After hours and hours of boring plane rides, we finally arrived in Costa Rica! It's really weird because it seems like I've just goneto another place in the U.S. except everything's in Spanish. I'm sort of afraid of using my Spanish because I don't want to make a fool of myself. The view from the plane was amazing as we landed in San Jose. I'm not too tired after the flights, but I'm sure I will be in a few hours. I sat next to Veronica on both flights.
We visited INBio parque as our first activity in Costa RIca. It was fun, and the landscape was amazing. The INBio park is the National Institute of Biodiversity, and we took lots of notes. It was basically discussing the meaning and importance of biodiversity, especially in Costa Rica. We watched a movie about it which made me realize how tired I really was from the flight. Our guide, Ana, showed us through the park and talked to us about the exhibits. We saw poison dart frogs and the dreaded bullet ants. Those things are huge! We also saw three types of biomed in Costa Rica. We saw the Northwestern dry climate, the Southwestern humid climate, and the types of plants that would've existed in the Central Valley before urbanization. Karla talked to us about collecting samples for INBio, which she used to do. InBio has thousands of plants and animals on file because of the hard work the collectors do. They trap a creature, like a bug, kill it, and save it to be filed and analyzed. Each specimen has its own number. They also have to know exactly where the sample came from, making a GPS come in very handy. All of ths effort has contributed to InBio collecting new samples and finding out more about biodiversity.
When we travelled to the Quinta, the view was amazing. The mountains were very impressive-and very green. I've heard that everythingis brown during the dry season, so I guess we came at the right time of the year! We picked Karen up on the way. she's Karla's niece. Her English is good and she's very nice. Ehen we arrived at the Quinta, everybody was pretty tired. But the Quinta is beautiful, although the quarters are a little cramped (8 girls in my room!). We went to the pool and swam for a little while, but it got cold fast and we got out. The dinner was great, it was rice, beans, chicken, vegetables, and plantains. I really liked it. In the evening we discussed the itinerary with Karla. We're going to the Monteverde Cloud Foest tomorrow and waking up at about 6 o'clock! After last night with barely any sleep, I was hoping it'd be a little later, but's not too bad. At least it's not 5. The plant life is a lot different from the U.S. There are bromeliads, elephants ears, crotons, palm trees, and mango trees.

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