Discovery A — Saludos de Costa Rica

Hola a todos!!

We´re writing this blog from the city of San Isidro, which is about four hours from the capital, San Jose. Today has been a very busy day. We finally reached the site of our service project, the village of Cannán. An isolated farming community, Cannán gives one the opportunity to see a world wildly different from the rapid-fire, consumer driven lifestyle of any city in the US.

The students were very happy to arrive, meet their host families for the first time, and finally see the place where they´ll be spending the majority of their time in Costa Rica. They were especially happy  to arrive as the past four days have been one extremely challenging adventure after another.

After a brief layover in San Salvador, the group finally reached San Jose around 9pm on Thursday where they were greeting by Luke, one of the program directors, and Erin, one of their three guides throughout the trip. Without any regard for the previous day of travel, the hundreds of miles flown over, or the many hours spent in airports and planes, the students were awakened shortly after five the following day to go rafting on the Pacuare River.

What followed was an amazing day. Entertained by one of the river guides, Pepe, the students reached one of the most remote and beautiful rivers in the world. After hiking down to the river, the students spent the day fighting class three and four rapids, slowly drifting through the Costa Rican rain forest, and finding various ways to fall out of their rafts.

The following day, Saturday, we went to Pura Suerte, a stunning ecological farm deep in the rainforest. Despite a range of problems with the bus, and a long hike to the local town, we managed to reach Pura Suerte by the early afternoon and spent the rest of the day becoming acquainted with the unique natural beauty of the locale.

On Sunday we went on one of the more unique of our adventures, a hike down to the waterfall Niyaca. Unfortunately, there was a slight accident when Brianna slipped on one of the rocks. However, she was amazing and didn´t complain a bit about having to miss a wonderful experience.

And now, we´ve made it to Cannán. An unbelievable village up in the clouds where we´re excited to begin our service project.

Hope to write soon!

PURA VIDA