Costa Rican culture shock – MV students travel to tropical land

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June 16, 2011 - 12:00 AM

MORAN — Between the monkeys that howl, hot cocoa laced with chili peppers and an active volcano that wasn’t, a group of Marmaton Valley High School students experienced a little bit of everything during a recent nine-day trip to Costa Rica.
The students, members of the Marmaton Valley Spanish Club, visited the Central American country June 1-9.
The trip capped a two-year fundraising venture for the students and adviser, Julie Tholen.
“I know they were all excited about going, and this is something they’ll always remember,” Tholen said. “How do you explain what you see, when even pictures don’t do this place justice?”
The trip took the students from the heart of a Costa Rican tropical rain forest to the country’s luxurious Pacific coastline.
The students’ resort near San Jose, Costa Rica’s capital and largest city, brought them to the region’s indelible climate.
Temperatures typically soared near 90 degrees with near stifling humidity.
“It’s the middle of their rainy season,” Tholen explained. “It rained every day we were there.”
The students also were introduced to howler monkeys.
Described as the loudest creatures in the animal kingdom, the howler monkey name is more than appropriate.
“It was a cross between a lion’s roar and the sound the dinosaurs made on ‘Jurassic Park,’” Tholen said. “It would have scared you to death if you didn’t know to expect it.”
The monkeys made themselves home above the resort, in the lush tree canopies of the Costa Rican rain forests.
“They told us that if we ever got too close, the monkeys would defend themselves by throwing their feces at us,” Tholen said.
The students never got that close, catching glimpses only during a boat ride along the Sarapiqui River.
The river shares its name with the Sarapiqui rain forest, which the students also got to see.
They also toured chocolate, pineapple and coffee plantations.
The coffee plantation appealed to the few students who drank coffee, while the chocolate plantation “was different,” Scott Tholen, a senior student said.
“Their chocolate has more of a bitter taste,” Julie Tholen, Scott’s mother, added.
Cups of hot chocolate featured unusual additives, such as the chilies, Julie Tholen said.
But the highlight, many students agreed, was the pineapple plantation.
Workers there showed the students how to determine which pineapples would be considered most edible.
“They served fresh fruit with everything,” student Halie Luken said. “The pineapple was incredible. I don’t know that I liked their food, but I loved their fruit.”
The students also passed by the Arenal Volcano area in northern Costa Rica.
Typically one of the country’s most active volcanoes, constantly oozing molten lava with an occasional eruption, the volcano has quieted a bit over the past two months, Julie Tholen said.
While in the area, students also visited a number of hot springs, heated by the volcano.

THE TRIP WAS not all fun and games.
The students took one day to visit an elementary school, in which they painted furniture and handed out school supplies they had taken along.
“Those kids were quite excited to see us,” Julie Tholen said, recalling how the youngsters eagerly snapped up pouches, scissors, glue and other items most local students would scarcely give a second glance.
Their final day in Costa Rica was spent on an island beach off the Pacific coast.
In addition to snorkeling, making sand castles and otherwise relaxing, the students were fed a tortilla meal prepared from scratch.
The trip organizers took all of their supplies to the beach, then set up shop, prepared the food and set up tables on the spot for the students.
A marimba band serenaded the students as they dined.
“And as soon as we were finished, they took it all down again,” Julie Tholen said.
The students also came across another bit of unusual wildlife.
The beach featured a small boar that had been tamed. The animal behaved much as a child’s pet, allowing the students to pet it and cover it with sand.
“It was great,” Luken said.

“IT WAS definitely not what I expected,” student Ben Smith said of the trip. “I went expecting to see paradise, and it was like that along the coasts. But it was different.”
He recalled seeing worn-down buildings in San Jose protected by tall iron fences, with barred windows.
“Most of the roads were not that well maintained,” Julie Tholen added. “They were very curvy and very narrow, and usually very busy.”
There were few street signs. Getting directions usually meant relying on landmarks around different parts of the country. Most residents had no home address to which mail could be sent.
“If you sent a letter to somebody, you would have to send it to where they worked,” Luken explained.
One other note: gasoline in Costa Rica cost upwards of $8 a gallon.

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