La Paz Waterfall Gardens

The La Paz Waterfall Gardens have the most famous waterfalls in Costa Rica and an incredible wildlife preserve. 

It was absolutely beautiful and we took the wildlife preserve tour. It was nice because there was not a guide, so we were able to move at our own pace but they had staff at various points throughout the preserve to assist with the animals or answer questions. 

It reminded me a lot of the Jaguar Rescue Center in Puerto Viejo but it was way better. The waterfall garden was the coolest zoo I have ever seen. 

We were able to interact with the Toucans and the staff member placed the bird on my arm first, then my shoulder, and we eventually worked up to the top of my head.

I was not expecting it at all but it was awesome. It was a zoo within a giant rainforest, and we had to walk through the park to get to the waterfall. There was a designated area for all different species of animals. I saw jungle cats, butterflies, hummingbirds, monkeys, birds, frogs, snakes, and even cows. 

There are stairs that lead to the waterfall and you can look out from up above. You are then able to walk down lower and be under the fall. We were so close to the falls that we could feel the water coming down. There is a shuttle that will bring you back to the entrance of the preserve. 

This picture was taken from underneath the bridge, we climbed down the rocks so we were able to get close and under the waterfall.  I have never seen a place so beautiful and would recommend it to anyone that plans on visiting Costa Rica. They have a Peace Lodge as well where you can stay. It was another amazing experiene and this country gets omre beautiful with every trip I take. It was a great way to celebrate my graduation :)

Parque Nacional Volcán Poás

I graduated from college this past Saturday but was unable to attend the ceremony. Instead I was able to travel to the Poas Volcano with my cooperating teacher and her husband. They picked me up and we drove there which seemed like such a luxury because my main source of transportation is walking, bus or taxi. We drove through the mountains and high up in the jungle. It was very cloudy that day so there was very thick fog and it was misty. We were not able to get a clear view of the volcano because of the fog, you have to be really lucky to get a clear day. The wind would blow the clouds away to the side momentarily so we could catch a quick view. We looked over the side of the mountain, down to where the volcano is. It didn’t really matter to me that I did not get a clear view, I was so enchanted by being at a volcano and so high up in the mountains! I felt like I was in the middle of a Jurassic Park movie and was waiting for dinosaurs to appear.

I am hoping that I can also make the trip to the Irazu volcano and eventually I want to visit Arenal. If I don’t get around to it this time around, I will make sure to come back and check them off my list. After my travels here, I have accumulated several more things on my list of “Places I want to go and things I want to see”.

I also saw the biggest strawberries ever! In San Jose, the strawberries are minimal size at best and not very popular. But on the way to the volcano, we were in the city of Alajuela and they grow the strawberries right there in the fields. Since they are grown in Alajuela, they are of greater quality. There were several stops along the way that had people trying to sell their strawberries on the side of the road.  It is extremely common here for people to sell things in the streets; sometimes they are directly in the middle of the road where there is high traffic.

After the volcano, we went to the Lapaz Waterfall Gardens and I will post a new blog to explain about that amazingly beautiful adventure :)

Contemporary Dance Class

I went to a contemporary dance class the other week with my cooperating teacher. She does contemporary dance on a regular basis and is part of a company. She participates in burlesque dancing as well. Rebeca invited me along to one of her practices on a Wednesday night. Her cousin is the dance teacher and she runs the company with the help of her family. They offer multiple different types of dancing, including belly dancing and hip hop. The studio was actually an old house that they arranged and made into a dance studio. It was enormous and had everything needed to be an efficient dance studio.

I was able to participate and observe but I ended up doing more observing than participating. I was able to hold my own during the warm up and it was so fun to dance again…. it has been about ten years since I was in dance. It really made me miss it and I wished that I could still do the things I used to be able to do. They did the craziest things with their bodies and contorted them in all sorts of ways. It was so cool to see it in action. I think I even pulled a few muscles in my attempts. It was such a great experience and really made me consider taking up some form of dance again, even if just for a hobby. They rehearsed their routine over and over again and the endurance they all had was intense. I forgot how much work it really is and give them a lot of credit. It reminded me a lot of the lyrical work I use to do when I was part of Encore Dance Academy; those were some of the best days of my childhood. 

