Taxi-Bus-Hostel-Bus-Footbridge-Taxi-Watertaxi-Watertaxi

Yes, that's how we got to Panama. 

Asap on Thursday after school we caught a taxi to the bus station, where we hopped a bus for Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica. We didn't get there until late, and our hostel was becoming more and more challenging to find with each step. Eventually, our hostel was deemed nonexistent by us and the locals, but luckily, we ran across a nice little hostel with the perfect amount of beds just in our price range. Puerto Viejo was BEAUTIFUL, definitely worth a weekend trip back, and it got me even more excited for the beaches to come at Bocas del Toro. 

Just to get this straight in the beginning, Bocas del Toro is an archipelago of islands off the Caribbean coast of Panama, pretty close to the Costa Rican border. It is made up of several islands, such as Isla Colon and Isla Bastimentos. Bocas del Toro is also a town on Isla Colon, but it is referred to as Bocastown. We stayed on Isla Bastimentos, which is a 10-15 min water taxi ride away. 

However, before we got to Isla Bastimentos, we had to brave a bus to the border, which was probably the sketchiest border crossing I'll ever come across. We bought a bus ticket on the CR side of the border in Sixaola, but after waiting in the immigration lines, we found out you had to buy the bus ticket on the Panamanian side of the border! UGH! So we bought another bus ticket and stood in line again! The sketchiest part though, was the fact that we technically left Costa Rica on one side of this SUPER rickety wooden bridge, had to walk across the planks over a pretty wide river to the other side, where the Panamanian immigration "office" was located. So technically, we were TOTALLY unaccounted for by any government while walking across the most unstable bridge ever. Awesome. Thankfully though, we made it.

After the border crossing, we took a "collectivo" which is like a van taxi with random people to Almirante, where we caught a water taxi. One interesting thing we saw there was outhouses that were at the end of little docks out over the water. Think about it....yeaahhhhh....yum. Other than that though, we saw where our Chiquita BA-NAH-NAHs come from! Right there in the bay near Bocas on a big barge! 

Once we finally made it to Bocastown on Isla Colon, we were bombarded with offers for snorkeling trips and boat rides and ziplining! We caught a quick taxi to Isla Bastimentos, where the dropped us off on a dock in the mangroves, were we followed a path to our hostel in the jungle. 

The entire island is protected forests ringed with crystal waters, beautiful beaches, and coral reefs, so the first day was spent being complete beach bums. We laid in hammock under the palms, basked in the sun, played in the water, and explored the beach. We even saw some wild green parrots eating berries on a bush by the sand!

Oh yeah, and I climbed the rail at the little lookout deck on the point and pretended to be Pocahontas. I couldn't resist. Rail shmail. Ooo and I found a perfectly white little sand dollar on the sand bar as the tide was going out! :) Other than Kelly's INTENSE sunburn (he was almost purple he was so burnt), it was a very relaxing day. 

 The next day, Erica and Lauren went spelunking while Kelly, Stephanie, and I went snorkeling in Coral Cay. You were not allowed to wear fins since they can kill the coral ( I loved this - they really cared about preserving the nature's beauty) but we really didn't need them. We saw coral of all colors - mostly NEON colors!!! Electric purple and hot pink and neon yellow coral was everywhere! You think I'm kidding??

Yeah, it was some weird lookin' stuff (the coral, not me and Kejee duh)!! After diving here, our little boat driver took the three of us to another spot to play with starfish! We picked up starfish of all sizes, and there was even a HUGE starfish off the dock from where we ate lunch. I also couldn't resist sneaking in to pick it up too! It's the little adventures that get me.

Another wonderful day in Panama ended with possibly the most interesting cultural celebration I have ever witnessed/participated in. I told you a little about what I had read about Carnaval, and it was all right. Big scary men dress up in red and black jumpsuits with huge bedazzled monster headdresses and run around the streets whipping "hostages" (who seemed to be all the men dressed in drag...) with Rap/Spanish/Jamaican/Jungle music blaring  in the background. The little girls all had braids with candies and lollipops tied to the ends too! Straight WEIRD if you ask me, but I'm definitely glad I got a taste of a very different cultural celebration.

This is the one where you can see the headdresses.

Look for the "hostages" in this video! 

  

And these guys got really close to us!!

