Hip hip Jorge!

Hip hip Jorge is not hip hip George.  It is hip hip Horhay, which is how you pronounce the name of one of our guides.  That was our cheer for Jorge.  Today, we went to the Yorkin river, and saw the Bri Bri tribe.  This is our visit, after the bus ride where I realized I had left my camera in the hotel room: First we got in canoes, 6 to 7 in each one, and traveled by motor upstream to the tribe’s home.  It took about an hour to get there, as we were going against the current and the water was shallow sometimes, forcing the boatmen to get out of the boat and push the canoe.  Once we arrived at the tribe, we walked on the trail to their village.  We walked through the town, seeing the high school, the meeting place, other important buildings, and lots of plants.  We arrived at the visitor’s center, where we learned about the tribe’s history.  We learned that the tribe used to be ruled by women, and then the Spaniards came,  The men then took control.  Eighteen years ago, one women changed the culture again, back to the old tradition, women ruling.  She and other people helped to make their tribe a better community.  We had a really delicious juice, starfruit juice.  When we were done learning, we had a while until lunch, so we went  the river to swim.  We got everything wet, our whole bodies, and the current was so strong, we had to hold onto rocks to keep from being swept away.   Once lunch was ready, we ate up and went to play soccer with the young villagers.  Well, they weren’t really young, one of them had a mustache.  They beat us 2-0.  After that we went to learn to make chocolate.  The seeds inside the fruit have pulp, and so we sucked on that.  It was soooo good!  It tasted like different kinds of sweet fruit all blended together.  We then learned how to crush the roasted beans.  The rock was very heavy, trust me, I tried it,  After they were crushed, we grinded them to a pasta-ish form.  These two forms were very bitter.  After it was all pasted, we took some and put it in hot and cold water.  It tasted like hot chocolate.  We mixed the rest with condensed milk and it turned to real chocolate!!!  We dipped bananas in it, and it was really, really tasty!  After a little more soccer, we went back to the canoes.  It took much less to get back this time, because we were going downstream.  Now we are on the bus again, going back to the hotel.  Tomorrow is snorkeling and kayaking!!!  Adios!

Cate

Having a lot of fun here in costa rica

we went and saw the the sloths and we  had a turtle race to the sea to be home and wild the turtles names that raced were fred  and slappy yea for slappy he won the race and to day we went on a canoe panama and we played soccer with out shoes or socks and the sand was hot but i had a lot of fun playing soccer with them had some good food and chocolate i had lots of fun here in panama (Costa Rica!)

                         Alejandro sanchez

Releasing Fred and Slappy

This afternoon we had the wonderful opportunity to hold a hawksbill sea turtle!  The students creatively named the two hawksbill turtles Fred and Slappy.  All the students were given the chance to hold a hawksbill turtle and have their picture taken.  Once the photo op was over, the students witnessed the release of the two turtles into their natural habitat. The students formed a tunnel of support for their new found friends.  Slappy took the students encouragement and “ran” with it. He was the first one to begin his journey in the sea while Fred was not in any hurry to go into the unknown. After a lot of encouragement(plus a little lift to the edge of the beach), Fred joined his friend Slappy on their great journey in the sea.

Following the release of Fred and Slappy we listened to Claudio talk about the different species of turtles in and around Costa Rica.  It was amazing to hear about the progress that conservation agencies are taking to protect the sea turtle. 

-Dawn and Lisa

PS- Please help keep our friends Fred and Slappy (and the rest of our turtle friends) safe- learn great ways you can help by visiting Claudio and his group on Facebook:  VolunteersSavingSeaTurtles, and the website is latinamericaseaturtles.org and widecast.org! 

Please contact Claudio at claudio@widecast.org if you have any questions or want to tell them how you are helping!  He would love to hear from each of you on what you are doing in your community to assist.

Unexpected Encounters

Yesterday at the hotel in San Jose, Costa Rica,on our way to dinner at the restaurant.  I ran into a blind kid just about our age covered in University of California gear. Honestly, I didn’t think much of it at all, just said hey and passed by. Then something clicked in me. With me being a major sports fan I remembered an article on ESPN about a young blind boy who was a major USC fan that practiced with the team, hung out with them, and sat on the sidelines of their games this year. He was all over ESPN and because of that article I recognized him! I was like woah! You’re that guy from ESPN from last fall! He was like yeah that was me. We talked sports and talked a little smack about Lane Kiffin leaving Tennessee for USC, and got my picture taken with him!

-Braden

lizards

today we went canoeing and saw lizards and crabs. we saw four lizards,there was a small green lizard and then there were a couple of large lizards which ran on there hind legs when we got too close.It was amazing. 

Cooper Hess

Sloths and a little love

After our drive from San Jose, we enjoyed time at the sloth rehabilitation center.  After a great video, the grandson of the founders introduced us to a few of his friends including “Spiderman” and “David”.  These sloths really enjoyed their leisure time- our photos and gasps didn’t seem to bother them at all; they slept soundly. 

Lunch was phenomenal (not that we expect anything else)- and it is all made fresh from scratch for us.  After lunch, the babies were ready to be up and out- and so the sloth babies kept us busy trying to keep them from “escaping” from their little box.  Daddy, the larger baby decided to try and kidnap my camera….he wouldn’t let go!  One of the gents let us know that Daddy is actually a little lover and always wants to be held-so anytime you get close, he may decide to leave with you!  The great thing about his love of the camera though is that you get some great shots. 

The first day

The sloths we saw today were very cute, and there were a lot of baby sloths. The boat I was on, for the ride down the river, was called Aaron James. On the trip down the river, we saw lots of lizards, a few birds, and a ton of monkeys. At 4:30 today, we are going to go see turtles.

Payton Becker