Manuel Antonio

I haven't blogged in a while because I have been extremely busy! This past week was very eventful :) Last weekend Lindsey and I went to Manuel Antonio for a mini vacation. Manuel Antonio is about 3 hours away from San Jose and we took a bus on Saturday morning. We actually made it in time for the 6am bus; which we had not been able to accomplish yet! There was a huge farmers market with every kind of fruit or vegtable you can imagine. We bought some really good carrot bread and whole wheat sweet bread for the bus ride.

We arrived in Manuel Antonio around 9am and found a hotel for the night. We didn't make any reservations so it was quite the adventure to find a hotel that had available rooms for a Saturday night. We had to visit 4 different hotels in order to find one that would work. My card was also getting declined for no reason at all and it was a very frustrating! Once we finally got our hotel room it was off to the beach for the day :)

The beach was so beautiful and filled with people. We spent the day lounging around and did some swimming in the ocean. The ride tides were very strong so our swimming adventure was exhausting and we had a few close under current calls! Thankfully we came out on top :)

On Sunday morning we got up really early and took off for the National Park. It was only $10 for admission and you can leave and re-enter if needed. We hiked for almost 3 hours through the national park before we reached the Mirador trail and were able to look out over the rainforest. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

After we hiked through the park, we went to the National Park Beach and set up in a small cove area for the rest of the day to relax and enjoy the ocean, wildlife and our other surroundings.

There was so much wildlife that we were able to see in the park. It was 100 times better than a zoo....and I LOVE the zoo. We saw both two and three toed sloths, squirrel monkeys, white-faced monkeys, iguanas, snakes, agouti, crabs, birds, butterflies, and even racoons. The white-faced monkeys were fighting over a bag of chips right along the treeline at the beach. They were so fun to watch!



I definitely plan on returning to Manuel Antonio! The National Park was so amazing and we didnt even cover 1/3 of it. The park has several other beaches than the one we went to and several trails as well. Next time I would consider getting a tour guide to help point out more wildlife. They bring a tripod that they set up so you can see the animals more closely. Luckily we were able to still spot and see a lot of them in the wild.

                                                                                I was so close to this Iguana I could 

                                                                           have touched it but I didn't want to take any chances!

First full day teaching experience

I taught my first full day today :) I was able to create some review activites for today and tomorrow to do with the kids. We did a charades-type game to practice past tense verbs and wrote example sentences. I explained the directions very slowly and clearly but there were still several students that struggled because they have limited English comprehension. I found it beneficial to provide an example so they could see what to do as well as hear what to do. Understanding the directions in English is the most difficult challenge for the students to overcome. There are several students with curriculum adjustments and they need additional instruction time and more explanation. 

It is almost impossible to go around and individually explain it to each student. They really struggle with directions and following instructions. It is something I have noticed during my observations the past two weeks. I plan to work a lot on understanding instructions and following directions.  No matter what I say, how I say it, or how many times I say it, there is always two or more students with questions. They might ask a question that I just explained 5 seconds before. It seems quite bazaar. 

However, when I checked the notebooks, majority of the students did the exercise correctly so I was very happy about that J

The classroom management is very different that in the U.S. I am very fortunate to have a lot of previous classroom management experience so I am not completely overwhelmed with the chaos or multiple interruptions. The students don’t necessarily misbehave but they have a lot of energy and it seems common to make noise, talk with each other, etc. They dont necessarily know how to pay FULL attention to the teacher. I have learned so much about and feel comfortable with responsive classroom, PBIS and using responsive language but it doesn’t seem to be commonly used here. I am trying to introduce to the students about what it should “look like and sound like” when the teacher is talking. I think that is something that will work with them once they become more familiar with the terms. I am very excited to implement some strategies that I have learned in my training.

A problem I have noticed is that there is not much concern for transitions between activities. I have noticed that is the prime time for students to become distracted and more out of control. The constant interruptions or chatter does not necessarily bother me but it is definitely different. I am excited to work with the students more and use my strategies and techniques that I have learned from previous classroom experience in the states. My cooperating teacher is fabulous and extremely supportive and encouraging of my ideas and suggestions.

I am excited for another full day of teaching tomorrow and will have to see how my sentence sort activity goes ;) Wish me luck! It is definitely some very exciting teaching going on and there is never a dull moment. 

