Jugo de Naranja

Jugo de naranja is one of the most exotic juices I have sampled in Costa Rica. I don’t believe any of you have heard of it. It is not translatable into English. It was the first time I had even heard of it.

Guayabana Juice

Every day at breakfast, there are two pitchers of juice. One of orange, and one of guayabana. They look almost exactly the same shade of orange. What is guayabana, you may ask. But I have absolutely no idea. One day at breakfast, I accidentally poured myself a glass of guayabana when I meant to take orange. It tasted very good.

The Kayaking Trip

We signed up for a kayaking tour of the mangroves. We got there by taxi that was a pick-up truck and the back of it had two benches and a roof. It was a lot of fun riding back there. We were two people to a kayak and we started kayaking on a river of mangroves. We saw a lizard with the name like a dinosaur that I forget, sleeping on a mangrove, and the guide said that he must have gotten there during low tide and when the tide rose he got stuck. We also saw some capuchin or white-faced monkeys.

When we got to a place where she said there would be crocodiles and we should be quiet if we wanted to see them, we sounded like a herd of elephants tromping through a river. At one point, she even said we were at a nest and we were practically guaranteed to see one, but then me and Mom in our kayak had the unfortunate luck to crash into a large amount of mangroves. We made a very large cracking noise when we got away from them and we were splashing quite a lot with our paddles, plus then we couldn't stop laughing. This guaranteed that the crocodiles would go away.

Our tour guide had a very good eye. What I thought was a knot in a tree turned out to be a tree boa curled up in a ball. What I thought was an oddly shaped root, turned out to be a Jesus Christ Lizard. I have no idea why they call it that, but it can run on water, which I consider highly amazing. We also saw a crocodile splash its tail, then go hide from us. Seeing that was really cool.








Once we were done, our guide cut up a fresh pineapple. It was deeeeelicious.

What we do with the sea turtles

After dinner, we sit around at some picnic tables under a little roof with some stairs leading up to the main part of the lodge. At about 7:00 pm, tourists from nearby hotels come to watch the sea turtles. They do not help the sea turtles, they just watch them. After they come, we sit around and read or play cards or catch fireflies.

Once the tourists leave, we are free to go help the sea turtles. There are about 2 or 3 patrols who go out. Once a patrol finds a sea turtle track (it is very easily noticeable because it is very dark against the black sand) we go up to where it messed around and turned. If the turtle is still there, then one of us reaches under the sea turtle to catch the eggs as they fall and then put them in a plastic bag. We have to have red film on our flashlights because the regular light confuses the turtles.


If the sea turtle has already left though, we poke around in the sand with a stick to find a place where the stick goes through a lot farther than it does regularly -- in other words a hollow place down in the sand.

Once we find that, we dig in that spot until we start getting to some white things that look like golf balls but are a lot squishier. We put on a white rubber glove and take out all the eggs, because it's safer that way and they are a little sticky. Once they are all out and in the bag, we fill in the hole. Then we go to find a safe place to bury them without the turtle tracks. We do this instead of putting them in the hatchery, because it is better for them to be buried in their natural environment. Also, the poachers normally look where there are tracks, and once we've buried them we fill it in, smooth out the sand, and put little sticks on it to make it look like the rest of the beach. We also make sure that our footprints don't show.

Sometimes we find a nest that the crabs have found. They think that turtle eggs are delicious treats.

Sometimes a turtle comes up and doesn't feel safe in that area so it doesn't lay any eggs, but turns around and goes back to the ocean. It is quite annoying when they do this and have us poking all around with sticks and not find anything. When it does this, it is called a "rayo."

Our New Casita

Our new casita is a loft sort of. The bottom has no walls, just a picnic table, a storage cabinet, and a gross bathroom for emergencies. The top is way cooler. You go up some ladder/step things to a large room with four mattresses on the floor. I chose mine by a window. The mattresses have mosquito netting over them, and the mattresses look like tents.

Roads in Costa Rica

The roads in Costa Rica are very bumpy, especially from Hojancha to Camaronal. Me, my mom, and my dad all felt sick. For some reason, Sam did not (the lucky thing). Also, we were going up and down mountains so the road was very twisty.

Banana, Pineapple, and Orange Juice

Today for snack at the preschool, I decided to try the juice. At first I thought it was banana, because I could see the eensy black seeds at the bottom. Then the preschool teacher said that the juice was banana, pineapple, and orange. I loved it, and wished my glass was twice its size.

Costa Rican Lingo

Just in case you ever come to Costa Rica here are a few key words.

tuanis=cool
you should always say usted intsead of tu, it is much more polite
pura vida=awesome, cool
garrobo=big iguana

Blue Zones

A blue zone is an area that people live longer. I found out that once scientists came to Hojancha to study that. They discovered that people live longer here because they eat corn a ton. Corn really helps lots of people live longer here. Especially in tortillas.

Mate

Mate is a drink that Costa Ricans have a lot. It is white, and tastes like whipped cream. It is made with milk and vanilla. It has crushed ice and is very thick. I loved it, and so did Sam.

Chickens

There are tons of chickens roaming free all over Hojancha. It is impossible not to see one while you are walking along unless you are trying to take a picture of them like I was, then they absolutely avoid you. There are two chickens who are constantly coming over and pecking our feet during breakfast.

Papaya Juice

The papaya juice tasted horrible. Only my dad liked it.

P.S. But we had some delish watermelon juice today.

What Happened Today

My day basically starts at breakfast and today it was scrambled eggs, toast, and chocolate milk. Then I went to the daycare to help out and my parents and Sam went to work at the school. The daycare is chock full of wild kids. Somehow during storytime, four of them decided it would be fun to cram themselves in between the trash cans and the wall. Then the daycare teacher asked me to entertain them while she talked to a parent. First we sang songs, (they liked the hand motions) then I told them the story of the Tortoise and the Hare in Spanish. At the daycare, the kids do lots of art projects and coloring. Then it was their snack time, which is when I go help out at the school. Mostly there I sat and made use of a notebook and pencil since mostly it is them copying stuff of the board and repeating English phrases. Then I leave to have lunch with my mom and Sam. After that we walked to town so Sam could get a haircut. It was very interesting to see how it is done in Costa Rica. After that we went and got icecream for a treat. And that is where I will stop, because I can't predict the future.

Grace: the International Juice Critic

For Tom the screwball.

Coffee Tour

Because there was no English class on Friday afternoons, we decided to tour a coffee plantation. We learned that the workers would pick the coffee beans, and their kids would help by emptying the baskets. The coffee plantation grew three types of coffee: Costa Rica 95, katurra, katui. Costa Rica 95 is the type that was very local and was the kind my dad had been drinking all our time here. Our tour guide said that that kind had a different taste than coffee in the United States. Katurra and katui are different shapes but are both shipped to San Jose to be sold to other countries. After we were done with the tour, he brought us to a table with coffee. The cold iced coffee was really good. I also had about an inch of hot coffee, four packets of sugar, and the rest was milk. It tasted good and I was very hyper after that.

Tamarind Juice

I always smell the juice before I try it, and this juice smelled so disgusting I declined it.

NO MORE MALARIA MEDICINE!!!!!!!!!!!

My mom was looking around on the web today, and she saw a site that said not to take malaria preventing medicine because it was no longer necessary. I was so happy, that I picked Sam up and swung him around.

NO MORE MALARIA MEDICINE!!!!