Saturday 6/2/2012 - Isla Tortuga

This morning I woke up at 4:30 am. So early! For breakfast I had a bowl of fruit loops and some coffee. Argelis sat at the table with me to eat breakfast because she called a taxi for Kaydee and I. Kaydee came to my house and we left at 5:30. The taxi took us to the Holiday Inn downtown San Jose. It took about 15 minutes to drive there. When we got there, there were a lot of tourists waiting at the hotel for the Bay Island Cruise bus, too, so I felt a lot better once I knew that it wasn’t a scam!

When the company bus got there, we paid on the bus since our professor made the reservations for us. It cost us about $78 each. It’s a great price for a great day! It took about 2 hours to reach Puntarenas, which is on the Pacific coast. From there, we got off the bus and went onto a boat called the Great Bay's Princess for 2 hours to get to the island. It was sort of like a small yacht. The first level was only for the staff, the second level was air conditioned with the bar, tables, and bathrooms, and the third level was the pool and tables.

There was also a group of 4 guys that played music the entire trip. They didn’t really sing, they just sang sounds like “ba da da dum.” But I enjoyed it! We also got fresh pineapple and watermelon, ceviche (gross), and fruit/water juice.

When we got to the island, we paid $12 for snorkeling right when we got there and went snorkeling. There was a really big group, probably about 25 people, so it made snorkeling terrible. Everyone grouped together and I kept getting kicked with flippers! And the water was really dark, so we couldn’t see any fish unless they were at the surface. The fish we did see were all the same type of fish, too. Overall, snorkeling wasn't that good. :(

When we got back from snorkeling, we ate lunch. We had rice, chicken, fried fish, salad, potato salad, champagne, green beans, and carrots. Then, we walked around the beach and took a lot of pictures and then swam in the ocean. The water actually wasn’t that cold. I heard that the Pacific Ocean was colder than the Atlantic Ocean, but it wasn’t that bad! The floor of the water, though, was all rocks. It kind of hurt, but at the same time it was like a massage for my feet.

It was a very nice and relaxing day (after snorkeling). On the way home on the boat, it took another 2 hours to get to land. This time, we sat on the front of the boat on some lay-out chairs with a group of young girls that are also studying abroad. We also got to watch the sun set from the boat over the mountains. It was beautiful. I took pictures, but obviously the pictures don’t do it justice.

On the bus ride home, we got to watch the movie Flicka on the TV’s. When we got home, the bus dropped us off at the Holiday Inn. There was a POPS Ice Cream shop right next to the hotel (how convenient)! So of course we stopped and got ice cream before we went home! I got brownie dynamite and it was delicious.

When I got home, I ate dinner. For dinner, we had Chinese take-out again. I didn’t have any of the noodles with the nasty sauce this time, just the rice and the rangoons. Bethany, Sara and I also watched part of the movie Elektra in Spanish. I didn’t catch most of the words, but it was still fun to listen to Spanish. I went to bed around midnight.