Lookin a little rough, but a HUGE thank you to our tour guide, José! He was such an AMAZING guide! I almost cried when he dropped us off at the airport. I tried to speak as much Spanish as I could during our time here and he was quite impressed! He was basically my tutor for 10 days. If I had a question he would say "pedir ayuda." He was such a great guy inside out, I'll miss walking into the bus yelling ¡Holã José! At the break of dawn.

Good Morning, everyone! It's currently 4:30 am and we are headed an hour away to Managua Airport to depart home. As much as I miss my parents, I'm not ready to come home! People were complaining last night about the bugs, the heat, the food etc. meanwhile I was soaking the entire trip in one last time. This trip has been the trip of a lifetime and hopefully the first of many trips to come. Besides the lizards in our room, the mosquito bites and the lack of AC, I wouldn't trade this trip for anything! Rice and beans and all! It has truly opened my eyes to several different cultures and made me step out of my comfort zone, especially hiking up the volcano! I can never thank Chris Cos and Valerie Cos enough for letting me go on this trip. As I said once before, I knew 1 other person on this trip, and the relationships I was able to make in 10 short days are truly amazing. I hope I have many opportunities to travel and experience life like this!
¡Pura Vida!

Our lunch view today!! Bought everyone in my family and some friends really beautiful, handcrafted gifts from one of the markets. We still have another market in the downtown to go to. Can't wait to get home to show everyone the memories I've made and the memories I have off of my go pro! It's going to take a while to make a video, but looking at the footage and reliving the memories will be amazing!!

Our last day in Nicaragua and last day for this trip :(( we spent the morning hiking up Mombacho Volcano. It was a 2.7 KM hike all up hill, up the mountain... we saw many craters close up but when we were supposed to see the main crater, it was too foggy to see! We are now headed to the local market to see the local artisans and their work.

¡Buena noches! Today we took a bus/walking tour around the city of Granada, its a small, colorful and rich in history city. We learned a lot about the civil war that took place here which killed thousands, even our tour guide's father. Geno, the tour guide took us to the cemetery which many of those people who died are now buried. The cemetery was above ground coffins due to the unpredictable rainy season they have here that could cause floods easily. After our bus/walking tour we stopped for lunch, it was fried tilapia with rice and beans. A lot of us, maybe 9/33, were not feeling good at all, including me. Nicaragua does not have the safest drinkable tap water, luckily I did not have any, but a combination of the heat, all carb diet and dehydration really got to me today. After we stopped for lunch, we then went on a boat tour around Lake Nicaragua. The lake includes 365 islands, most of which are bought by millionaires. Some islands range from $80,000-2 million. We saw the island of a owner of a grocery store here in Nicaragua, compared to Walmart, and man was it spectacular! One of the islands was a vacation home to a prestigious vet who brought some animals to live with him on his island, he brought 2 spider monkeys and 4 white faced monkeys and a few horses. 2 white faced monkeys passed away, however we saw the other 2 and the spider monkeys. They were so used to the vet and other people that they were not shy when our boat came up to the shore! I stuck out my hand from the boat and one hopped down to the roof and grabbed my hand!! I won't lie, I cried! We saw the spider monkeys as well and I got really closed to them as well, but I only got the go pro footage because of my extendable selfie stick, I could get even closer. We got back to the hotel at 3 o'clock and by that time I was absolutely exhausted and drained, I took a 2 1/2 hour nap as soon as I got into the room.

First night in Nicaragua! As soon as we got to the Mansion de Chocolate, I headed straight for the spa! I got a chocolate massage AND a chocolate facial! Wow was it great!! The hotel is a courtyard styled, with the hotel based around the pool and a small garden.

¡Buenos Días! Our first breakfast in Nicaragua was a success! We had many options to choose from, which was the first time we were able what to choose from a menu, so I of course chose the French toast! Since we're staying at the Chocolate Mansion, I decided to splurge and get a ice coffee, little did I know how large it was! I took a quick picture then got 4 more straws to share with my table mates at breakfast. We are now on the bus headed for a bus tour around the city of Granada, Nicaragua. Later today we have a boat tour around the lake here.

¡Bienvenidos a Nicaragua 🇳🇮! We have officially crossed into a different country, my second country to visit! Today we are not doing much except traveling. Our hotel for tonight is supposed to be extremely nice, we will be hiking and taking a boat tour tomorrow morning.

