isla de ometepe!!

So I made a quick dash to San Ramon at the last minute - I decided Friday morning to head there from Granada. It ended up being about a 6 hour bus ride and I got in at like 7pm. Nobody (minus Emma and Max, who I´ll get to in a sec) knew I was coming, so it was kind of fun just showing up. Emma and Max, both from Grinnell, were doing internships there so I popped by and visited them. The three of us left at 11am to get to la Isla de Ometepe, which itself was an epic journey that lasted about 7 hours and involved a horrific movie and some freaky driving.

We coincidentally met up with Shai on the boat just as I was freaking out about how she and I were going to get back in touch. Now we´re all hanging out at this really sweet hostel where we´re paying $2.50 a night for a private room. We went kayaking today around this really pretty area. I might expand on this later, depending on internet access. Tomorrow Emma and Max have to leave, which is too bad, but Shai and I will head to another part of the island to see some really cool ancient petroglyphs. We´ll probably be staying here until Tuesday, after which I´ll head back to San Jose, C.R. to fly to Wisconsin for my cousin´s wedding.

What's red and white with stripes all over?

A zebra with a sunburn!

Ha ha ha ha ha. I just remembered that joke. Coincidentally, I am also red all over - ridiculously sunburnt. We're in Mal Pais right now, which is this great beach town, and are staying at a really relaxed (and appropriately named) hostel, the Tranquilo Backpackers Hostel. It's got hammocks everywhere, tons of mango trees, free pancake breakfasts, free internet, and is right across the street from the beach (although separated by a mini forest). I actually just picked a mango off the ground right now. I might regret this decision later, but someone told me they were fine to eat as long as they weren't already split open. So we'll see how it goes.

I spent a good majority of the morning trying to clean my cooking oil-stained pack. It exploded in the taxi yesterday from Montezuma to Mal Pais. Oh gosh, I just realized I have so much to update you all on. I left my passport in our really awful hostel in Montezuma (Pension Jenny - don't stay there! It's just as expensive as a hostel on the beach but is incredibly dirty and bad.) and didn't realize it until we drove the 45-min passage to Mal Pais, so I had to go back to Montezuma, retrieve my passport (luckily Pension Jenny is honest even if it's not clean), and wait two hours for the next transportation to Mal Pais to arrive.

Now that we're here though, it's great. We were thoroughly disappointed with Montezuma, which was disappointing in itself since a lot of other people really enjoyed it. Sorry to everyone out there who's been and who liked it - I think we were expecting a real beach town and were surprised to find it so developed and so focused on tourism. Montezuma is this hippie town with yoga classes, wheat grass shots and organic ice cream stores, and vendors sporting rasta dreads. All of this seems to be for tourists, though. The signs were all in English and almost everyone working in the tourist industry speaks the language, which is really interesting considering that the majority of Costa Ricans don't know English.

So we left Montezuma for Mal Pais and have been really happy with it. I rented a boogie board today and went to the beach with some friends here. They rented a surf board and let me try it, and it was actually really fun! So I think tomorrow I'm going to swap my boogie board for a surf board and try it for reals. It's strange coming from Southern California and having this be the first time I've ever tried to surf. But after today's adventure, I'm pretty badly sunburnt on my legs.

The tropics have not been too good to Shai or me. In addition to our burns, we're also getting eaten alive by the mosquitos. Shai just doused herself in DEET, this miracle potion that protects us from these awful bugs. Last night, in bed, as I was blindly grabbing into the air with the hopes of killing the mosquitos that buzzed in my ear, I considered that the people sharing our hostel dorm would think I was crazy. I hit my face a few times, slapped my ear, and eventually retreated under my bed covers. I'm sure the battle will wage on when we cross the border for Nicaragua in a few days. Until then, I think we'll have to figure out a way to make peace here in Mal Pais with both the mosquitos and the sun.

From Mountains to Ocean

Ziplining was awesome! Shai didn't want to go because she had already done it in Mexico, but Monteverde apparently is where ziplining was born. So it was great. The group I was in included 'Team Kickass,' which comprised three awesome guys in Costa Rica for a wedding, and people studying abroad from a community college in Philly. The experience was surprisingly not that scary - even though a hook is the only thing connecting you to a wire 450 ft above the ground, you feel pretty secure. So we all zipped around primary canopy forest in Costa Rica. I really didn't see anything at all except the treetops, which was still gorgeous. At one point, I thought I heard howler monkeys but that easily could have been someone being a jerk and mimicking their sound.