My favorite moment of the day:
A student was asking me how to say something in English but I did not know the word in Spanish. It is very difficult to translate for them when I dont know the word they want to know....but i'm learning! So I did not know what the student's quesiton was....they were trying to find other ways to describe or explain the word (this is beneficial to them becuase it will help them understand the vocabulary better). I still was not figuring out the word. Another student went to his backpack and pulled out the book "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" to show me what word they wanted......diary! I was so grateful and the kid was a genius :) I thought it was great! I often have to take out my dictionary to find a word for them and they LOVE that. It is so fun for them to make the connection that I am learning their language as well. 

Pura Vida: Caribbean Coast

                                             Hola!

I just returned from my long weekend getaway to Puerto Viejo in the Limon province! It was absolutely beautiful....and definitely the most amazing place I have been so far. We woke up at 4am on on Thursday morning, in order to get into San Jose and catch the 6am bus to Puerto Viejo. Well......that did not work out as planned. We went to the wrong bus station (apparently there are two different buses into Puerto Viejo and we went to the one that didn't bring you directly to the beach.) SO, we had to taxi to a different station and wait until the 10am bus. We sat down at a small coffee shop by the station to wait for our bus. We had coffee, told stories, and lounged around in San Jose. I have learned quickly that no matter how much we plot and plan......in Costa Rica, it is very common those plans will fall through. You just have to go with it and be flexible. We finally got on the bus and arrived in Puerto Viejo about 5 hours later. The bus ride through the Caribbean was amazing and the view was priceless. There were trees and jungle everywhere...and the ocean to top it off! We still got there with plenty of time to check into the hotel and make it to the beach. The first beach we went to was Playa Negra with the black sand. 

We stayed in a really nice bed and breakfast hotel called Pura Vida (that was also the saying in Puerto Viejo). It was fabulous. Very quiet, open and relaxing. There were several hammocks to lounge around in and relax. We went to the beach, swam in the ocean, looked in the shops, and ate at delicious restaurants. My favorite restaurant was Saturday night, we found a place on the beach with live music. I ordered shrimp tacos for the first time and was in heaven because they soooo delicious. We were very satisfied with the food and the service there.


On Friday we went to the Jaguar Rescue Center near Cocles beach. We rented bikes for the day and rode through the jungle. It was amazing, we had the ocean next to us the whole ride as well. The rescue center had a tour that allowed us to play with the baby monkeys. One crawled up on my shoulder and I got to hold another one....then it started to bite me playfully so I put him down. There was one crazy monkey that stole things from people so we werent able to bring our cameras inside for pictures but we could take them from the outside. There were several other animals that we saw and learned about. The rescue center keeps animals that have been injured and treat them in order to release them into the wild. 

There were white tailed deer wondering in the center that would approach us and start licking our legs.....a deer licked me!!! All the way up my arm as well...it was really gross but

A DEER WAS LICKING ME so I secretly thought it was awesome. I highly doubt that opportunity will strike again. It was so cool to be so up close with the animals and interact with the monkeys. The sloths were also very entertaining :) It was way better than a zoo and I loved our tour guide. It was also cool because there were several tourist in our group that were from Germany and other parts of England. 

We stayed at Rocking J's on Saturday night and slept in hammocks! It was not the most comfortable sleeping situation but was suprisingly better than I thought it would be. It was right on the beach and we spent the night playing games and meeting new people :) It was an amazing experience. Everything about the Caribbean intrigued me. There was no urgengy, no sense of time, and no obligations. It was free and easy living-Caribbean style. We went at our own pace and the locals were so open and kind. It was a such an unbelievable place to be and we enjoyed everything about it. And Bob Marley was everywhere!

 I already miss the caribbean heat, laid back vibes, and awesome music! I LOVED IT and would consider going back. I would probably stay in Punta Uva...which if further outside of Puerto Viejo but had the best beaches and swim area. I feel so lucky to have been in Costa Rica such a short amount of time and to have had this opportuniy to travel already. PURA VIDA! 

"Relax, enjoy the scenery and remember patience is a virtue" -dreadnut coffee shop 

This quote was hanging on a colorful sign above their store and was a common theme in the Caribbean. Sometimes we all need a little reminder to slow down and enjoy the moments we are living in :)

PURA VIDA!