Day 6 of boot camp.

Wilbur is the freaking man. Forget Chuck Norris. Wilbur is my hero.

Wilbur is our driver for the week. I thought I had seen the TURISMO taxis in action, but only now do I see just how naive I was. Just for the record, TURISMO taxis are fatty broken down mexi-vans. These things can freaking do work. Well, if you have Wilbur behind the wheel that is. The man is fearless. Slash out of his mind, but who's counting? It was easily the roughest terrain we have encountered yet, but Wilbur was not fazed. Nor was he fazed when we couldn't make it across a mud pit the first 2 or 3 attempts. He would simply back the taxi up to get more momentum, then rev the engine up and conquer. We squeezed past trees and edged our way along gravel roads with sides that dropped off. It seemed that there was nothing that could stop us. The best was easily when we crossed a river. A RIVER! Wilbur did not even blink. He just slammed the gas pedal down and we raced across running water and sharp rocks like it was nothing. Another goodie was the 275 degree turn onto a "bridge" at the bottom of a hill.

Wilbur never puts gas in his TURISMO taxi. Because of the sheer energy transferred from his foot to the accelerator, he is always driving on fumes.

We were dropped off when the road stopped. The Fantastic Four actually considered rebuilding the roads by rearranging boulders, but decided that maybe we could walk for some of this hike we had planned.. So we hopped out and walked into this weird deserted state park looking thing. On the way, we had to cross a few streams. Seeing as how I was not in waterproof footwear, I called upon Tia-ita to carry me across the first stream. We were going strong for all of five steps, but then the slippery rocks got the best of Tia-ita and I went right over her head straight into the water. My boots were dunzo and my socks were soaking wet. The blisters are not pleased.

Identifying every plant and insect along the way, we hiked up to geography heaven. We were all sweaty and disgusting and itchy from all the poaceae, but the view was beautiful. After soaking it all in, we kept hiking down to a stream where we took a break from our intensive studies and had a nice swim. Study abroad rules. Then we all sat on the rocks and snacked on our delicious packed lunches full of fresh frutas and veggies and sandwiches. Then we switched back into our hiking gear and headed back to the taxi for our afternoon beach trip.

The beach trip was intended to be a study of mangrove forests and saltwater-freshwater ecosystems, but of course we all ended up in our bathing suits. Well, not so much Scott because he couldn't get the bottoms to zip off. So he just undid the zippers at his knees as far as they would go and let the bottoms sort of flop around. He looked really cool. It was the most beautiful beach I have ever seen in my life. It was untouched and perfect in every way. So I made the most of my time there and took a fatty nap. Also, we found out that Scott is planning on getting a tattoo when he graduates in December. He won't tell us exactly what it is, but we know for sure that it involves a human skeleton and will be upside down on his right outer calf. Oh, Scott. We were really hoping it was going to be an upside-down frog skeleton, but it doesn't look promising. He could change his mind, though. We are an awfully persuasive group after all..

We piled back into the taxi and the truck around 4:30, leaving us just enough time to make it back for dinner. I am uncomfortable with how close we come with missing meals. Lucky for the Fantastic Four, we did make it in time for dinner. And then we had plenty of time for post-dinner Chiky and peanut butter. And Yippy and peanut butter. And QuQui and peanut butter. And Oreos and peanut butter...

Tia-ita was invited to go out with the Eurotrash next door to us tonight. At the last minute she decided not to go only because she did not want to be tired in the morning. It did not bother her that she met these fools just two days ago. It did not bother her that they are 8 boys and she is one girl. It did not bother her that she has no cell phone and no alternative way back to the room if they were to ditch her or if they got too drunk to drive. It did not bother her that one had the biggest rattail I have ever seen in my life. Oh Tia-ita.

I'm really looking forward to another night of sleeping on this rock-hard couch with my moldy pillow.

peace love and wilbur

Day 5 of boot camp.

Will the madness never end?

Actually we finally caught a break. We were supposed to go on the most intense hike of the week today, but the hike was twice as long as the Fantastic Four had anticipated. 26 kilometers to be exact. There was no way.

So the professors scrambled to organize alternative activities over breakfast. For breakfast, we had gallo pinto, huevos, tortillas, and the nastiest coffee I have ever tasted in my life. Ugh. It was like I was back in the states drinking tap water. I tried forcing myself to drink it, in expectation of the headache that was to come if I didn't, but I couldn't do it. Oh my gosh it was disgusting. I am gravely disappointed. We are in Costa Rica. How do you mess up coffee?

