Santa Ana and Guanacaste
Language studies
Each afternoon from 1-4 pm, the GC students in Costa Rica attend Spanish language classes at Conversa, a foreign language institute in downtown San Jose. On most days, students arrive at Conversa after having had lunch together in small groups, either downtown or close to Casa Goshen, following lectures and discussions held during the morning.
Last
week, however, the students received an invitation to spend all day
Tuesday at Conversa's retreat center in the mountains above Santa
Ana, a suburb of San Jose. From 8:30 am to 1:00 pm, the students
were put through an intensive schedule of regular language study groupings
interspersed with two guest speakers from Conversa who lectured in Spanish
on the state of the Costa Rican family, and the history of Central America.
Students
were then expected to discuss what they had heard during the lectures
in their normal classes with their standard teachers. Although the day
was somewhat draining, the setting was spectacular, and after two students
were free to enjoy the retreat center's amenities, which included a
volleyball court and swimming pool. And at least one class got to meet
outdoors!
Guanacaste
The group took its longest field trip last week, a three-day trip to Guanacaste, the wild west of Costa Rica. Rincon de la Vieja ("Old Woman's Corner") National Park was the first stop, and is the home of a 5,600 foot active volcano. Students had a day and a half to explore the park's trails through bubbling mud pots, sulphur fumaroles, and steam geysers. The opportunity to get so close to actual volcanic activity is very rare, and was well worth the bone-rattling bus ride to reach Rincon de la Vieja.
In
addition to volcanic displays, the National Park contains acres of forest,
orchids, monkeys, quetzals and tapirs, many of which were spotted by
the students during their hikes. A popular day trip destination for
the group was a 5 km (one way) hike through the forest that ended at
a 75 foot waterfall with a perfect swimming hole at the bottom. A side
trip included viewing an oil derrick being used to attempt to harness
the volcanic energy of the Rincon de la Vieja volcano. 
Finally,
five hardy souls also attempted to reach the crater on a 16 km trail
to the mountain's summit, but were forced to turn back about 100 vertical
feet from the peak. Once the group climbed above the tree line, clouds,
rain and wind settled in and reduced visibilty to nearly zero. Yet the
hike was wonderful and afforded views of the Guanacaste valley that
reached almost all the way to the Pacific Ocean.
The final leg of this journey was a quick overnight stay at one of
Guanacaste's gorgeous, tranquil beaches. 
Playa
Hermosa is about an hour and a half from Rincon de la Vieja on the
Pacific Coast. Very few people were on the beach, as this is the off
season in Costa Rica: the rains are about to settle in. The students
enjoyed the sunset over the water and supper on the beach on Thursday
evening, and spent Friday morning enjoying the waves and white sand
beach.
The drive back to San Jose highlighted the arid nature of Costa Rica's western-most province at the end of a long, dry summer. Some of the other sights included the famous gigantic, wide, flat Guanacaste trees, cattle ranches with acres of barbed-wire fence, and the tourist trappings of Liberia (the largest city in Guanacaste) contrasted with the solitude of the Rincon de la Vieja mountains.