Costa Rica...pura vida!

Costa Rica - November 2014

My colleague, Todd, and his daughter Shelby and I traveled to Costa Rica recently to set up a faculty-led study abroad experience for our students at ISU.  We met with a university to establish some connections as well as explored the nature of Costa Rica.  These are coffee beans which are almost ready for harvest.

It look like I will be traveling back to CR in May to take 10-12 students plus another faculty member!

 Shelby and her dad embraced  the opportunity to hold the boa constrictor.

If you click on this picture you'll see a little dart frog on the green plant. I enjoyed the frogs and butterflies much more than the snakes.

 Marta and I visited Costa Rica 28 years ago and our visit to this volcano, Poas, was unlike our current trip because usually the crater is socked in with clouds.  Todd, Shelby, and I had a rare experience to see Volcan de Poas on a clear day!

Both this picture and the previous were taken at Universidad de Veritas. Apparently this food vendor is the most popular person on campus with all of his tasty treats like empanadas!

We did a canopy (ziplining) tour and these fellas were our guides.  I had a blast with them.  The one with the helmet asked if I had ever been in Costa Rica before. I said yes, 28 years ago, probably before you were born. He grinned and said, Actually, I was already 2 years old."

I didn't take my camera with me for fear of dropping it, but this is the kind of ziplining we did. The most amazing moment was when we went belly down and head first over a rain forest gorge.

 The guy in the blue shirt with me, Luis, organizes ecotours for many universities in the US including SUNY Cortland and U Nebraska at Kearney to name a few.

This picture of me with the sacks of coffee beans was taken at a coffee plantation.  The beans are ready to be roasted.  The white beans are for export and the brown and white beans are sold locally.

Dan created a GPS unit for one of his engineering projects at school. He is demonstrating it to us in this picture.

We had the whole family on Thanksgiving this year!  It was surprising how capable we were in polishing off a 16 lb turkey over the course of 2 days! After dinner we broke out the instruments and had a jam session.  Joel is playing the nose flute. Do you see Dan on the guitar? He's been playing since August and is pretty good!

We had a bass guitar, mandolins, and guitars all going.  It was a blast!







The last picture below is young Maddox. We are watching him for our friends so they can have a getaway to Indy for the night.  He's quite the charmer (actually, he's sound asleep right now)!