Highlight of the weekend: Stephanie Huang!!
Stephanie and I were suitemates this past year at Rice. She’s currently studying in San José (the capital) and we decided it was time to meet up before I left on the next chapter of my adventure. Sandwiched between a late night bus into the city and a really early morning, I got a grand total of two hours of sleep at my hostel on Friday night after a 50+ hour work week. I was SO excited to see Stephanie at the bus station on Saturday morning. We had only been able to make vague plans for how we were going to meet up in the city and I was so happy to see her. Once we found our bus, we had several hours to catch up. It was so wonderful to have time in person with a friend for the first time since I’ve been in Costa Rica. It was even better to share time in fellowship that I’ve been missing so much since I’ve been here. We compared notes on our experiences abroad and talked about some of the things we’ve been doing on our trips before both catching some much needed rest on the way to Manuel Antonio National Park. After a couple more hours on the bus, we reached one of Costa Rica’s busiest national parks. We worried a bit that the hoards of tourists would make it impossible to see any wildlife, but our fears were unfounded. We spotted bunches of monkeys (squirrel, howler, and white-faced capuchins), a sloth, a tree frog, and even a couple raccoons. The national park is squished between two smaller beaches and there were more than enough tourists to go around. Rather than reclusive monkeys like we had in Barra Honda, these were the incredibly bold obnoxious stuff-stealing kind. The monkeys didn’t hesitate to run up and still food (or any other available item) out of unguarded bags and backpacks. I finally figured out their con: One monkey steals some food and sits there looking adorable while eating it and all the tourists come and take photos. Meanwhile, all his monkey buddies raid the unattended bags left on the beach and the cycle begins again. Pretty clever actually. The raccoons were equally bold but not quite so cute or jumpy. I actually had to play tug-of-war with one of them that was trying to steal a girl’s bag. She was just standing there looking confused and helpless so I ran up and chased off the raccoon and god her bag back. It kept coming back to her towel to steal her food until she finally gave it some. I sighed and realized why she was having the problem to begin with.
Stephanie and I continued onto a less busy trail where we hiked up to some beautiful lookout points where we could look out over the Pacific. Props to Stephanie for doing the whole thing in flip-flops.
Our second day, we decided to visit Volcán Irazú, the highest volcano in Costa Rica. After narrowly avoiding getting totally lost in San José and missing our bus entirely, we boarded the [entirely tourist-filled] bus to drive up to the volcano. On the way there, I overheard the group next to us talking about random number generators, coding sequences, light scattering, and other thoroughly nerdy things. Stephanie sat there and laughed at me while I tried my best not to burst from excitement at hearing properly nerdy conversation. I finally couldn’t contain myself and asked them where they were from, what they were doing, etc. Turns out they were recent graduates from the College of William and Mary (another notable university) and on a combination honeymoon/vacation. Our chat with them made me realize how much I miss Rice people and our definition of “normal” conversation.
Once we got to the parking lot, it was a short walk to the edge of the crater where we could peer down into the turquoise acidic lake in the bottom. The sides of the crater were covered in colorful vegetation consisting, most notably, of giant leaves called “Poor Man’s Umbrella” (if that gives you a picture of the size). We decided to get ambitious and hike up even further to another overlook where, on a clear day, you are supposed to be able to see both the Pacific and Carribbean coasts. It wasn’t clear enough for us, but it was a stunning view nonetheless. The tops of the clouds seemed forever below us and we could see a neighboring volcano quietly smoking in the distance. The surrounding valleys were drenched in vibrant green color brought on by the misty rain that was falling the whole time we were there.
After a quick lunch, I hopped back on the bus to Liberia bringing my 48-hour bus ride total up to 20 hours. Not too shabby! But all that time was completely worth getting to hang out with Stephanie and feel like my social life was a little normal after all.