“Quick Adventures with Trunco” (Thursday, March 7th)

Brought to you by: Katie Nagel

Our group was definitely ready to embrace the day this morning at 4:00 a.m. We arose very early in order to get a jump on downtown San Jose traffic. Rolondo, our tour guide for the rest of our trip explained that laborers start to work at 5:00 a.m. There are also different types of workers that arrive in shifts every half an hour until the secretaries and administrative staff hit the streets around 7:30 a.m. So, our Costa Rican friends met us to see us off- yes, that is a good friend that will get out of bed to tell you goodbye at 4:00 am! The departure was very special, as we left behind new friends and lasting memories, made over the last few days. The Camp Oikoumene staff wished us a good trip and gave us a gift and beautiful card to send us of with blessings.
Rolondo started our morning slowly, allowing us to sleep after a short briefing of our day. He gave a great history lesson of Costa Rica especially illustrating the importance of technology, trade, and their neighboring countries. For example, he emphasized the direct similarity between how the US and Costa Rica are very much the same with the related of issue of immigration in their countries. Both the US and Costa Rica deal with daily immigration issues because of their direction relation with the bordering countries of Mexico and Nicaragua. In addition to the issue of immigration, Rolondo discussed the importance about how Costa Ricans are not as materialistic as those in the US. It was interesting to hear from a different perspective of a fellow Tico man.
After a four hour bus drive, we arrived at the town of La Fortuna which is the city at the base of Volcano Arenal. Volcano Arenal is the largest active volcano in North America. We headed straight to breakfast once we arrived in town and ate in an open air café and had a choice of a typical Costa Rican breakfast or a good old American breakfast. We shared some fresh Pineapple, papaya, banana, watermelon, cantaloupe and fresh guababana & mango juice- which were all muy delicioso (very delicious).
After breakfast, we headed straight to do the canopy tour. It was an intense experience which involved a huge series of ziplines. Many of our fellow group member were a little worried and apprehensive about the high distance but we ended up being 100% on all the activities. There were a total of seven lines which were 600 feet off the ground and with the longest line being ½ mile long! Normal speed on the zip line was between 35-45 mph depending on the length of the line, and the views were incredible of all the beautiful biodiversity of Costa Rica.
After the zipline we were off to Acotermales Hot Springs in La Fortuna. There was a series of natural hot springs that differed in temperature from water you would take out of your fridge to hot, hot, hot! We enjoyed the relaxing environment and took advantage of Costa Rica’s natural fruit juices. There were strawberry daiquiris, mango daiquiris, and pina coladas all around- kid version of course! After some time relaxing in the hot waters we headed on…
Once that mission was complete, we embarked back on the bus to head off to a famous Catarata (waterfall). We had a full cardio work-out with climbing all 500 STEEP steps but finally made it to the waterfall. We had four responsible lifeguards to watch over us! The water was quite chilly but everyone enjoyed the atmosphere and swimming around. There was a beautiful cave behind the waterfall and amazing flora hanging form the cave. It was an amazing site to see… what evidence of God’s goodness and love.
The walk up was quite difficult after swimming in the waterfall but everyone persisted and took plenty of pictures. J Rolondo continued to be very supportive of the whole group and consistently providing us with more information about his country. We ate dinner at the same open air café as breakfast and it was yet another plentiful meal. They served us the best guacamole any of us had ever tasted with chips as an appetizer with fresh guavo and mango juice. The main course was wonderful as always- baked chicken, tortillas, more guaco, etc. The best possible part was the dessert. One word: AMAZING. Many group members opted for the banana split which was huge and was placed in half a pineapple. Others opted for the fresh fruit with ice cream, cake, etc.
Rolondo even squeezed in a few extra minutes to let us go shopping in the town of La Fortuna. Many group members decided to purchase Costa Rican coffee, t-shirts, jewelry, wooden crosses, and other gifts for family and friends. After our short shopping excursion, we headed back to the Arenal Observatory where we headed for the night. Once we settled for the evening, a few group members walked up to the hotel’s deck area. We had the opportunity to watch the volcano’s activity at night. You could not see thevolcano well in the dark, but if we were quiet and would listen, we could hear the rumblings of the volcana. And after the rumblings, it was just as you would imagine, red and orange lava flowing down the side of the mountain- absolutely gorgeous. We also learned that the bigger the rumble, the larger the lava flow. The time on the deck was hard to describe because the thought of having a volcano so close to you was incredible. Our group continues to bond over the last two days with also embracing the beauty of Costa Rica. I think that the perfect quote to end this day would be from the founder of Camp Sea Gull, Wyatt Taylor. He once said, “Success doesn’t just happen, you make it happen.” We achieved all of our goals in relation to our service as a group and now enjoying our remaining time. Until then, hasta luego and God Bless!