On the water taxis back each night from the Carnaval celebrations, you could see more stars than I think I've ever seen! One night, we even saw a huge shooting star that was so bright that it's streak in the sky stayed for just a moment longer than usual. We also met some cool people along the way, including Brits and Australians who played Bananagrams with us, a guy from Hawaii who made us palm frond roses while we were sitting on the dock of this awesome waterfront, treehouse styled bungalow bar, a local who "taught us to dance" (using only Spanish), and even a few poi performers (fireballs-on-chains dancers). Everyone stayed safe, luggage intact, and made it home after a generally smooth watertaxi-watertaxi(in the rain)-bus-footbridge-bus-bus-taxi trip home! YAY! Mission of renewing our visas (which was actually an excuse for a great birthday weekend trip) = ACCOMPLISHED. 

Speaking of birthday, one last thing. I had a great 22nd birthday here in CR, thanks to the fact that 1. I finally got my box from Kamden (and I can't wait to get my next box from my mom!) and 2. My roommates surprised me in my classroom with a Tres Leche birthday cake and their rendition of "Feliz Cumpleanos." One of my students even brought me a little chocolate bar, and all my kids, family, and friends wished me a happy birthday! Yay, maybe 22 isn't so bad. (P.S. Can't wait for Al's 21st coming up soon!)

Hope you enjoyed experiencing Panama through me! :) 

PURA VIDA, 

Jessica

Panama Carnaval HERE WE COOOMMMEEEE!!

Mardi Gras? PPSSSHHTTTT We're leaving tomorrow for Bocas del Toro, Panama for our "visitor" status renewal trip/my Carnaval-birthday celebrationnnnn! I'm gonna look at it like that anyway ;)

In case you don't know what Carnaval is, it is basically Latin America's way of celebrating Mardi Gras. Carnaval is celebrated at the end of the festive season that started on Jan. 6 and it marks the beginning of Lent. The festivities go on all weekend, with extravagent parades and food and general merriment. The Carnaval celebration in Panama City, Panama is THE 2nd biggest festival IN THE WORLD, only following Carnaval in Brazil. I'm thinking Bocas del Toro, Panama will hopefully be full of a little Caribbean-influenced Carnval, which I will attend as my 22nd birthday present to myself. I AM SO EXCITED! I can't wait to see all the cultural influences that this place has - Caribbean, African, Spanish, and English being the most prominent. I know it will make for a good celebration with some most likely marvelously fresh Caribbean seafood, my FAV.

We found a neat little hostel to stay in on Isla Bastimentos, just a short taxi-bus-hostel-bus-walking-taxi-watertaxi-watertaxi trip from San Jose! HA! This is going to be so complicated getting there but SO worth it (I'm hoping). The entire island of Bastimentos is covered in national park rainforest, and our hostel is right in the middle of it all. The island is about .6 miles across where we are staying, and you can do anything from rainforest hike to snorkel!!! I'm excited to see the unique wildlife and people (but maybe this time we won't wake up to howler monkeys at 5am!). We leave tomorrow afternoon at 4, so I will be out of touch until Monday night, but I will try to update ASAP about our trip when we get back!

On a total side note....funny story. People here greet each other with kisses on the cheek, kinda like Italian people do. I am getting used to it with Oky of course, but the other day after school, I was waiting in the cafeteria when one of my sweet students came up to me. I thought he was going to whisper something in my ear when he kissed me on the cheek to tell me bye! I was so unprepared! Especially since you can barely even hug your students in the U.S. without getting a warning! Haha

Another totally funny random story. My goal when I came here (among many others) was to not look like a tourist at some point. The more touristy you look, the more of a target you are, so I didn't want to be a target. I figured I could maybe pull it off once I got a little tan. On my 1 month anniversary of being here (I know, laugh at me, I keep track) we went out to eat at pizza hut, which is actually really fancy here, and the server was super surprised when he figured out I didn't speak Spanish because HE THOUGHT I WAS A TICA (a local)!!! YAY mission accomplished! I don't look like a lame-o tourist with a "please steal my stuff" sign on my back anymore!! :)

Also, these are m sweet kids (minus one) after our Valentine's day celebration! :D :D :D YAY!

Alright, dinner's ready. Oky's made us "authentic" Chopped Suey hahaha Asian inspired Spanish food or Spanish inspired ? We'll see...I'm mighty honnngrryyy!

PURA VIDA,
Jessica

Earthquake!!!