After breakfast, we went on a walk through the park talking about rocks and plants and insects--all of our favorite things. Fabricio took Katie and David in the truck up to check out some rock or stream or something, and so we walked around with just Scott for a while, and ended up talking about parasites the entire time. I was enthralled. Scott has a scar from a near-parasitic incidence. You see, he was walking through the jungle in nothing but his gym shorts to see how far he could get in the pitch black and his bare feet attracted some burrowing nasty. He ripped off one of his toenails to rid himself of it. I would find this admirable, but the story began with the man walking through a jungle in the dark with gym shorts on. Sorry, Scott, no cool points for you. Just boy points.

Fabricio came back to retrieve us after a while and informed us that whatever it was he had checked out with Katie and David was a bust. So Fabricio, Scott, and the six of us piled in the truck and drove a bit down the road for our next activity. The activity turned out to be tree counting. And we had 3 hours to do it. Ughhh. It was statistics all over again. Kill me now. I am not destined to be a botanist. Nor am I destined to be a statistician. Perhaps if I eliminate careers one by one, I will discover my true calling by process of elimination. I'll let you know how that goes.

Finally, after taking data from 8 different randomly selected samples of forest and plotting the data on a graph and discussing the line of best fit and the asymptote that we weren't quite approaching yet, we deemed our data inconclusive and went to lunch. Freaking nasty juice again, but the salad continues to impress. As do the beans, which is hard to do after 2 straight months of bean consumption. And today's lunch dessert was frutas. Pina and watermelon, to be exact. Yum.

The Fantastic Four were extra fantastic today. After lunch, we drove out to the beach for fun. What? Fun at boot camp? Surely this was not happening. Oh but it was. We had to go in two shifts since we only have the truck on non-travel days. I went in the first shift with the K/Carlas, Abby, Tess, and Tia. The beach was GORGEOUS! I love sunbathing in November. So right smack in the middle of boot camp, there I was, soaking up the sun in my bikini and reading Eat, Pray, Love and listening to my iPod. And no one even mentioned coleopteras. Pinch me.

We headed back over to Santa Rosa National Park for feeding time. We just barely made the 6:00 cut-off. Good thing, too. I would freak out if we missed a meal. Don't test me. No dessert again. Gross juice again. I'm just about over this place.

I think there was a night hike planned for tonight, but we are laying low in our room in hopes that no one will knock on the door and make us do anything. Not that we really did anything all day, but laziness is our thing. That and snacking. What a great combination.

peace love and parasites

Christmas morning. Slash the end of Bush's reign. Slash Obama Nation. Woo!

To celebrate, we had a 6 am bird watching session. PARTAE! During our bird watch, Scott found a snake and decided it would be fun to have all of us turn around while he placed the snake near our ankles then had us turn back around to try and find it. I found it. Go me. No one got bit. Go us. Good thing, too, because we would have no First Aid to deal with that.

At breakfast, Fabricio said, "You guys must be really excited to not have a jackass for a president anymore." Palabra.

We got round 2 of panqueques and huevos this morning. Good, but slightly weak to repeat breakfasts. And they were doing so well..

Sadly, we bid adieu to our rustic lifestyle shortly after breakfast. It was on to Santa Rosa for us boot campers. Apparently we exhausted all trails in the area and needed to broaden our horizons to keep our intensity level high. So chadios Rincon de la Vieja, chadios cold showers, and chadios Oscars.

Our hour and a half drive took about an hour and a half. WHAT? We made 2 stops, but that is just not up to boot camp standards. The fantastic four is slacking. Big time.

We got to Santa Rosa just in time for a delicious lunch of fish, rice, beans, and freaking awesome salad. This place looks promising. Oh and fat plates of delicious rice pudding. Promising, indeed. The juice is pretty weird, though. Today's was like a lemonade but with mounds of slimy fish egg-looking things that settled at the bottom. And apparently the water is questionable here, so fish egg juice it is!

We have 2 rooms between the 12 of us and one co-ed bathroom for all to share. I can hardly stand the anticipation of the awkward moments to come. I only wish I could firsthand experience the wildly awkward dynamic of the professors' room: a married couple, the K/Carlas speaking espanol, Fabricio who generally prefers to be on his own, and Scott the hermit not yet used to this strange world outside his closet home. What a crew.

