The Perk of Having Adult Students...

...is that you can hang out with them!  When I signed up to teach English out here in Costa Rica, I wasn't anticipating that I would become friends with some of my students.  That has turned out to be sort of an extra fun bonus.  I mean, I knew right away that I liked my students.  They all have great personalities and we all have a lot of fun in class, and chatting during breaks.  But I really wasn't expecting to hang out with them outside of the classroom.


An Invitation to a Fiesta
When Margarita came up to me during a break one day and was asking me what the English phrase for "bring your own beer" was because she was having a party, it took me a while to realize she was also asking me to come to a party she was hosting!  She offered to pick me up at my house and bring me back when the party was over.  That was an offer I couldn't refuse!  Also, I really like Margarita.  She always tries her best in class and she's a very good and sweet student.  She's also a mom of three, and she definitely has a "mom" vibe, which is cute.  The fiesta was on the Saturday night after I spent the day hiking in Rincon de La Vieja, so I was a little tired, but so excited to hang out with my students!  (Margarita had actually invited the entire class, but nobody else was able to make the trek out there. sad!).

Margarita picked me up around 9 and drove me out to her house, which is in the outskirts of Liberia, in the middle of farm land.  During the course of our car-ride, she was asking me what my plans are for when I'm done teaching for EVOLC/Calitur.  I was saying that I'll go back home to Cali and get a job, but that I will be so sad to leave when my time is up.  Margarita promptly offered/insisted that I come live with her for as long as I want, with the one stipulation that I speak to her in English because she really wants to become fluent.  She said she'd take care of all my food, would give me a place to stay, and if I ever needed a car, she'd let me borrow hers!  It was really so sweet, and kind of tempting!  I don't know that I'll take her up on the offer, but I really appreciated that she made it!!!

Margarita has a cute ranch-style house, and the fiesta was just a bunch of her friends and family and me sitting around in the nice warm night air drinking and talking and dancing.  (Really, it was a "party" just like in the states.  Friends hanging out together)  And it was SO much fun!  Margarita works at the airport in immigration, and a lot of her coworkers came to the party, so there were a few people, one person in particular, who knew a lot of English.  It was good practice for me to try to follow the conversations and chat with everyone in Spanish, and it was also nice that there were a few people who could translate when necessary!  I was having so much fun that before I knew it, it was like 1:30 in the morning and time to go home!  One of the guys who doesn't drink dropped me off at my house, so I made it there safe and sound.

Here are some pics from the party:

Me and Margarita:

Most of the party-goers!

After the party, Margarita and I also made tentative plans to go for a bike ride near her house, and we are possibly going to play tennis one of these mornings!  Yippie!

Jumping off Rocks!
One of my students, Francisco, is currently working at the airport but he really wants to be a tour guide since he prefers to be out in nature, etc.  One day during our break, I was telling my students about my trip to Rincon de La Vieja and about the beautiful waterfall at the end of the trail.  Francisco told me that there is an even more beautiful (is that even possible?!?!) waterfall like five minutes outside of Liberia, but you need a car to get there.  After class, he offered to take me out to the waterfall the next morning.  Not only would I then get to see the waterfall, but he was hoping I would help him with "nature" vocabulary while we were there.  I couldn't pass up an opportunity to check out another awesome waterfall, so I obviously took him up on the offer.

We were planning to leave at 9 am, but this is Costa Rica, so I wasn't surprised when Francisco called at 9:15 to tell me he was working on his bike (oh, did I mention he doesn't have a car?  We were going to be taking his little moto!  yikes!) and that 10 would be better.  Perfect.  He also now told me to bring a swimsuit which was unfortunate as I had already taken a shower, but whatevs.  (Our little adventure was only supposed to be like half an hour round trip, so I didn't realize it was a waterfall for swimming!).  So at a little after 10, Francisco made it to my house only to tell me that he thought there's been too much rain lately and the waterfall might not be safe.  Instead, we should go to the beach or a lake.  I was like, uh, buddy, I still need to do some lesson planning this afternoon and the nearest beach is minimum 45 minutes away on that bike. (Also, I'd have to clear any longer adventures with my family since my host mom cooks all my meals, etc.  I know, I'm spoiled, but I also have to be respectful of everyone's time!).  We finally decided on the lake, which was about 40 minutes away, and I told Nieves I'd be out a bit longer than expected :)

