Hi, all students whose flight arrived today are at hotel mi Tierra. Everyone is great and everything is good.
Not pictured: Calvin Cai. The flight arrives tomorrow.
After a long travel day, we made it safely to Rancho Quemado.
August 7, 2017
Hola,
We started the day off with a delicious breakfast of Gallo pinto (rice and beans mixture). After breakfast, we had a chance to tour the organic farm that Sandro, our local director, grows. At the farm we had a chance to look at the cocoa plant, which we intern ground up and used in face masks and hot chocolate. Following this, we ate lunch at the local hospadaje and had free time afterwards where we picked lychee fruit from the tree. Afterward, we met as a group to sharpen our leadership skills before our community rally. At the rally, we had a chance to connect with the locals and play games with people of all ages. Following this, we had dinner at our home base. We touched base again as a group to solidify our leadership roles in the program. Despite being our first full day in Rancho Quemado, we all feel at home already and accepted within the community. ¡Puravida!
Yesterday, we had our first full day of service, with half of the group working on a garden project and the other a water filter. For the garden group, GLA students worked towards cleaning out an empty lot which will be converted into a “rainforest” garden for those who would like to experience nature but cannot physically go into the actual rainforest due to disabilities. Those who worked on the water filter project were using objects such as tires, rocks, and carbon to create eco-friendly water filters which turn “grey water” (from showers, sinks, etc) into water that can be reused. Later that day, the full group came together to work on a service project which involved building changing rooms/toilets for the basketball court and soccer field. All projects had a distinct emphasis on community development.
Today, we had a day full of fun– well deserved after our hard work in our previous day. We began our day with zip lining through the jungle, with each session lasting about 45 minutes. After an hour of being “in the sky,” we returned to the ground by eating lunch at a nearby beach. From there, we headed back to Rancho Quemado to tour a local butterfly farm. The farm is in place as a rehabilitation process for butterflies whose species were threatened due to American and Canadian scientists extracting species from the rainforest years ago. Though our day was already brimming with activity at this point, we continued on with more, heading towards the library to make bracelets with the Women’s Committee. We then stopped for a quick dinner at Laguna before splitting off into groups for story time by Abuelos. Being taught through stories by the elders of Rancho Quemado, we ended our day on an enlightened note.
Thursday was definitely a memorable day for the group. In the morning, the group split into our service groups, again working on either the filter project or the garden project. The filter group did service and the garden group went on a bike ride that led into a jungle hike. On the hike, we saw an astonishing amount of beautiful trees, vines, and bushes that were all different colors, though the majority were vibrantly green. There were many birds, and we saw white face monkeys up in the trees. If you closed your eyes, the sound of birds, rustling branches, and rushing water filled your ears. We walked through the river for the majority of the hike, and thankfully we were given knee high rubber boots to walk in. At the end of the hike, we ended up at the jungle pool where we all shed our shirts and jumped into the refreshing water. Then, both groups met up for lunch and afterwards, we traded roles; the filter group went on the bike ride and hike and the garden group went to work. For the garden, we spent 3 hours shoveling mud out of the future driveway and wheelbarrowed in the grainy dirt to replace the mud in order to make it accessible to cars. The garden group got extremely muddy, which was super fun and we got to bond over our muddiness. Afterwards, we had dinner and met up as a group again before bed.
Friday, both groups had service in the morning and after we all went on a tour of a local gold panning location. He showed us all the techniques of paning for gold in the river, and we got to try it out ourselves. We found a tiny speck of gold in a rock! Following that, we went on a steep hike in the jungle which led to the best view of the trip so far. You could see the entire valley of Rancho Quemado. We did a few activities at the view spot and waited for it to get dark. Once dark, we hiked back down the trail with our flashlights and pointed out as many night creatures as we could find: spiders, toads, birds, and even sleeping chickens in tree! It was a great experience and made learning about the species extremely interesting. It’s hard to imagine that we will be home in a week!
On Saturday, we did service in the morning, helping the community build dressing and rest rooms. Then we had lunch at Laguna as usual and prepared for the activities with the children. With the children, we played many games including musical chairs and the hand shake game. After dinner, we hung out in the social area of the cabins for the rest of the night.
On Sunday, we got up super early, had breakfast and left for Casa Drake, Costa Rica. We then hopped on a boat and drove out to go snorkeling. On our way to snorkeling, we saw 2 humpback whales which were less than 30 feet away. We also saw several dolphins. When we got to the snorkeling location, we jumped off the boat and swam around. We saw many species of fish and we even saw a sea turtle. Afterwards, we swam and hung out on the beach. We had a lot of fun as the tide is intense.After hanging out, we had lunch and went to a house where we were staying for the night.For the rest of the day, we had a delicious dinner and chilled with one another on the hammocks.
