Hola from San Carlos! Once again, I’m out of town for a Meditek trip this week. Since I posted early last week because of our Manuel Antonio trip, I have lots to update on. Here’s the weekly recap!
On Friday night, the GMI crew loaded into a van for our 3 hour ride to Manuel Antonio. Once we arrived at and explored our AirBnB, we hung out at the pool and listened to what we thought were monkeys throwing stuff at our house. Saturday morning, we headed to the beach which was about 3 minute walk from our rental. The weather was perfect, and the water was nice and warm (with some good waves to swim in, too). On Sunday, Travis, Sarah and I went on a sightseeing tour of Manuel Antonio National Park, where we got to see tons of animals, including sloths, monkeys, lizards, birds, and bats. At one point, several monkeys came SPRINTING onto the beach and all of us tourists gathered to take some pics. I don’t think the monkeys liked this (see scary picture down below). Overall, the tour was INCREDIBLE and I’d definitely recommend it to anyone going to Manuel Antonio. After a almost 4 hour ride back to San Jose, it was time to pack for the week ahead.
Beach by AirBnB at sunset
Sloth spotted in the trees in Manuel Antonio!
Monkeys screaming at us 🙁
Monday was essentially a travel day for Santiago and I. We arrived in San Carlos and went to Hospital de San Carlos for a few hours. I opened up, cleaned, and checked the functionality of a single compartment warming cabinet, which is used to warm hospital blankets. Then, I helped take apart a transport incubator for infants and learned about all of the sensors included that monitor infant vitals in midst of transportation from one hospital to another.
Tuesday and Wednesday were spent checking vitals monitors with a simulator to make sure that they were accurately reading patients’ vitals. We also worked on some central monitoring systems at the nurses’ stations to ensure that all of the patient monitors were connected.
On Thursday, we did some work and then drove to the La Fortuna area, where we spent some time at El Salto (swimming hole) and a hot spring. Laying in the hot spring while the rain poured was a 20000/10 experience, thanks Meditek! That night, we went to a restaurant/auction house (??) where I got to hear lots of mooing while I ate my steak (that I physically couldn’t finish because of the mooing). 3/10 experience, don’t catch me eating steak for a while :(. Friday morning, we finished up at Hospital de San Carlos and hit the road back to San Jose.
El Salto swimming hole/rope swing
Today, a group of us hit up La Paz Waterfalls with a GMI graduate who works at Confluent. We saw birds, butterflies, monkeys, sloths, snakes, jungle cats, and some insane waterfalls. I also tried Agua Dulce, a traditional Costa Rican hot drink that consists of unrefined cane sugar dissolved in water. Apparently some people drink that instead of coffee, and I can see why (it was super good!). For lunch, we went to the buffet at La Paz, and I finally had the hot dog that I’ve been craving since we came to Costa Rica. I’m not sure that I’ve ever felt so content eating a hot dog but it might have been the highlight of my day (next to seeing the waterfalls, of course). Shoutout to GMI grad Maggie for taking us!
GMI takes on La Paz
This was a super long blog post for an event packed week — stay tuned for the next one!