And off we went!  At first I was super nervous about riding on the moto, but then it was a lot of fun!  We ended up going down the same road I had taken a few days before to go to Rincon.  And that road is total crap, so I was even more nervous at first because it's covered in rocks and holes.  However, as it turns out, riding on a crappy road on a bike is actually more comfortable/less bumpy than riding in a car.  Whudathunkit?  After just a little bit, Francisco stopped the bike at a seemingly random point in the road to tell me we were at our first stop.  We pushed the bike down a little embankment and all of a sudden we were in beautiful nature, at the top of the "Canyon del Colorado."  It was beautiful!!!  Here are some pics:

 I don't know if you can tell from this pic, but we were pretty high up, and those rocks are beautiful!  Totally smooth and just one gigantic rock!  It's pretty incredible!  It's also pretty narrow, so when Francisco told me that people jump from where I was standing into the water, I was like "What?!?!  That's crazy!!!!"  It turns out that the place where we stopped was a little bridge over the river, and people actually (apparently) jump from the bridge into the water!  That is even higher up and even more narrow!  Seriously insane!!

So after taking a bunch of pics, we walked down along the river for a little bit and came to an area closer to the rapids behind me in the above picture where the rock wasn't quite so high.  Francisco said he had jumped from that point before but that it hurt a little bit.  Did I want to jump?  At first I was like NO WAY!  That's crazy!  I couldn't even tell if the water was deep enough for jumping!  And after jumping, how do you get back up?!?!  Well, after he proved to me that you can get out of the water pretty easily (before the rapids, which you can see in the background of the above pic) and that the water is deep enough, I decided I too needed to jump from the rocks.  Francisco went first, and then it was my turn.  It was amazing!!!  But let me tell you, the water isn't that deep, and you definitely hit the bottom, it's just not that hard!  (Like jumping in a pool and hitting the bottom).

We sat near the rapids for a little bit, and I was thinking how amazing it is that right off a pretty busy road, there's this little secluded, gorgeous bit of nature.  Then I looked up and realized it wasn't that secluded as about 5 kids had just joined us and were jumping like crazy people in the water!  Francisco and I decided to join them for another jump.  Here I go.... (see, it wasn't SO high from where we were, but still kinda high!)
Wait for it...

And jump...

success!  (Also, you can see one of the rocks that I'm standing next to!  There are a lot of them down there!)

I also had to get a picture of the boys jumping off the rocks!  Admittedly they are jumping from a short distance in this pic, but they were doing the same dives and belly-flops from the higher point as well!  And the way they scrambled back up the rocks was so great!  Like little monkeys!

After getting in some good jumps, Francisco and I decided to head on.  A little ways down the road we went through some hotel property and went down to the river on the other side of the road for some more jumping off of rocks.  This is the same river (Colorado), but it's not in the canyon, just regular river-scenes, but also very beautiful!  This jump was actually a little scarier because even though the rocks weren't as high, I think it was more shallow and the rocks protruded more, so you had to really jump out and over!  Here is Francisco's jumping pic:

 So pretty!

 Francisco:

 haha, hilarious!

 And I of course couldn't get through the day without taking a pic on the moto!!

After our last stint at the river, we decided to head back in to Liberia because the rain clouds were gathering and we didn't want to get stuck in the rain.  That would have been a bummer.  So in the end, I didn't make it to a waterfall, a lake, or a beach, but I had a jolly good time jumping off rocks in to the river.  And I was for sure glad Francisco had told me to wear a swimsuit!  Hooray!  Eventually we probably will make it to the waterfall and all the other cool places, but that was a perfect adventure for a Tuesday morning!