Costa Rica!

Greetings from Costa Rica! A week ago at this time Rachel, Leah, and I were on a bus from Nicaragua to Cañas. The bus trip was fine, though the border crossing seemed to take forever, but once we got to Cañas we had a hard time finding where we were supposed to wait to catch our next bus. We waited for about an hour at a bus stop and when we gave up on the bus and stood up we realized that Rachel's daypack was gone. She lost a lot of stuff, but was most disappointed about losing her passport. Tomorrow she is going with someone from the farm to the embassy in San Jose and hopefully she'll be able to get another one quickly. We filed a report at the police station and with that document they said it would be easier to get it replaced. After leaving the police station we saw our bus go by and not wanting to wait another 3 hours until the next one we hitchhiked to Arenal, spent the night there and then went to the farm the next day. The guy that we hitched a ride with was very friendly and gave us a history lesson about the area as we drove along.

Apart from Rachel getting robbed, we've had a really positive experience in Costa Rica so far. The farm where we are volunteering is beautiful! There are about 50 employees at the farm and we live in a bunkhouse with most of them so we've found ourself in an interesting little community that we weren't expecting. Everyone has been very friendly and welcoming and our nickname here is Charlie's Angels (one of the cooks gives everyone a nickname when they arrive and considering some of the other nicknames we heard, we feel pretty lucky with ours).

I spend my mornings with the veternarian checking on all the animals and feeding them. The farm has a rescue center for animals and even though it isn't officially open yet, they already have 6 deer, 5 monkeys (3 capuchin monkeys and 2 spider monkeys), a tucan, a raccoon, and tepezcuintles (large rodents). They also have other animals that are not part of the center such as horses, cows, chickens, and dogs. My favorite is a baby spider monkey named Sukia that is 4-5 months old. She has a lot of personality and has been warming up to me more and more each day. The veternarian is leaving is leaving today for four days so it will be up to me take care of them for the next few days. In the afternoons I've been working on a reforestation project with a guy who knows everything about nature. So far I've mainly just been helping to fill small plastic bags with dirt to plant the seeds in, but I'm hoping that I'll get to plant more trees in the future. Leah has been working mainly on construction projects and Rachel has been in the gardens planting and weeding and also is in charge of the chickens (which often means chasing after them when they escape).

My work day starts at 6am and ends between 4-5pm with breaks for breakfast and lunch, Yoga class is offered every afternoon at 4:30 and I've been a few times so far. It feels great after a long day. Dinner is at 6 and by 8 we're usually in bed. We only have Sundays off so we won't be able to do much traveling while we're here, but we're planning on spending a couple days in San Jose after we finish at the farm and before we bus to Panama.

xoxo, Katie