Two Days of AFS Adventures

As promised, I'm gonna tell you all about my ziplining adventures last Sunday.  We took an awesome safari car to this beautiful house near the Pacific coast. At the house, we had to sign our names like ten times on a document that said that if we die on the tour, but damage their equiptment in the process of dying, we still must pay to replace it.  That scared me a little.  But luckily none of us died or damaged the equiptment.

Anyway, we did two ziplines, a ton of repelling down cliffs and waterfalls, and one free fall in our repelling harnesses.  It was very fun, but very tiring, especially when we had to hike all the way up the mountain after we finished the tour.  I thought the repelling would be a fun and easy tourist attraction, but it was actually pretty hard! I had blisters on my hands for the next few days.

The whole group at the bottom of a waterfall we just repelled.

Repelling down a waterfall.

Beautiful view of the rainforest

On our long hike back up the mountain, we saw a toucan! It was my first time seeing one, so I was super excited!  We also saw two macaws fly overhead, making tons of noise.

First time seeing a toucan!

The second AFS Adventure, and the reason that the title of this post reads "Two Days of AFS Adventures," took place Friday.  We went to Volcan Irazu in Cartago, and then to Parque Diversiones, the Six Flags of Costa Rica. 

Volcan Irazu

The volcano was beautiful, but very chilly.  Who knew I would ever be wearing long sleeves, a jacket, and two pairs of pants in Costa Rica?

The whole group at the top of the volcano.

In contrast, it was super hot at the amusement park!  We all had to remove lots of layers on the bus between the volcano and Parque Diversiones.  Oh by the way, the reason we went was that for some reason, when you buy a phone here you get four free tickets.  I don't know if that's a special promotion they have right now or it's always like that, but lots of us bought cell phones when we got here, so we had plenty of free tickets.

In front of the biggest ride in the park.

The rides at Parque Diversiones were nothing like the rides at Disney World, Hershey Park, or Six Flags, but it was a fun day.  And I got icecream, so that makes everything better!

This cart just happened to be in the park.  It doesn't really have to do with the events of the day, but I wanted to show you because its pretty, and it's a famous symbol of Costa Rican history.

Traditional form of transportation in Costa Rica.

So that's all for those two adventures.  A couple other bits of news: this morning I went to church with my family for the first time.  I had no idea what was going on because I couldn't understand any of the service, but it was a nice experiece.  Tonight I'm going to a surprise birthday party for a fellow AFSer.  Then tomorrow I leave for a five day AFS camp.  Three days will be in a camp, and two days in a hotel at the beach, so I'm looking forward to that!  I am feeling sad about leaving my wonderful family, but I'll be back before the weekend starts, and we have plans to visit the zoo in San Jose.  Expect to hear about my AFS camp next weekend!