Hola! Today we left Heredia and embarked on a long journey to Monte Verde. The bus ride was around 3 hours long total, but was split into two parts. Both halves were around a hour and a half each. Along the way the bus encountered twists and turns over valleys through the countryside allowing us to overlook most of the country. Because of this, I was able to bask in Costa Rica’s beauty. This long trek made me realize a few things. One is that the infrastructure of Costa Rica is poor due to the terrain. In previous posts I’ve mentioned how Costa Rica’s roads and sidewalks lack of quality surprised me, but it never really occurred to me as to why that is. The answer is simply the land itself. It’s pretty safe to say Costa Rica’s isn’t a flat country. Everywhere you look in Costa Rica you see mountains. This is a huge reason as to why the roads are the way they are. The constant rainfall and earthquakes doesn’t help either. Another thing I noticed was how popular motorbikes are amongst the locals. It seemed everywhere, including Monte Verde, for every four cars there was one motorbike. I think part of the reason for this is to avoid long traffic. For a people who believe on taking there time they sure rush around. The final thing I noticed on the drive was the architecture of the buildings. Each and every city here tends to only have buildings one to two stories high. This has to do with the constant threat of earthquakes. Altough, I do find it kind of strange that every building uses metal roofing. That may just be a strange observation, but I seriously don’t get why that is.

Moving on, when we got to monte verde, we had a delicious lunch. Shortly after went to learn about quakers who moved from Alabama to Costa Rica. It was very interesting! From the presentation I learned just how much of an impact that these quakers had on Costa Rica. For instance, they are a major reason as to why tourism is so popular in Costa Rica. These quakers built many of the dairy farms around the area, which with time transformed into things like zip lining and other interesting businesses. Another important factor to consider is how much they helped to create what is now Monte Verde. These quakers along with locals turned this mountainous forest into a wonderful community. They built schools, dairy farms (which later transformed into tourist spots), pharmacies/doctors offices, even a postal system too. By doing all this the quakers slowly began changing the culture of Costa Rica as well. The most obvious example of this is the bilingual schools that the quakers helped kickstart. It just goes to show how many things can actually be completed when people work together toward a common goal. The quakers and Tica’s are a perfect example of this.