The most awesome and terrifying part of this whole ziplining experience, though, was the tarzan swing. The guy at our hostel talked to me for like five minutes about the different tarzan swings available. I felt like I was buying life insurance or something, he told me so much information. I must have zoned out because I was thoroughly surprised when we got to this point of the ziplining experience. The guide asked for a volunteer to go first and I naturally made sure I didn't even breathe loudly so he wouldn't pick me out of our 12-person group. Some girl in front of me raised her hand but no, he went straight for me. He probably thought I would shriek really loudly on the swing.

I walked up this giant platform (about three stories tall?) and was hooked onto this giant rope. The guy then tried to convince me to use both hands to hold on. In order to do that, I had to lean forward, off the edge of the platform, which I was not keen on doing since that meant I would most likely fall off this platform rather than control my 'jump.' Regardless, I'm pretty sure the guide pushed me off once both my hands were touching that rope. I didn't even think about screaming once I fell; the wind got knocked out of me so it wasn't an option. Once I almost hit the ground and the rope kicked in to yank me back up, I realized I was actually notgoing to die. So the swing turned out to be really fun!

That night, Shai and I met up for dinner with 'Team Kickass' at the Treehouse Cafe, a touristy but neat restaurant in Monteverde. The guys were all really cool. After dinner, we went to a bar to hang out and ended up sitting around this really nice bonfire for the majority of the night, and later were joined by a lot of other tourists (and locals who followed them) who were attracted to fire.

Yesterday (I cannot believe this was just yesterday), Shai and I woke up at 5am to catch a bus to get to the beach. I'm going to end this story here because I am tired, but hopefully it will be continued.

Nice failures

Short post because the internet's slow. But we're in Monte Verde, C.R. right now. We took a guided hike to see the lava of volcano Arenal, but we didn't see anything because it was cloudy. Apparently if that happens, the tour company gives a free tour the next day but we had to leave for Monte Verde. The hike ended with a really sweet stop at natural hot springs, which were *amazing*!

Shai and I also tried to go to this cabaret show put on by the Monte Verde community, which was about 2km uphill from our hostel. We left at about 6:30 pm and it was already dark. After climbing up this super steep hill and having no idea where we were going, the fog started to roll in. When the windy road turned from paved to dirt and the sidewalk ended, we paused on the side of the road to check our bearings with our little map. The longer we waited, the thicker the fog got. We ended up just going back. This dog followed us halfway back and almost got run over at least twice. Really, this story is not very good. You had to be there - the fog seriously made everything more ominous! At one point we turned around and all we saw were the outlines of two figures walking behind us, as we're walking along this curvy highway in the forest. Creepy.

Tomorrow I'm going ziplining. I think Shai's going to a reptile museum and a butterfly garden. We'll also go for a hike. We're trying to decide where to go from here, but we're thinking Montezuma, a beach town in the Gulf of Nicoya.

Grinnell's grades are up. That's terrifying.



I'd love to hear from you all so feel free to send me e-mails or comments. (Thanks for the note, Jamie!)

We´re in store for a Volcano

Shai and I left Coralia yesterday and took a 6 hour bus ride to La Fortuna, which is in the northern region of the country and located near the base of the Arenal volcano. This volcano erupted in 1968 after a 400-year dormancy and has been spewing lava ever since. La Fortuna is super touristy, but almost everyone speaks English, which is helpful for Shai. It starts to pour rain here by like 1pm, so I´m not quite sure how the tour is going to go down. I also only packed a pair of sandals, so hopefully nothing gross appears out of the dirt and attacks my feet.



Before taking a tour at 3pm today to check out the lava, we´re going to walk over to a watering hole because it is super hot and humid here! It´s the type of hot where you sweat when you stand still.

Tomorrow we leave La Fortuna at 8:30 am for Monteverde, via a strange route popularly known as ¨jeep-boat-jeep.¨ You take a van to Lake Arenal, where a boat meets you and takes you across the lake. Once you cross the lake, a van meets you at the other end and takes you to Monteverde, which is one of the most popular nature reserves in Costa Rica. I´m curious to see it, mainly since I had read academic articles about the tourism there when I was studying tourism in Costa Rica with my class on sustainable development.

I´ll probably update after Monteverde. I feel like I really haven´t had all that much to update about yet, but hopefully this will soon change, and won´t include stories about getting our stuff stolen at the local watering hole or being abandoned on a boat in Lake Arenal. Only time will tell!