Let me back up a little though. After going to the Country Club on Saturday, Stephanie and I decided to take a little day adventure to Spirogyra Jardin de Mariposa's, a butterfly garden located in the middle of downtown San Jose. Granted it was small, it was really fun to run around with butterflies like a child! I was able to pick up a bunch of different kinds of butterflies, and I even bought a COCOON!! I really wanted it myself, but I figured my students would be a good excuse! Haha it's a papilio thoas, or Thoas King Swallowtail! It will look like this when it hatches:

Yes, we saw all of these butterflies up close and personal....

We even saw the Blue Morphos, the butterfly of Costa Rica! They're HUGE and BEAUTIFUL!

The butterfly garden was definitely worth the $5 entry fee even though we had to pay extra when our taxi got lost! lol I took my cocoon to school today, and the kids loved it! The lady at the gardens said it will probably hatch in 7-10 days.....days 7-8 we are out of school, day 9 is ITBS standardized testing, and day 10 is my BIRTHDAY! We'll hope for the best!

After a relaxing day with butterflies, last night's sleep was...interesting! I was dreaming about monsters coming out from under my bed, causing my bed to shake, and then I woke up to AN ACTUALLY SHAKING BED! In my half asleep trance, I almost believe that monsters must REALLY be coming out of under my bed! Then I realized my glass shower doors were shuddering too, and oh yeah they have EARTHQUAKES here! COOL but kinda scary since I totally didn't know what to do in case of a big tremor. There's no way I could run outside through like, 3 locked gates in time to be safe. Today, I learned that you get up next to a sturdy object because when things fall, they fall on top or up against things, so essentially you hope that the falling ceiling and your sturdy object create a little hut called the "triangle of life!" Lol the earthquake was a 5.8 magnitude, but the epicenter was on the southern Pacific coast. 

To catch everyone up on my teaching, I am teaching everything, all day long, except for Science/Social Studies. The kids have ITBS standardized testing next week so we have a different schedule, and they will be finishing up their North American animal projects for the science fair on Feb. 29. After that, I will start my own unit in Science/Social Studies in which the students research their heritage. Then, I will be teaching everything all day for almost a month! Whoo exciting but SCARY! 

Well, gotta go plan for our Panama adventure this weekend! We're going to Bocas del Toro, most specifically  Isla Bastimentos! GOOGLE it! :D It will even be CARNAVAL weekend!!!!! FYI Carnaval is like Mardi Gras but WAY COOLER and more cultural, and Carnaval in Panama is THE second biggest festival IN THE WORLD. Oh yeah. Can't wait. 

PURA VIDA, 

Jessica 

So there's this thing, called a blog, and I guess I should probably learn to update it more often! Haha These last two weeks have been getting busier and busier so I've been replacing blog time with lesson planning time. Social media and lesson planning are inversely related for sure. 

Comparatively speaking, last week was generally uneventful. I starting teaching spelling and handwriting by myself which will be something I continue to teach probably until I leave. Last weekend, we went to Jaco beach again (the place I got robbed) on an attempt to go somewhere much more interesting. Problem was, the ticket window opened later than when we needed the tickets to a much cooler place, so we were stuck with Jaco. Again. But we made the most of it. We just went for a day trip anyway. Problem was, there were no seats left on the buss we needed to Jaco, so we took the 2 hour ride on the floor of the bus. Bad idea for my car sickness.....let's just say the ride was less than pleasant. Floating in the ocean makes everything better though, so I was happy. 

Surprisingly, it was the first weekend I was homesick, but I think that was because 1. I didn't feel so good 2. I usually go to the beach with my mom and 3. My team was playing in their first tourney of the season without me. It was the first tournament I think I've missed in two years. Weird. BUT There's nothing like a homemade care package waiting at school for you on Monday morning to cure a little homesickness. 

There's also nothing like your teacher being sick and at home when you walk into the office first thing Monday morning. Yeah. That's right. Sick teacher = me teaching ALL day, all by myself, for the first time, unprepared.  My kids are CRAZY on Mondays too, so this was definitely a challenge to say the least. I was supposed to start teaching Math this week anyway, so at least I was prepared for spelling, handwriting, and math. The rest of the day though, I was totally winging it. I was able to call my teacher once I arrived at school, LATE I may add because of our bus, and I listened as best I could to her very hoarse voice try to explain lesson plans from memory (her lesson plan book was at school go figure). I did well sticking to them so the kids wouldn't get too far behind, but the combination of being late and having to unexpectedly be in charge all day started the day with chaos that lasted all day! I MADE it though, with a little help from the other 3rd grade teachers, and the kids didn't get behind in anything! Considering the circumstances, successful day if I do say so myself. 

