It’s been a wild week so far… We had our last full week of observations at Hospital de Niños with Dr. Bogantes—in the future, we’ll only be going back for project-specific observations. We went to the UCR cadaver lab with Dr. Bogantes last Thursday, but there was a mix-up with the technician so we couldn’t get into the lab. Instead, Dr. Bogantes showed us slides of brain samples under a microscope, which was really incredible to see. We’ll be going to the cadaver lab tomorrow and on Thursday, and hopefully he’ll get to show us the nervous system and the brain.
All scrubbed up with nowhere to go.
We decided to go to Puerto Viejo with two Tico friends of ours, Rafael and Ricardo. Puerto Viejo is on the east coast of Costa Rica and takes a 3.5 hour drive to get there, so we were incredibly lucky that Rafael’s relatives were gracious enough to drive us. This trip was meant to be a beach experience with some extra activities, but apparently we arrived at the tail end of a large storm, turning our trip into an activities experience without the beach. Puerto Viejo was also extremely hot and humid, and unfortunately none of the places we went to, including our hostel, had air conditioning. The food, however, was incredible—this region of Costa Rica has a high Caribbean influence, and my favorite dish from Costa Rica has been Caribbean rice and beans. We’ve had it multiple times already, but this was the first time we got to try the dish from its source. Apple and I love this dish so much that we made sure to have it twice during the trip.
Rice and beans: Day 1 and Day 2. (I liked the first better)
On our first day, we went to the Jaguar Sanctuary in Limón, which is quite a misleading name—it doesn’t have any jaguars whatsoever. The animals they did have were amazing though; this was much larger than the sanctuary we went to in San Jose and had a huge diversity. Our guide had so much information to give: for example, apparently sloths can’t regulate their body temperatures well so when it starts raining, the caretakers have to bring the outdoor sloths back inside since they might get hypothermia. Also, the sanctuary reintegrates howler monkeys back into the wild after they’ve recovered, and the way the monkeys are transported are by sitting on the caretakers’ shoulders like toddlers.
Kissing sloths >.<
Our second major activity was a chocolate tour at Talamanca Chocolate; it was taught by the kindest, sweetest, and funniest Scottish lady. She was so good at storytelling and explaining each aspect of the cacao tree—which is actually always referred to as a female in Mayan folklore! I genuinely think that she might be one of the most knowledgeable people I’ve ever met, and you can just tell how passionate she is about cacao and chocolate. We saw the chocolate-making process from bean to final product and even got to take some back with us. It was probably one of my favorite experiences in Costa Rica, even though there was no air conditioning.
Choco choco
There were a few more interesting events that happened over the weekend, including an intense game of BS in the hostel bar, waking up at 5 AM to see the sunrise, and having our room flood in the morning. It was a fun but exhausting time, so I’m looking forward to a nice, calm week.