¡Pura Vida! Tonight is our last night in Costa Rica 😫 today we went snorkeling and saw some beautiful marine life, this afternoon we went on a river boat tour. Wow oh wow was it amazing! I'm starting to feel like Paul Shrodo, I had binoculars to look at the birds and i sure am glad I did! We were able to see Red Macaws which is such a treat since there's only 100 known Red Macaws in the entire country and we saw 2! Aside from birds and iguanas we also saw dozens of crocodiles, the biggest one we saw was about 10 feet long and the smallest we saw was only a month old according to the guide. We also had the absolute best view to seeing white face monkeys! We have officially seen all 3 types of monkeys native to Costa Rica (Howler, White Faced and Spider Monkeys) these pictures were not zoomed in at all! They were actually THAT close! The monkeys,who normally run away at the sight of people, really put on the show for us! One even got on the roof of our boat! We stopped at a local restaurant to grab lunch, it was a family own restaurant that happened to be on their property along with their farm. The farm animals there were so excited to see us and we're so friendly, I even caught a chicken! Now I feel like Taylor Cos!! They had the sweetest dear there also. Lastly, we were so exhausted, half of us sunburnt, so we were spending pictures of everyone sleeping on the bus. Tomorrow we will be traveling 5 hours to Nicaragua and spending the day on the bus. Because we're traveling to a different country, we had to say goodbye or ¡Adios! To the best tour guide we could've gotten, Banano, he truly knew everything and anything there was about Costa Rica!

¡Que hermoso día! We woke up this morning at 6 am and grabbed a very non traditional breakfast, in other words-american breakfast. We had pancakes and Cocoa Puffs. Across the restaurant from where we were sitting was a bridge that connects to the ziplining park of the resort, to get to the zipline, there was a suspension bridge, so of course we all went across. We drove about 45 minutes to the beach after breakfast, holy moly was it breathtaking!! Pure sand, hardly any shells, no seaweed, crystal blue water, and lots of marine life!! We took a short bus ride from the shore to another shoreline where we went snorkeling! I wish I could upload some of the go pro footage I took right now, I,for the most part, separated my self from the group to see different marine life than others and hog the best things I could fine. I was able to see angel fish, parrot fish, puffer fish, (which our tour guide picked up and let me hold) eels, an octopus, (which,again, the tour guide picked up and stuck it on my arm, when he took it off, the octopus inked!) and finally a few seahorses! We were not allowed to touch the seahorse because he was pregnant and we could injure it and the babies. After snorkeling we went back to the shore for some pineapple, cookies, and water and we were eating and a coati (basically a cute raccoon) came right up to us! the coati, the locals called him Kevin, was not shy at all so we were able to feed him some pineapple from our hands. Kevin saw my pineapple in my hand but then found a cookie and decided to go with the cookie. Once again I wish I was able to post some of the footage I took because it is going to be amazing!!

¡Hola! After our long hike today we all went swimming at our new hotel in Liberia, Guanacaste. We went to dinner and had spaghetti with salsa with herbal green tea. Our hotel for tonight is cabin styled, but also a resort. You can rent kayaks, canoes, go ziplining all on the hotel grounds. As I was walking from restaurant to the "cabin" I saw a group of European tourist taking pictures with the flash on and murmurs of "ooh's and ah's" I went over to find this gorgeous red eyed tree frog! He stayed long enough for me to take pictures and admire him. The first time José told us how rare it was to see a red eyed tree frog I could barely believe it because I've now seen 7 of them!

Ricon De La Vieja National Park in Guanacaste, Costa Rica. Went on a nature hike to volcano craters and sulfur hot springs. On the way up the trail we saw 7 spider monkeys! José told us that he has never seen a single spider monkey in the 25 years he's lived in Costa Rica, and they are incredibly shy,so seeing 7 was quite the treat!! Man did they put on a show for us! They were hoping from tree to tree and even throwing sticks and branches at us! I stood right underneath them to get amazing go pro footage and almost got hit with some sticks. We also saw a few snakes along the way but I was too scared to get remotely close for a picture. The whole trail was covered with baby iguanas, José said they were at most 3 weeks old. We ended the afternoon at a local sports bar and had lunch that tasted almost like chipotle- white rice, beans, chicken and pico de gallo. We're traveling to another hotel and spending the rest of the night swimming and hanging out together.

¡Buenos Dias! Es el dia cinco en Costa Rica. We all woke up extremely tired, the busy, non stop schedule really hits you when you have to be on the bus at 6:30 am. For the most part, all of us have bonded so well. I came on this trip knowing one girl, not even the teacher going, and I'm extremely excited to say that I'm walking out of this trip on Sunday with 33 new friends. This trip has been so incredible and to experience it with new friends is even more incredible. Today we are traveling to Guanacaste and we will be hiking en el parque nacional. This morning our breakfast at the hotel was accompanied with another beautiful view. We've been on the bus for almost 2 hours now traveling from Arenal to Guanacaste, on the way we stopped at our last souvenir store in Costa Rica :( it was 9 am and our tour guide, José, knew how tired we were so he suggested to get ice cream for breakfast because it ice cream for breakfast makes you "muy feliz." After the ice cream our bus driver, Banano, hit the breaks, half of us were asleep, and we were all woken up to a cattle herder wrangling cows right in the middle of the road!

Finished the night with a nice dip in a 120 degree hot spring and natural sauna! Had the absolute BEST food tonight at the hotel with the Hot Springs.