This blog is for the friends and family of Kimberly Cook, RN who want to follow her adventures serving at Nueva Vida Clinic in Ciudad Sandino, Nicaragua. Welcome!

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Tica Travels

I went to visit Scott, a friend from Hope College, in Costa Rica (Tica) this past week. It was great to see him, and I got to relax and enjoy the natural beauty there. Although I was only in Costa Rica for three full days and spent two days on the Tica Bus, a bus that travels between Central American countries, I felt refreshed after my short getaway.

While in Costa Rica, I spent a lot of time outdoors. Scott is finishing up six months of volunteering as a 'resident naturalist' at San Luis Ecolodge in Monteverde, Costa Rica. It is located in the mountains and the area is considered a cloud forest. It is heavily populated by wildlife, including an astounding variety of bird, butterfly, and plant species. The weather was cloudy, rainy, and cold the first two days, but became sunny and a little warmer the third day. I also slept incredibly well on my comfortable mattress (plus, there were no roosters crowing at 4:30 am!). I took a nap daily.

The three highlights of the trip were milking a cow for the first time, touring a coffee farm, and hiking up to Catarata San Luis, the second largest waterfall in Costa Rica.

Milking a cow for the first time. I was pretty good at it...maybe because cow farming is in my genes!

A coffee plant. The beans are not yet ripe.

Grinding the whole coffee bean in an old fashioned grinding apparatus.

Catarata San Luis

I wish I could write in greater detail, but I need to get some sleep because a medical brigade from Alaska is here this week and we have been incredibly busy. Tomorrow at 8am we leave for El Porvenir, in the mountains of Nicaragua, to see the coffee plantation and cooperative and to conduct medical clinics Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. It is about a four hour drive through the mountains, so we will arrive around midday tomorrow and leave Friday after lunch. I will take pictures to share when I return! Hasta la proxima vez.

No comments:

Post a Comment