All of our clothes have started to smell from the constant dampness and traveling in plastic baggies, so the combined scent of all six of our wardrobes in one room make for quite the aroma. Nothing holds a candle to Abby's pink shirt, though. Dear Lord. An animal must have barfed all over it, then died on it. It's terrible. Then again Tia's white shirt is legit competition for most pungent item of clothing.. Unfortunately I could go on like this for days. All I know for sure is that it is going to be awesome laying in bed trying to get to sleep and soaking up our combined stench. I can't wait.

After we got settled in, we had an orientation talk planned with a park staff member. Park staff member's name was Christian. We were herded into a dark, warm room with a powerpoint set up--red flag. Everything about this orientation talk just screamed nap time. I mean, it was right after lunch of goodness sake! And they were squishy chairs! You can't just sit a girl in a squishy chair in a warm, dark room right after a big lunch and expect her to stay awake. You just can't. And Christian was just the cherry on top--he was all broken English and mumbles. Every sentence uttered ended in a fade-away so that you couldn't even hear what he was saying if you tried (which I did for the first 30 seconds or so). I turned to Cayman a few slides into the single worst powerpoint presentation I have ever experienced and asked if this was a joke. It wasn't. It went on for a half hour--that's 30 minutes of fluttering eyelids and jerking neck movements brought to you by Love Lust and Cannibus. We're great.

When we were finally released, it was only for an "orientation walk," which basically consists of walking no more than a mile over the course of about three hours. I timed how much time we spent walking in between stops. We averaged at about a minute and a half, but our best was 22 seconds. We are becoming freakishly good at insect and plant identification. It's frightening, really. Our orientation walk took us to a historical tico battle sight, where Karla gave us the run-down on the battle and its significance for Costa Rica. She is beyond adorable. I love the K/Carlas. We also went up to this gorgeous vista that happens to be home to every bug in the Santa Rosa National Park. Conveniently, they all had a craving for blood of Sarah. I slapped at my legs and grumbled until Carla took pity on me and handed me her bottle of pure, unadulterated Deet. I didn't care about Deet's ability to melt plastic in that moment, and lathered it on until I was practically wearing Deet pants. The damage had already been done, though. My legs and feet (I was wearing Chacos) are covered in black fly bites and a few swollen nasty-looking bites that itch like crazy, but Scott assured me they weren't a big deal. Whatever. The bites only add to this new image I'm going for with my feet full of blisters.

After our walk we had 45 minutes of free time. Woo! Go crazy. We spent our 45 minutes doing what we do best: snacking in a state of delirium. Oh yes. Snacking in preparation for dinner. We are ridiculous.

For dinner we had rice, beans, delicious salad again, veggies, and this weird tico Shepherd's pie. Not too shabby. However, the meal did earn 2 strikes: the juice moved beyond weird to straight-up nasty and there was no dessert. What? Rice pudding at lunch was such a tease! Luckily they sell goodies at this comedor so I bought me some Chikys and a Fresca. Oh how I miss Fresca.

Turns out I said chadios to cold showers too soon. Our new abode comes well-stocked with cold showers that require "10 cranks of might" to function, according to Cayman. They also lack hooks. There are two unfavorable qualities in showers in the eyes of Love Lust and Cannibus. We are not impressed.

After showers and post-dinner snacking, Scott came and got us to go play with a black light. The name of the game was name that insect. Seriously, we are too good at this game. To a point beyond socially acceptable. I can't wait til the first time I throw out the word "orthoptera" in ordinary conversation outside the confines of our nerd bubble. It's going to be great.

Scott thinks I have ADD.

After black light fun, we got ready for bed--sharing sinks with our professors. I love study abroad.

Our beds are entirely too couch-like for my liking. They are like rocks. And the pillows are growing mold. Seriously?

peace love and like barack obama said yeah it's time for a change

Day 3 of boot camp.

Today I climbed a volcano. Rincon de la Vieja, to be exact. Google Earth that shiz and idolize me.

The troops woke up birght and early for a 6:30 breakfast so we could get an early start on our hike. They had laid out a cooler of gallo pinto, a cooler of huevos, and a cooler of--brace yourself--PANQUEQUES!! I freaking love this place. We also had wonderful coffee and pina. Be jealous.

