Hello All!

Cindi and I have started volunteering this week! It is very exciting for the both of us even though we have been doing it for only two days. First, a little about the reserve. The Santa Elena reserve is a community run reserve where everyone participates in the decisions made around the running of the reserve. Also, at the Santa Elena office, they sell eggs and cheese from the local technical high school which raises cows and chickens. Also, the Santa Elena reserve contains many species of animals, plants, and is a primary forest.

Everyone we work with is really nice and trying to help us with our Spanish (although Cindi is much better than me at speaking). Yesterday we worked on one of the trails, they are removing some of the old path and putting in wider ones. Today we went on a 4.5 km walk, or a four hour hike, to go check one of the reserve cameras. This camera was set up to try and track some of the pumas which live in or around the reserve. However, the video on this camera showed no signs of the pumas : (. Regardless, the walk was beautiful and we learned a little bit about the flora and fauna. For the afternoon today we tried to remove part of a mudslide that fell into one of the main trails. During this time we saw capuccinos or white faced capuchin monkeys! So cute! There were babies and adults, you could see them eating fucas (fruits of some sort), hear them munching and squeaking too! Quite an adorable site and was the end to an awesome work day.

Now it is the weekend and hopefully it doesn´t rain too much. However, it is the rainy season here and you can pretty much bank on it raining at least once every afternoon. Cindi and I are hoping to go check out the Monteverde reserve at some point, possibly tomorrow.

As for where we are staying- with the best family every! The mother makes the most delicious food and there are five children running around. Quite a lively place. We are both looking forward to living with them for the next week or so because we are learning a lot as far as language goes and Cindi can make it seem like shes fluent, which is amazing!! She would beg to differ but from my perspective (which i never took spanish in school) she really sounds like she knows what shes talking about. Anywaysss... until next time mi amigos!

CIAO!!!