As this final blog post is being written, we are all sitting comfortably at 35,000 feet on the fourth and final leg of our epic adventure. After our final breakfast together at the hotel in San Jose we loaded up the bus and spent our last bus ride to the airport playing the hits - singing show tunes ("One Last Time" from Hamilton, specifically), Bohemian Rhapsody, chanting "Ivan! Ivan! Ivan!" and taking in the last few glimpses of the mountains. After an emotional goodbye to Luigi and Ivan we made it to our gate via some duty free window shopping. Upon landing in Fort Lauderdale we were told the Passport Control line was too backed up so we sat in the plane for an extra 20 minutes, which then had us "New York Sidewalk" walking to our gate. After 2 hours of waiting in various lines and a gate change we made it just in time to board our final flight back to Hartford.  This trip has been jam packed with learning, adventure, human connection, amazing food, bus...

Hey all its Raynah your blogger of the day, here to report about our last day in Costa Rica. Our morning started with crossing the last stretch of rapids to get back to land. From falling through floorboards and out of boats it was an adventurous and fun time. But don’t worry our amazing guides and Tom made sure everyone made it through safely and got to land where we met up with our favorite driver Ivan. From there we drove about an hour or so to a fruit stand where we tried some delicious and special fruits.   After we were done with that we drove about another hour or so to our hotel. From there we went to the central park of San Jose where we had our last reflection with everyone and sang our great tour guide Luigi a remix of “Hey Soul Sister” all about him. The day ended with us going to a diner-themed Soda (family owned restaurant) for dinner and a award ceremony, recapping all the great things each of us achieved in Costa Rica.  Only one more night before we venture bac...

Hey there! It's Phin. To my mom and dad specifically: I am, in fact, alive and well. I miss you. Okay, enough of the mushy-mushy stuff. Let's get into the action, shall we? Today started off great -- a bumpy ride in the back of a pickup truck -- and only got better. First, we got harnessed up to go canopying (imagine a zipline. Now imagine that you are below the tops of the trees.) As always, the wait was the worst part. Once we got going, though? Incredible. It was really a fantastic feeling to zoom through the trees, and the views were beautiful. At one point, there was a canopy line which went over the river; I think it was my favorite one. No phones on the lines, so enjoy this very safe chaperone selfie :) After that, we had lunch and a short break to collect ourselves before the next activity: a tarzan swing. "What is a tarzan swing?" I hear you ask. Never fear, for I am here to answer your questions! A tarzan swing is a long bungee cord which you hook a harness ...

Heyyyy Y'all, It's your favorite Costa Rica traveler, Ari, and today was a day full of thrill and excitement. We started off our day by leaving our hotel in Turrialba called Turialtico and moving on over to Rio Vista also in Turrialba. Our mode of transportation was quite unusual though in the sense that we got here by RAFT. Our journey began after taking a short ride down a mountain in a trailer tractor. Once we reached our first destination we had to leave the tractor and get into our rafts.  Racing down the rapids and having a blast, we made it to our halfway point where we enjoyed a nice lunch prepared by our wonderful raft guides. Although the rafting was fun, it came with many challenges like paddling through the rough water and encountering rocks. On top of that, after lunch it began to do a little more than drizzle. Some would say rain, but I would say it poured. The rain was worth it because our final destination is quite phenomenal. On the surface it may seem wild bei...

Hola everyone, this is Emily! Today we woke up at around 6:30am, and then had breakfast with a beautiful view at 7:30. After breakfast, at around 8:40, we got on the bus and went on a short ride to a bus station. Our mission of the day was to fix it up, and protect it from the notorious rain. Essentially, we cleaned the whole station, painted it, cut pieces of wood, and attached them to the sides. We managed to finish almost all of the bus station, but before we could do the final touches, it was lunch time! For lunch we went into the community, and were able to prepare our own meal with some mothers from the community. Even though I cut myself when slicing some herbs, the end result was delicious! After eating and some rest time, where I took a short cat nap, we went back to the bus station and finished the last pieces.  Once we completed our mission, we headed back to the hotel and took a much needed rest. Then at 5:45, we headed back out and stopped at a little shop where everyt...

Hola, Will here to tell you what today was like. At the start we left to go to our new hotel and then the big thing that we did was going to the Nortico cacao plantation and chocolate factory.  Our beautiful lunch destination en route to Nortico! The first thing we did when we arrived at the plantation was get a brief history of cacao from chocolatier Aldo. He mentioned how most of the chocolate from big companies such as Hershey is sourced in Africa. The next thing we did was personally my favorite because we got to taste the many different types and variations of chocolate the first type we tasted was a fifty percent cacao that tasted the most sweet then we had a sixty five percent, then a seventy percent cacao which was a bit more bitter but still good then we had my least favorite which was a seventy percent with coffee and the final was an eighty percent cacao. Guide Alex showing us the fermentation boxes! A bitter review from Luke After we finished tasting the different choco...