We were on the trail by 7 and had severed all of our weak links (sorry sweet K/Carlas) so that we could pick up the pace. Today's hike was optional after the lagoon craziness and in expectation of an intense rest of the week, and I came pretty close to not going because my blisters were (are) killing me. Then I realized how incredibly lame that would make me so I sucked it up and just dealt with it. Katie awarded me hardcore points--as if I need them. Ha. Everyone was so concerned with me making my blisters worse and being in pain all day. Annie-poo and I decided to place bets on how many times people asked me about my blisters throughout the day, based on the 5 times I had just been asked in a row. Ann guessed 42 and I guessed 35. Sadly, everyone stopped caring shortly thereafter and the grand total came to 8. Are you freaking kidding me?

Needless to say, I ditched the rubber botas in favor of my awesome Keen hiking botas. They were a million times better. I'm not saying my blisters felt great. They grew, actually. And reproduced. I have six now. I hate them each equally.

Tess did not ditch the rubber botas on account of she does not have awesome Keen hiking botas. She headed back after about the first hour, knowing she couldn't go all day in such miserable footwear. Can't say I blame her.

So today, instead of stopping to chat every five minutes, we actually hiked. Weird. We were all dripping sweat by the time we left the rain forest and stopped for a snack and to pat ourselves on the back for getting through the first part of the trail in an hour (it took us three hours yesterday). And that was with us stopping to monkey-watch. There was a spider monkey fam just off our trail, so we stopped to check them out. Too bad they turned out to be punks! We were admiring how cute they were when all of a sudden they started chucking sticks and fruits straight at our heads. We all covered our heads with our arms and made a run for it. All of us except Scott, that is. He was just asking for it. Good thing they had terrible aim.

We are getting kind of good at plant and insect identification, embarrassingly enough. Fabricio gave us a couple of pop quizzes by handing us plant samples during the hike and having us tell him what family it's in. We are 2 for 2. Scott does the same thing with insects, and we're getting weirdly good at that, too. We are really lame, and we like it.

So we'd gone about a third of the way after that first bit of trail, and it was mostly flat-ish field up until the last kilometer. It was all in open-air, which was so nice because we had a breeze. Love me some breeze. We stopped to look at a fumeral, which is this little opening in the earth that emits insanely hot gases, indicating just how close we were to magma. Yikes. It was really cool, though.

The last kilometer was freaking hardcore. It was straight-up to the volcano's crater on switchback trails made up of loose gravel. Good times. I declared a snack time about halfway up when I was sure that my legs were about to give way. Everyone happily obliged. I just barely had time to stuff my face with a few dried apricots before we were on the move again. My legs had already started to tense up from that shorty break, but whatever. We made it! All of us, even poor Tia-ita who was hating life with a fiery passion at that point. We were stuck in the middle of a cloud, so we had water droplets clinging to every hair we had exposed. Fabricio looked like he had a headful of greys, and my arms were coated. We couldn't see very far into the crater because of the cloud, but we did eat our lunches sitting on its edge. Pretty freaking cool.

It was also pretty freaking cold up there in that cloud. It was weird going from sweating like a pig to shivering cold in a matter of minutes. I was all bundled up, in addition to my pants being tucked into my socks and my walking stick clenched in my fist, and Scott said I looked like Sir Edmund Hillary. Awesome. I love looking like a man.

We were determined to get back before dark today, so we headed back shortly after lunch. Going down the loose gravel switchbacks put going up them to shame. It was ridiculous. I was terrified of kicking a rock out of place and having it slam into someone's head, or having one slam into my head. Somehow we all managed to make it down without giant bloody gashes on anyone's head, thus avoiding the need for a First Aid kit yet again. Good thing, too, because we still don't have one! Geezum.

We made it back to campus by early afternoon in good spirits. It feels pretty freaking great to climb a volcano. I highly recommend it if you ever get the chance. So Scott and Fabricio gave us a shower break, then put us to work on a plant lab. They had a fat pile of plants, and we were instructed to divide them based on a dichotomist key that we were to compose ourselves. Oh joy. Sun set before we could discuss our piles, so it was postponed til tomorrow morning. Yay for darkness.

Dinner was okay. No mix together gloriousness, but we had all the staples. Then they had these cups of hot green sugar comas out for dessert, but I passed in favor of Chikys and peanut butter. Yum.

After dinner, Scott said he was going on a frog hunt that would take no more than twenty minutes and that we were all welcome to come along, but didn't have to. We all went in the "we're only in Costa Rica once" spirit, and it didn't hurt that we were getting to said frog hunt by truck and not by foot. We were told to wear rubber boots. Like an idiot, I obeyed. My feet have never felt worse in my life. I wanted to cry with every step I took. But it was only twenty minutes, right?

