Road trip!

Well hello again everyone!

Hm....since I've last updated you all things have been a little hectic.
I've been: meeting with more prospective host families, hanging out with new friends and finding out ways they'll be able to help us create meaningful programs for our students, traveling to San Ramon, to Puntarenas, to Santa Teresa, etc, taken 2 ferries, taken some buses, met some more host families, gone on an insane hike that about killed me, exercised, and probably eaten a gazillion Cremas and Chiky galletas.

Life is good.

So, as far as the road trip goes, about a week ago the four of us loaded up in El Loquito (our tiny car - see http://thebeankielbon.wordpress.com/2010/07/17/el-loquito/ to learn about it) and drove to San Ramon. Lindy was translating at an Intervarsity Central America, Mexico and Panama youth leader conference, so we decided to go check it out as well. The conference was amazing! We made so many friends and contacts that will be helpful for planning trips with our students, and we now have homes to stay at in any of the aforementioned countries! (We're especially excited about the prospect of Panama...). It was very moving to attend a conference much like ones I attended with my youth group in high school, but to have it all in spanish. Even though we only made it for the last day and a half, everyone welcomed us as if we'd been there the entire 10 days. There is nothing better than worshipping and praying together in numerous languages with some people you know, and a bunch of people you don't know. I felt honored to be there.

After the end of the conference, we headed to Puntarenas. From there we caught a ferry to the Nicoya Peninsula. We had planned on finding a place to stay that night in Montezuma, but after making friends with a nice Mexican guy named Javier on the ferry, we decided to stay the night in Santa Teresa. We had dinner with him that night and hung out with him on the beach the next day, where I Iproceeded to get beat up by the waves and the rocky beach. The scrape covering my right leg only added to the beauty of the bug bites I got at the camp.

The next day we headed back to the Villa in Monte de la Cruz, after a fun, short excursion to the beach. However, this was a work trip my friends, as we were discovering where to take our students for their biology class and other excursions.

Since then we've been able to hang out with a family that is quickly becoming our closest friends and helpers here in CR. They are the first family we met with, and they are amazing! It is great to feel like we're old friends already!

Oh, and we went on this super intense hike a few days ago. It takes about an hour or so to hike in to the place, it was pouring rain, and then we got there and decided to go on the "easy/medium" hike. Good thing we didn't go on the intense one or I would have died of heart failure. You may or may not know that I have a little fear of heights, however, I can control it when I feel like I have a railing or something between me and the ground far below. Well, this hike was through a muddy, basically trail-less jungle, without much between me and the cliff edge. Okay, so it wasn't as terrifying as El Imposible in El Salvador, but I will definitely never do this hike again. Sorry Kristina, but you're in charge of taking the students on this one!

Other than that we just continue on here trying to get details worked out with the campus, internships, home stays, and anything else that needs to be done before our students show up in a month!

Love and miss you all!