After Monday, I prepared a little just in case Mrs. Calderon was sick again. Sure enough, she was since she didn't get to rest Monday on account of her being at the doctor's all day because her daughter's elbow came out of socket! Whew she had a rough day! So Tuesday I was prepared, and a little more in control and on time and less rushed, and I think it went very well. All lessons completed in the time allotted - CHECK! YAY! I actually felt like a real teacher because I got to check Mrs. Calderon's box and blow my whistle on the recess field and everything! Haha too bad I wasn't, you know, getting paid and everything too! Even thought Tuesday was going so well, i was, deep down, dreading the surely horrid volleyball practice I was going to have to run that afternoon. In case I forgot to mention, I started coaching the 3rd-5th grade coed volleyball team on Tuesday afternoons. Last week, it was probably THE worst practice and THE worst group of kids and THE worst volleyball experience I've had in all my years. Long story short, they were the most disrespectful kids I had ever coached. After talking to the principal, their old coach, and the varsity coach, I was hoping this week would be better, but I wasn't counting on it! Good thing too because it was right in the middle....Not as perfect as possible, but definitely not as bad. I'm getting worried though because all the players now come up and hug me every time the see me and I'm getting suspicious! Haha

The best part about Tuesday though was the WONDERFUL care package I got from my mom. (Okay you caught me, it WAS waiting on me at school Monday morning, but the chaos preventing me from actually GETTING it until Tuesday.) It had my granny doll that actually isn't new "I just forgot at home and now my mom's sending  to me," EASYMAC!, Dove chocolates that I had been craving but never said anything about, a camera charger to replace to stolen one, a valentine's surprise, and LOTS of love! :) It was the perfect reward for my crazy start to the week and it couldn't have come at a better time! YAY!

Wednesday was a piece of cake after Monday and Tuesday, and yesterday was my first day helping with the middle school boys volleyball team. I don't know if this will be permanent yet, but the varsity coach wanted me to help a few boys get started until the rest of the team's soccer season was over. I only had 4 boys, but I really had a good time with it, and they were fast learners! It's my first time coaching an all boys team of any kind, and I can already tell you it's going to be a whole different world of volleyball and coaching, but I definitely think I'll like it. Next Wednesday after the weekly staff meeting, the teachers are even gonna start playing the varsity boys, so I'm glad volleyball in finally back in my liiifffeeee!!

Boy am I glad it's the weekend though! I will start teaching language arts next week, so I will be teaching everything but Science/Social Studies starting Monday. I am getting busier and busier as we speak, and I have literally NO motivation to do my Auburn online class for internship seminar. It's kinda pointless almost for my placement....I do all the reflecting naturally, and writing it down is just unnecessary work that takes up lesson planning time. I am learning SOOOO much just by being in this school and teaching everyday that I almost feel like my seminar class is a little behind the curve here. To be fair, I feel like my school is a little ahead of it. I love teaching here so much though, and it makes it so easy to get up in the morning and go to "work" - the weeks just FLY by! The staff is wonderful and my fellow 3rd grade teachers are so helpful, caring, laidback, and genuinely happy with what they're doing - it's infectious! I'm getting spoiled in my placement so fast and I'm soaking up every minute of it! It's going to be hard teaching in a regular ole school after this! 

To the Country Club we go tomorrow for a nice, relaxing (and cheap) weekend before we head to Nicaragua  next weekend for 5 days and 4 nights. We have to leave the country before 90 days to avoid needing a Visa, and we have a long weekend this weekend so we're headed out! The Panama border just got closed due to internal conflict, so we're switching plans last minute to the northern CR border. Should be interesting and I'm excited for the adventure. I did get a good sized knife today to make me feel better about myself though haha

I'll try to update more frequently (and shorter) in the next few weeks, but for now...

PURA VIDA!

Jessica

P.S. I am going to try to start using a little Spanish here and there in my entries, so watch out! I'm learning quickly! ("Yo apprendiendo muy rapido!".....I think...)