From a leaking tent to sitting by the campfire

Date: 19.01.26
Position: San José

Last night was definitely not a good way to start the day. Our tent turned out to be leaking and by the morning it felt like there was a small lake next to our air mattresses. Everything was wet and cold and sleeping like that was almost impossible.

Because of this, many of us missed breakfast and decided to take a hot shower instead, which helped us warm up and start the day a bit better.

Even though I was still tired, Spanish class turned out to be surprisingly fun.

Instead of sitting at our desks and learning vocabulary or grammar like we usually do at school, we played Jenga and Bingo in Spanish to practice the numbers. It was a nice change and made learning feel much more relaxed and enjoyable. During the break, those who missed breakfast finally had some time to eat and the meal of the day was instant ramen!

Later in class, we practiced speeches that we would present to thank the language school.

This was quite challenging because we had only learned a few things in Spanish so far, such as numbers and colors. With some help from our Spanish teacher, however, we managed to write a few correct sentences.

When it was time to present our speeches in front of the other groups and all the Spanish teachers, we were very nervous, but everyone did their best. It felt challenging, but also really motivating to realize how much Spanish we already understand and speak.

After lunch, we were split into three groups and took the bus to San José, the capital of Costa Rica.

During a city walking tour, we visited important places such as the Parliament and several monuments and learned interesting facts about the city’s history. For example, San José grew rapidly in the 19th century mainly because of the coffee trade.

Another highlight was a huge stone carved into an almost perfect sphere by indigenous people over 2000 years ago without any modern tools, which is why it has become a UNESCO World Heritage object. However, its origin is still a mystery.

After the tour, we had about one and a half hours of free time in San José.

As always during free time in a city, we bought some ice cream and walked around the main streets. Many of us also went shopping for pullovers, as the weather here is much colder than we had expected.

In the evening, we took the bus back and had dinner around the campfire.

We ate pizza and roasted marshmallows, which was a perfect and cozy ending to such a long and eventful day.