Wrong. When have they have they ever accurately conveyed a time frame on this trip? We frog hunted for an hour and fifteen minutes. I wanted to die. I mean it was cool-- we saw six different species of frogs and this crazy bug and a terrestrial salamander. Nonetheless, I was in a foul mood and was hating life. And the Oscars.

Oscar is the owner of the hotel we are staying in. He is this large, pushy man that puts food you don't want onto your plate, insisting that you will like it. Oscar has a son, Oscarini ("little Oscar"). Oscarini is 8 years old and has that excessive energy that only little boys have. HE runs around with us on our night hikes shining his flashlight in everyone's faces and pushing everyone out of his way and man-handling lizards and frogs and whatever else he can get his grubby paws on. Oscar finds this cute. When we got to the frog pond for our hunt, we were introduced to the family dog, Oscar. Oscar is loud and unpleasant and insecurely tied to a tree by his waist. So there you have it: the Oscars of Rincon de la Vieja. Too many if you ask me.

And just to clarify, our guide today was not Oscar. Nor was he Paolo, despite Cayman calling him as such on multiple occasions throughout the day. Yikes. It was Oscar's brother, actually. Much more likable than any of the Oscars in my opinion.

Best of luck to Barack.

peace love and volcano domination

Day 2 of boot camp.

We woke up this morning at 6:30 in typical boot camp fashion. We dressed in our dry fit gear in preparation for the day of hiking we had ahead of us, then sat down to a delicious breakfast of gallo pinto, watermelon, huevos with some veggie in them, tortillas, and natilla. We decided it was a good mix everything on your palate together meal. It was so so good. I also had 3 cups of coffee. I am not even fighting this addiction anymore.

Yesterday on the ride up we stopped at a supermercado to stock up on snacks for the week, and stock up we did. I got JIF (our bff) and nuts and dried fruit. Ann bought dinner rolls. Question mark? So this morning I got to tap into the stash to bring along on our hike to the lagoon. They also had packed lunches made up for us. Yay food!

We were on the trail by 8, and stopped for our first mini-lecture of the day at 8:02. A piece of trail that should have taken one hour took us almost three hours. And we had only just begun. We stopped for a snack break as the "geomorphers" whipped out their GPS's and discusses the land formation we were at. Cool... Then we started up again.

For some reason that is beyond me, we were advised to wear rubber boots today. The thing about wearing rubber boots on a day hike is that IT SUCKS! It was cool for that first hour or so before the blisters started forming and before my back started to scream at me from lack of arch support. But after that point I was cursing my precious botas, wishing unspeakable things upon them. I envied Abby and Cayman, the rebels who did not wear their rubber boots against all of Fabricio's insistence that they would need them.

I guess we did end up needing them about four hours or so into our journey. Around the time that we stepped off the path and started hacking our way through the rain forest. Our guide Paolo, a dead ringer for Charlie Chaplin, whipped out his machete and did some serious work on the rain forest. Except he left about a million 8-inch stumps of palm trunk in his wake-- the perfect size for either tripping on or being impaled by depending on how you stepped/ fell on them. I probably tripped over a good 50% of them, just scarcely avoiding impalement. Falling ended up being the the of the day. When we left actual trail in favor of untouched forest, we also left behind walkable terrain. We were climbing uphill in straight-up mud. Fabricio kept telling us not to grab onto trees if we fell because the tree might have some nasty hairs that would be itchy. F that! I would rather have some stupid itchy hairs than to slip down off the side of the mountain and fall to my death (which really wasn't such an unfeasible series of events as it turns out). We had no First Aid kit with us, either. Fabricio and Scott found this hilarious, which pissed Cayman off. My personal favorite part was when we were scaling wet cliff face with nothing to grab hold of if we did happen to misstep or if a boulder came loose beneath our feet and we began to fall towards the stream full of jagged boulders. Good times. At the end of that lovely stretch, we were swarmed by the nastiest little flying creatures. Since normal human beings don't hike where we were hiking, the nasty things were just feasting away on the rare treat of human flesh. They especially loved Tia's white tee. At some point between the wet cliff face and during our slip n' slide mud adventures, Fabricio told us that we were only a mile away from the lagoon that we were headed to and that this last mile was flat and easy. Then he and Carlos set off in a full sprint, leaving the rest of us knee-deep in mud falling all over ourselves. We managed to schlep our way out of the rain forest only to find that we had one last cliff-face to climb straight up. Fabricio said "one last kilometer," so we sucked it up. Yeah right we were about to sit out one last kilometer after hiking five hours in pursuit of this elusive lagoon.

