in a Folklore evening, a dance show put on by students at a school, and all of the other beautiful paintings and murals we saw along the way and in museums, and hand made items like clothes, bags, and jewelry we bought along the way. We went zip-lining (I chickened out of that) at an extreme zip-lining park, horse back riding in a coffee plantation, and white water rafting (this was one of my favorites). As many of you know, I do not like coffee, but really found our time at the coffee plantation interesting; I learned a lot of interesting things about coffee and seeing the process of the growing, harvesting, and preparing the coffee for both sale and drinking. While there also we learned that the Costa Ricans have a saying down there that they use for just about everything, hello, goodbye, greetings, how things have been, well wishes, and so on. The phrase is Pura Vida, which means “Pure Life” and that is a motto I have tried to live by every since.

I really enjoyed making new friends on this trip. In the group that I was in was not only my school but was 2 other schools from Missouri, making our tour group a total of 41. I also really loved the Folklore night, the hiking in the reserves, to and from the waterfall, and to the top of a volcano, visiting the giant Ox cart and learning the history of it, and spending the day at a local school and visiting with the kids. There were so many fascinating, beautiful, amazing things that I got to experience and learn there and I can’t even begin to express it. I strongly suggest that if you ever have the opportunity to go on a trip with EF, DO IT! It is well worth it and always an amazing adventure. Pura Vida everyone!