I stayed in Costa Rica for two weeks as part of a language-immersion program when I was in high school. My sister had gone through the program the summer previous, and both she and I went together during my visit.

Students in the program were housed with a local family; my sister stayed with the same family she had lived with the previous year, and I landed with a family up the hill from her. As part of the program, the two of us attended a half day of school learning Spanish Monday through Friday, with the weekends and afternoons to ourselves. The campus was again within walking distance from my house, so I would wake up in the morning (rather, my host mother would wake me up), get dressed shower, breakfast, walk down the hill to meet my sister, and then walk to school.

Costa Rica means “Rich Coast”, and while I didn’t visit the beach, the country is beautiful! The natives have a phrase, “Pura Vida” (lit. “Pure Life”), used in casual conversation, often as a greeting, farewell, or thanks.

My visit also gave me a new appreciation for what “rainforest” means. While I learned about rainforests in grade school, my visit to Costa Rica was my first time actually spent in one. Although it certainly rains a lot, it’s not a dreary thing like the stereotypes of England or parts of the northern United States. Instead, you get a light shower for about 15 minutes almost every afternoon. It’s almost regular enough to set your watch by, and it comes at the perfect time of day to cool everything down.

The city that I stayed in had a small park near the center of town, full of mango trees. I was there at the height of mango season, and walking through the park was a bit like navigating a war zone, dodging falling mango-grenades, to say nothing of the fallout caused by squirrels nibbling on the fruit over your head. However, I am sad to report that even with my host mother purchasing the best mango she could find at the market for me, my opinion on consuming the fruit did not change (I am not a fan). I highly recommend the pineapples, though!

What else can I remember…? The bus stations were loud, making it difficult to hear people (compounded by not being fluent in Spanish). I remember one bus driver switching to English because I couldn’t remember how to say something along the lines of “I can’t hear you could you repeat that?” There’s very little internet access outside of net cafes (or at least, that was the state of affairs around 2005). Even living in the country, the wildlife is much closer than I’m used to. One morning I walked into the bathroom to find a tarantula bigger than my hand on the shower floor, and I decided she could have the shower that day. I notified my host mother, although later that day as I was reading in the living room I noticed what was probably the same tarantula hanging out above the window, and nobody seemed to pay it any attention.

The last weekend my sister and I were there, we took a guided tour to a few local attractions, including a hot spring resort and a cheese factory, and culminating with Volcán Arenal (the Arenal volcano). Unfortunately for the majority of the tour group, the volcano was obscured by fog and mist at the final portion of the tour. Fortunately for my sister and I, we were staying the night at an Inn nearby, and the obstruction cleared up. The two of us sat in front of our cabin late into the night chatting with our neighbors, a pair of elementary school teachers from Washington state, watching the volcano erupt every fifteen minutes or so.