So we haul it up this cliff face in a feeble attempt to make sure we could make it home before dark. We ditched the K/Carlas because they were the weakest links. At the top of the cliff, we found ourselves up to our shoulders in grasses, and up to our ankles in puddles of muddy water.

At this point, I am under the impression that we are headed towards the greatest lagoon in the world. A lagoon full of an elixir of life, or at least a lagoon with healing powers to heal my blisters. In retrospect, any lagoon at all would have been satisfactory. That's right: after almost six hours, two and a half miles of trail (or lack thereof), 700 meters up into the sky, and a few more "one more kilometers" from Fabricio, we could go no further. The lagoon's beach had flooded in the torrential downpour from a few weeks back and Charlie Chaplin shrugged his shoulders, pocketed his machete, and told us to turn around cause this was the end of the line. I was ready for Ashton Kutcher to pop out from the grasses and tell us that we just got punked. I couldn't decide if I wanted to laugh or cry. Scott started to cheer, "Woo! We made it!" and I just lost it. I was dying laughing. All 6 of us were in absolute hysterics. Hypoxia had most definitely started to set in at this point. There is no doubt in my mind.

Abby, Tia, Ann, and I all really had to pee. I have never been a pee-in-the-woods kind of girl, but desperate times call for desperate measures. Plus we really wanted to stick it to the stupid lagoon. So Tia-ita taught me her techniques then sent me on my way. I will spare you the details, but just know that I shall no longer be inhibited by the lack of this great life skill. Go me.

Fabricio had offered to have Charlie Chaplin hack down enough swampy grassland for us to sit and eat lunch, but that option just barely lost out to backtracking to actual solid ground. Weird. So we sat amongst nasty bugs on nasty rocks and talked a whole lot of smack over our lunches. Our trash talking climaxed somewhere between "I LOVE LAGOONS!" and "Hey, when do we get to see the lagoon?" Then Fabricio gave us a talk about how he was once bothered by stupid hikes but it shaped his character so we should be grateful.. then everyone went quiet.

After eating, I took off mis botas to inspect the damage. My socks were sopping wet, which I knew was a bad sign. So I peeled them off and uncovered two feet full of raw blisters. The backs of my heels are nothing but blister, putting all the rest to shame. Ma, whatever "moleskin" you packed me is freaking ghetto. That crap fell off in a second and roamed about my wet socks the rest of the journey home.

The hike back took literally half the time it took us to get to the lack of lagoon. It definitely helped that every other step taken was a slip. It also helped that Hypoxia had taken enough oxygen out of our brains to put us in a state of delerium. We were all just cracking jokes non-stop. Group favorites were Lara Croft: Lagoon Raider (Ann) and survival of the fittest jokes. Yeah, we were making jokes pertaining to our coursework. We do that now. We also made a game of making different noises every time we fell. We ran out of noises fast. Although Cayman probably made a really great one when she stepped off the trail right onto canopy--rather, through canopy. Fabricio caught her by the arms and lifted her back onto the trail. Ridiculous. I just so wish that Deany Weany had experienced today with us. I can only imagine the things he would have had to say if he had been with us. Oh Deany, we miss you.

We were trying to outrun the setting sun so as to avoid navigating the rain forest in the pitch black. We failed. I was right by Fabricio, though, so I wasn't too worried. I called him a show-off with all of his leaps and sprints through the forest, and it made him self-conscious. He kept saying, "It's not my fault- I grew up here" after that. Sweet Fabricio. He also was soliciting us to join his secret nerd society. He said he needed fresh blood and that we were great prospects. We are, aren't we? Yikes.

So nine and half hours later we made it back to campus. In total seriousness, I feel so incredibly hardcore after today and feel that I have made my passage into womanhood. Okay so I can't even be serious when I start a sentence with in total serious. Don't judge me. The point is I freaking rule.

We had another round of mix everything on your plate gloriousness for dinner. It's really all just a blur because of my current state of exhaustion. Beyond exhaustion. We decided to take a rain check on both tonight's night hike and tomorrow morning's 5:30 am bird watching. Gracias a Dios. Tomorrow we will be hiking up Rincon de la Vieja, an active volcano. This will be a shorter but more intense hike. Ah! Boot camp will be the death of me, I swear it.

peace love and lagoons