Day 4

Day 4

We departed the Arenal Vista Lodge at 7:30am for Monteverde National Park. Along the way we stopped at La Escuela de las Nubes to watch a performance. This is a small town at the top of the mountain with only 30 families in town and only 10 of those have children in the school. There are 21 children K-6 that attend the one-room school house. They did 4 dances for us, starting by signing their National Anthem. After the performance our students played a little soccer game with their 3 boys who didn't dance. Luis and Toni we unbelievable players. I'm not sure who had more fun, our students or Toni and Luis!

Next we drove to our hotel, Atardecer, in Monteverde. Unfortunately the hotel did not have a pool, but the quaint downtown area was a 5 minute walk. After lunch (mashed potatoes, grilled chicken breast, rice and beans) about 20 people went horseback riding (an extra fee of $50).

Our first dinner at this hotel was spagetti and garlic bread. Usually each dinner comes with some sort of juice or mixture of juices. After our 7pm, we again had free time. It was very windy out, and quite cold. It was also too foggy to see the Pacific Coast, even though we were close enough.

Day 5

Today we had breakfast at 645am. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, toast with mango jelly, and rice and beans mixed. Pete and I have been enjoying the Lizano salsa that has been on almost every table in Costa Rica. In fact, Pete bought his own personal jar just in case they didn't have it.

We boarded the bus at 7:30am for the Zip line at 100% Adventure. This was absolutely awesome! (more to come--time for our night walk in the cloud canopy)

Day 3

Breakfast at 7am in the lobby was scrambled eggs, toast, coffee, juice, rice and beans. This was followed by a short drive to La Fortuna Waterfall. It was 500 steps down to the base, where we were able to swim and play and crawl around on the rocks for about an hour.

After the STEEP hike back up we boarded the bus for downtown Fortuna. Here we learned about coffee and were told we should become coffee snobs. The coffee store owner taught us how to smell the aroma and how to SLURP the coffee to appreciate the best taste. Prices were high ($11/pound) but several students were convinced that HIS coffee was the best.

Next we had a bag lunch in the beautiful park in downtown Fortuna, a town not much bigger than Three Lakes, and bubbling with people like it was the Forth of July. Lunch was a chicken sandwich and a ham sandwich, with big slices of tomatoes and crisp lettuce. We also got a juice box and an apple. We then had 1.5 hours to shop and roam around. I mailed my postcards to my kids and was surprised that the stamps were 280 Colones each (about $0.65).

We loaded back on the bus at 12:45 destined for Lake Arenal and Kayaking. On our trip up to the lake the temperature rose to 39 degrees C = 105 F. We stripped down to our suits (which were just barely dry from the waterfalls. As we headed out to get our gear for kayaking it started to rain. Remember, it was 100 degrees, so it felt good. However after getting our PFD and paddle, the rain was a bit cold and we couldn't believe we were heading out to paddle in a down pour!

Our paddle was great, our two guides were great, and it stopped raining. I enjoyed speaking Spanish with the non-bilingual guide. He gave me the history of the lake, dating back to 1979 when they CREATED the lake. There are two cities under the water. YES, two cities, buildings, houses, churches, and other cool things for snorkelers to search for. All the families that used to live in these communities were given government money to move to New Arenal (a town we will visit tomorrow). Lake Arenal was created for Hydroelectricity and is still the biggest producer of electricity in all of Central America.

Costa Rica - Day 1 & 2

March 26, 2010

Friday night we left Three Lakes School at 11pm with four of our nine students. We then picked up 5 other students at Sugar Camp School and we were off. We had two stops on the way to the airport, one in Abbotsford and one in Hudson. After parking, we boarded the tram for ticketing and everything went well. All students used the computerized check-in with their passports.

The only hang-up was several girls, including myself, had gallon size zip-lock bags for toiletries. We were given quart size and needed to condense things. Two girls needed to leave some unopened items that didn’t fit, such as bug spray and anti-bacterial cleaner. Prescription meds should NOT go in that bag, which saves on room.

We had a crowded flight and sat in the back of the plane. It was three hours to Miami, where we then had a four-hour lay over. Our flight from Miami to San Jose was also almost 3 hours, but uneventful. We had no problems going through Customs.

Heidi, our tour guide, met us at just outside the airport after we cleared Customs. We them met Eric, our bus driver for the week. It was a 20-minute transfer to the hotel. The hotel was very nice, with nothing unusual by American standards. The pool, however was too cold to swim, since the sun was down by the time we arrived.

After we checked into our rooms all 11 of us walked to the local park, which used to be their International Airport years ago. The was the last night of a week long celebration of Art in the park. There was a concert, food venders, and folklore dancers, not to mention thousands of people. This was very entertaining and a good introduction to the country.