Heredia, Costa Rica

I got into Costa Rica safe and sound! I´m staying with my friend Coralia, who stayed with my family and me in December when she toured Soka University, a college founded by the SGI sect of Buddhism. We had a sleepover last night at Coralia´s friend´s house with her friend and a girl from Soka University who´s studying abroad here. Everything´s going really well! It rains for much of the day. This is a really bland post but I want you all to know that I will occasionally be posting updates about the trip! Tomorrow Shai gets in and I have no idea what will be in store for us after that. It will be exciting, whatever happens.

Experiential Learning Trip to Nicaragua

I know I haven't posted in an incredibly long time, but I was told to update at some point with a "where am I now" type thing, and I actually have news that you might be interested in!

I'm planning a trip for students at Grinnell College to go back to San Ramon with me and do some experiential learning over spring break. It's been an incredible process and I've already learned so much, despite not even having left yet. Nothing currently exists at Grinnell like this, so it's been an exciting journey of meeting people incredibly motivated to help pave the way to establish a formal, concrete relationship between the college and the community after a few years of connections via its students. I hope that this trip will continue for years to come, and will contribute to a sister city-type relationship between Grinnell and San Ramon. In particular, I hope that professors will supplement class coursework (whether in development studies or ecology) with trips to San Ramon to deepen the applicability of Grinnell's educational experience and provide real-world examples for textbook knowledge.

I'll post the project description from various funding applications I've filled out.
Taken from my Center for Peace Studies funding application:
During Spring Break 2009 (March 16th-27th), a group of eight Grinnell students will volunteer in San Ramón, Nicaragua, which is located in the Northern region. (The spots were highly competitive – twenty-two people applied for seven spots.) We will specifically be working with a community organization run by women, el Centro Promocional Cristiano por la Paz y la Vida (CPC). CPC also runs its own micro-lending office, a pharmacy, a health clinic (which was created through efforts of Jamie Zwiebel ’08), a community tourism office, and educational services for women and youth.
We will be in Nicaragua for 10 days, staying with homestay families organized by CPC. Our work will involve Finca La Hermadad, a primary cloud forest reserve that is home to howler monkeys and sloths. Our primary service project will be to work in the park, cleaning existing trails and clearing new ones. The reserve stems from the efforts of a shade-grown coffee plantation owner to preserve the local environment in light of increased deforestation in the region. Many farmers surrounding La Hermandad decide to clear primary forest and farm their property to garner an income from the land. Thus, the reserve maintains a quickly-disappearing environment that has yet to be examined by biologists—to this day, no species list has been created for the region’s cloud forests. The farmer lacks the economic resources to maintain the reserve, however; thus, any help would be much appreciated as he wishes to make the reserve available to locals who lack opportunities to see the surrounding natural environment.
As a group, we will also conduct interviews with recipients of microloans to evaluate the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats within the microloan industry in San Ramón, Nicaragua. This project would bolster the microloan industry that has enabled individuals—women, in particular—to economically gain control of their lives. The interviews would be meshed into a document, which would be presented to CPC and to the recipients of microloans, thus placing emphasis on the voices of recipient populations. We will also take a tour of two women’s artisan cooperatives which are funded by microloans.
This trip builds upon the community’s pre-existing relationship with the college through its students and student groups: most recently, I held an internship in sustainable community tourism with CPC during the summer of 2008; Social Entrepreneurs of Grinnell (SEG) is currently lending CPC a microloan; Jamie Zwiebel ’08 studied abroad and worked with CPC, fundraised to help construct their health clinic and also created a sewing cooperative through a Davis Project for Peace in the community during the summer of 2007.


After a rigorous application process in which 22 students applied, a total of 7 were selected to participate in this trip. I've been able to acquire $3190 of funding as of now, which is incredibly exciting. This will make the trip cost about $350 per person, not including myself. That's less than the cost of the plane tickets. It'll be great!

When we get back, we'll be making at least three presentations on campus: first, we'll present to the campus at large to describe the trip and how it went, and second, we'll talk about microfinance in the region at a conference hosted by the Wilson Program. Third, we'll present to the college's board of trustees to describe the trip and where we'd like things to go from here.

I'll update after the trip. Maybe a little bit during as well, if we have time. If you want more information, feel free to send me an e-mail or post a comment and I'll get back to you.