The Weekend With the Hot Springs, the Waterfall and the Volcano (last weekend in Costa Rica)

I have never had so much fun while exercising in my entire life. Though I was literally hiking miles upon miles, I had an amazing weekend.
When we arrived, we went to a luxury hotel with Hot Springs. I wanted to live there for the rest of my life.








The next morning, we saw this little dude


The next day, we went to one of the most amazing places in the world that  I have seen yet: Cascada La Fortuna. We hiked 320 ridiculously unsafe-looking steps in each direction, but it was all worth it!!


















AND as if the day wasn´t already amazingly fun, we drove past and took a boat past an active volcano, Volcan Arenal.







AND as if the weekend was not fun enough, on Sunday we went ZIPLINING!!!!!
We did ziplining, superman style ziplining and the tarzan swing.











Now, I have sore legs, a sore neck and tiredness I can´t shake, but IT WAS AWESOME!!!!!!

El Mercado Central

For our next field trip, I spent a very, very hungover day in a market full of smells. We´re talking butcher shops, fish markets, pet feed stores and all kinds of stuff.
I finally started to come around when I got to taste the famous ice cream that has been in costa rica for over a hundred years. I literally cannot find a way to describe the flavor, but its apparently vanilla, cinnamon and vanilla.




Smelly pet/pet feed store





Rows upon rows of beautiful flowers that don´t even look real.




If you needed reafirmation that most of Costa Rica is Catholic, here it is. EVERY store had at least one religious figure somewhere (even the pet feed store. Actually, they had more than one).



But basically, I was so happy to be around a lot of very interesting Ticos in the market who taught me about fruit, vegetables, herbs, meat, cheese and leather that is specific to Costa Rica (also, I was dying to get away from the smell...)

Health Care in Costa Rica

Because I am taking a Spanish for Healthcare Professionals class while here in Costa Rica, they brought us on a field trip to the public hospital and the private hospital. Unfortunately, because a girl in our group was very sick, I was already at the private hospital. They made the mistake of showing us the private one first, and we all thought we were in an episode of House as they continued to share with us their amazing facility.
I mean, even the view from the hospital was amazing.







After a long lecture on how much better Costa Rica´s public health care system is than our own, we got on a bus and actually saw the public hospital for ourselves.
A couple of the patients I spoke to explained that it may take an entire year to get a mamogram and, frequently, when they finally receive the mamogram, the cancer is already in a late stage (and examples like this).

It´s in a crazy part of the city, with panhandlers, pick pockets and people screaming and selling things all over the place outside.



The guard told us that this is a small line for a number to be seen than what they normally see. Beyond this, there are a series of waiting rooms.
The doctor´s office across the street.



Not that I want my blog to be a forum for the good and bad points of public health care, but this is an extreme situation in which we can see a stark difference between what people can get if they pay for it and the health care that is provided to the public.
Also, when I say public, I am specifically referring to the people who pay into social security or the people whose heads of household pay into social security. If people do not fall into either of these categories, they are outright refused health care unless they are children or pregnant.