We had a nice dinner, poolside, of lemon chicken breast, pasta with white or red sauce, and fresh squeezed pineapple juice. After the students hung-out with the group from New York, we all went to bed and got a good night’s sleep.

Day 2

Although we all had 6am wake-up calls, the 4 boys and I were all up and ready to go by 6am. We walked down to the local almacen, where we used the ATM and bought waters and sunscreen. The sunscreen was about $16 and a regular size conditioner was about $6.

We had nice poolside breakfast of rice & black beans mixed together, shredded beef, toast, coffee, juice, and scrambled eggs. Next was the 1.5 hour transfer to the Poás Vocano, with a great view of the countryside. Heidi did a great job of giving us the history and background of her Country. We passed coffee plantations, yucca trees, pineapple plants, sugar cane fields, and farms that grew ferns and other plants and flowers for export to Holland and other coutnries.

The Poás Volcano was very impressive! It was very hard to breath, not just from the elevation of 7,000 feet, but the sulfur was actually visible in the air. It smelt like the smoke from fireworks. Most of us were coughing at the lookout point. There was a very nice hike UP to the old volcano, which is now a lake. Pete and I then walked up a little higher on the way back to the bus, which in-turn, had a very steep decline. This lake reminded me of Lake of the Clouds at the Porcupine Mts. In Michigan.

After loading back on the bus we descended about half way for lunch at a local restuarant. This time the rice and black beans were severed separately, along with fried Yuca, fried plantains, and chicken breast. They offered blended strawberry drinks, coke, and bottled waters, along with dilled jalapeños to add to our rice.

Next we are off to the Baldi Hot Springs. Unfortunately it was a 3-hour bus ride! Time to look out the window and enjoy the beautiful countryside. We stopped along the way to use the restrooms and buy souvineers. I bought 4 t-shirts and a beach towel for $34.

We arrived in Fortuna about 3:45pm and were introduced to the Baldi Hot Springs. This is a resort, with lodging, restaurants, bars, gift shops, changing rooms, locker and towel rentals, and of course the hot springs. We spent 2 hours (4-6pm) at Baldi! It had 3 FAST waterslides, 15 pools (large hot tubs/pools) ranging in temperature from 90 degrees F to about 160 F. No, none of us went in the HOT pool. I think the students really enjoyed this time, and it was well worth the BUS ride. Heidi said that before the earthquake a year ago, there was a much quicker route to Arenal from Poás. Two small towns were wiped out, along with several road systems. I would love to return to Baldi some day, and would highly recommend it to anyone traveling in Costa Rica.

Our hotel for the next two nights was at the base of Arenal, on the Southwestern side. We drove the entire circumference of Arenal on this day. The Arenal Vista Lodge was only about 20 minutes from Baldi, however along the way there was a bit of a traffic jam. Several cars were parked on the VERY narrow road, waiting to see the melting lava erupting from Arenal. This feat is very common and easy to see on the few cloudless/rainless nights, like the one we were fortunate to have. The unfortunate part was being stranded on the bus for an hour, waiting for Ticos to clear the roadway.

Preparing to Leave

We held a parent meeting a year ago on March 17, 2009. At this meeting I had about 5 parents who paid the $95 non-refundable payment, after seeing the EF Tours DVD and hearing our proposal.

Pre-trip meetings: We have had several meetings during lunch and during homeroom.
Pro's: Quick and to the point.
Con's: Rarely did all the students show up. Kids would forget, or had other meetings, or were absent. Students even missed a madatory meeting that included PIZZA at lunch time. Becasue of this, I needed to get the hand-outs and important information to those students who missed. This was probablay the worse part of the PRE-trip experience.

Traveling with EFTours:
Pro's: I would highly recommend this company, based on the hands-on support and the jammed packed activity they provide ON TRIP.
Con's: There were a lot of hidden fees! After the tour price was set at $1,935, which was after each student paid a non-refundable one-time fee of $95. Then departure fees went up $72. We paid this about 3 months prior to our trip, based on gas fees. Next, there was the tip money that I had to collect for the TD $48 and the bus driver $24. Lastly, our TD contacted us and came up with extras that we could pay for while we are there. The total of these three EXTRAS was $57. Of course, besides all of this, the students were also able to go horseback riding for an extra $40 and attend a folklore dinner and evening for $45. Our Spanish Club was able to cover the folklore for each student along with the tip money for the bus driver. Oh yeah, we will need gas and parking at the Minneapolis airport which is estimated at $375 for both school vehicles. Bottom line, estimate about an extra $300/student for the extras..before you even leave.