Semi-Charmed Kind of Life: Travel Tuesday Contributor: A Country Girl's World

Welcome back! My third guest blogger during my European extravaganza is Jenn. She describes herself as a lover of both books and travel, so her experiences definitely belong on Semi-Charmed Kind of Life! Keep reading to learn about her trip to Central America and see some pretty awesome pictures. (By the way, I should be flying from Rome to Seville today if everything is going as planned!)

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Hey Ladies! I am Jenn and I blog over at A Country Girl’s World. I am a 24-year-old student, I studied Anthropology at JMU, and I am now studying Criminal Justice/Crime Science Technology. I live in the middle of nowhere in Maryland and I love to read and travel. Today I am going to be talking about travel. :)

In 2009, I got the opportunity to travel to Costa Rica with JMU as part of the Alternative Spring Break program. If any of you readers are still in college, and your college offers this program, DO IT! It was an incredible experience.

This is our group in Harrisonburg before leaving for Dulles

This was actually my second ASB trip (the first was to California). Our trip in 2009 was to Las Cruces Biological Station/Wilson Botanical Gardens in Costa Rica! What an amazing trip and beautiful country. The trip actually started out rocky. We got to the airport and had to run to our terminal only to find out that the flight was delayed. It ended up being delayed two hours, which meant we missed our connection in El Salvador. Six hours in the El Salvadorian airport is enough to make anyone stir crazy (you know, with the four whole terminals there).

El Salvador

Since we arrived in San Jose so late and the rain made it impossible to cross the mountain, we stopped at a hostel to sleep for a few hours before beginning the trek to Las Cruces. Once we got there, though, it was amazing. We worked on the biological station doing inventories and learning about different species of plants and animals, and two of the mornings we went to a local elementary school to teach English. It was a really rewarding experience. We even felt a legitimate earthquake, which was cool but scary at the same time.

Finally in Las Cruces!

Little guy outside the dining hall

Beautiful!

The view from the dining hall!

We spend a good bit of time taking inventory of Agoutis (the little dude pictured above). It was actually right after this picture was taken that we felt the earthquake. We had no idea what was happening until it was over. Such a surreal experience for this MD girl!

Climbing in the strangler fig tree! Strangler fig trees are actually really interesting. They wrap around trees and strangle them, then the tree dies and the strangler fig is left.

One night we went out into the forest and met up with some grad students from Princeton who were studying bats. It was actually really neat and totally cured my fear of bats! They are actually really neat!

Holding a bat!

Playing a game with the kids

We also got to go to Manuel Antonio National Park on our last night! We went zip lining, to the beach and to a local club. Our hostel was right on the beach!! I think we should have stayed there though because we came back and one of the girls had a flat tire and another got into an accident on the way home (everyone was OK). I can’t wait to go back to this incredible country one day!