Field Trip #2

Hello All! I hope everyone's weekend was good; mine was very relaxing. We started off on Friday by heading to San Jose. A few people had to run errands in the city; namely to buy bus tickets for their Thanksgiving plans (some of them are going to Nicaragua for the break as we have four days off, so they had to buy tickets ahead of time; I am planning to go south down the Pacific coast to Dominical, Uvita and Marino Ballena National Park).
I'm going to do a short side note about traveling here. I'm sure some of you are wondering how exactly we get around and manage to go to all of these amazing places. The bus system here in Costa Rica is pretty decent. One can get almost anywhere from San Jose, so it's really nice that San Ramon is so close. The buses between San Ramon and San Jose are frequent (every two hours), the ride is only an hour, and it costs less than $2. Many buses from San Jose also happen to pass right by San Ramon, so we just have to go out to the main stop on the highway to hop on the bus that we need. The only downside of that strategy is that the buses are usually crowded, so my friends and I have had to stand for an hour or so with our stuff until someone gets off and we can take their seat.
The other travel gateway is Puntarenas, which is only about and hour and a half from San Ramon. From there one can go north to Liberia or the north Pacific coast, south down the Pacific coast, or across on a ferry to the Nicoya Peninsula. So there you have it.
Anyway, my friends and I made a day out of San Jose on Friday. As we had already done the sightseeing of the city on a previous trip, we did something completely different. My friend Kelsey and I like to rock climb, so we found a gym in where we could go. Rock climbing is not nearly as popular in Costa Rica as it is in the US, but it was fun to get some exercise, meet some Ticos (what the Costa Ricans call themselves), and do something that reminded me of home. I'm glad I went.

The next day was our second field trip with USAC. All 16 of us went, so it was fun to travel with everyone for a change. We went to Arenal Volcano. We stayed Saturday night in the town of La Fortuna, which is a fun little town (although touristy) with the volcano as the back drop. We went to Los Termales de Baldi (Hot Springs) on Saturday, which was wonderfully relaxing. It is a huge resort, with about 20 pools of different temperatures. The hottest one is about 150 degrees F, which is ridiculous and there was no one in it. I put my toes in and it was not enjoyable. The other pools were much better. Anyway, the next morning we went to Los Puentes Colgados, or the Hanging Bridges. We took a stroll through the forest, stopped at a waterfall, and had some fabulous views of the Volcano and the scenery. We also saw some monkeys. It was a pretty nice weekend.