Arrival to Miami

We hope everyone made it home to Miami. It was great having MCDS down for a visit and we hope to meet everyone soon. I am sure you have plenty of pictures to look at now the kids are home but I have these two from the Monteverde cloud-forest night hike. If you have comments about the trip we always love to hear how we can improve our services and you can contact us at info@crrtravel.com. Thanks everyone for following the blog and if you ever come to Costa Rica and are looking for a private family adventure visit us at www.crrtours.com.

Pura Vida!

Night Hike

They made it to the night hike and while many of you were sleeping your children were walking through one of the most famous cloud-forest on the planet. The Monteverde cloud-forest has been an area for years where scientist from all over the world have come to study the bio-diversity and many different species this small area has to offer.

Your kids made their way through the forest at night which opens up to a whole new way of looking at things. There is so much to see in the forest at night as many of the animals as they know sleep during the day.

Arrival to Monteverde Cloud-forest

Today is a travel day and some evening activities. The kids made the trip starting out in bus for 30 minutes and then traveled by boat to the other side of the Arenal Lake. When they arrived to the other side they took transportation which allowed them to meet back up with their main bus and then on to the Monteverde Cloud-forest.

They are doing the night hike right now and all is well. Sorry no pictures for now but will work on getting some later this evening or in the morning. Enjoy your evening.

More Pictures

Hotsprings, Waterfall, & Organic Farm

It has been a full couple of hours. Since last night the kids enjoyed dinner at the hotsprings where they had a chance to sit in thermal waters from the volcano and enjoy an excellent dinner. Then it was lights out for the kids.

When everyone got up this morning it was off to one of Costa Rica's most beautiful waterfalls which was just up the hill from the hotel they are staying at. It is quite a hike to the waterfall which measures around 500 steps but it was a gerat way to work up an appetite for the best lunch of the country they will have in a few minutes.

The lunch is at Finca Don Juan which is a completely organic farm. The kids will get a tour of the farm, pick some of the vegetables, and then eat the things they harvest. After the lunch they will get the chance to visit the National Park of Arenal Volcano where they will walk on the old lava flow.

Community Serivce

It was a long drive yesterday but we arrived to the hotel. It is a nice hotel and we they had breakfast early this morning. The drive to the Community Service school was about 45 minutes. The project we do for the schools is making recycle bins. We started this in our Sitio de Mata project which is a rural village in the mountains that we do homestays and the families where the families make everything possible out of recycled goods (this village made the {recycled-bags CLICK-HERE} that the kids were given on the start of the trip to try and cut back on plastic bag consumption during the week). We have everything all ready to go and the MCDS kids do their part of putting them together with hammer, nails, and then putting a nice paint job on it. Mr. Woodburn and I were asking ourselves how many high school kids it would take to put a nail in and I have to say we were pretty impressed. If you have any work on thehouse that you need to get done just wait because we are sending these kids home experts with a hammer & paint brush.

This is an interesting school we were at. It is called El Castillo and located at the other side of the volcano that we were staying on. Their guide Diego also happens to be quite invo

lved with the National Park of Arenal Volcano which also helps out this school. The project going on in the school is that they planted a couple hundred of trees on the school property that are all native and endangered to Costa Rica. This school and like many are involved in the environment and the kids get into the ideas of ways they can help. Now this very rural, fou

r classroom school will start a recycle project with the bins that MCDS built for them.

Take a look at the pictures. We have built a number of these bins and the idea behind the project is to see which school kids collect the most recycled goods and then we give that school a pizza party. This happens a few times a year.

We had lunch at the a snake area. Dont worry they were all in the cage and the kids got to see some snakes, frogs, and lizards. They even got to hold the large snake that some obviously opted not to but others got in for the picture.

The kids are on the Arenal Volcano zipline right now and they sound like a bunch of howler monkeys.

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More Rafting Pictures

Hola Parents and Friends,

Here are some more pictures from the rafting trip as promised. Feel free to comment on the blog in the comments section below and we will pass on any message you wish. If anyone wants to follow our facebook we would thrilled. Visit our facebook click here. Thanks for following and hope all are having a great week!

Rafting Pacuare River

This was a 4 hour raft trip that rates up with some of the best ever. The Pacuare river is not only rainforest from start to finish but it is filled with amazing waterfalls from start to finish and canyons that make you feel like you are in a Jurrasic Park film or Avatar.

Everyone did an amazing job rowing and I was with the all guys raft so we had a blast to say the least. We made our way through the class III & IV rapids and enjoyed every minute of it getting soaked from start to finish. We spend plenty of time in the river as this is what rafters consider a pool and drop river which means after every rapid their is a pool which is a great river for commercial rafting.

Take a look at some of the pics and stay posted because this blog post will not fit them

all so there are more to come.

Morning in Turrialba

When they got up this morning it was a beautiful day which it still is. In Costa Rica the dry season is from mid December till mid April so they should not see many clouds this week. The volcano was smoking and we packed up and headed to breakfast. Everyone seemed to sleep very well and had no problem getting up.

We took the kids to breakfast and then made the 1 hour drive up into the mountains.

The river today is called Pacuare River and it is one of the most scenic rivers on the planet according to National Geographic. When we arrived to the river we made sure all the kids had their sun-screen on and ready to raft.

The pictures are from breakfast and from the Turrialba volcano smoking this morning. Turrialba is the second tallest volcano in all of Costa Rica.

Welcome MCDS to Costa Rica

The kids are here. It is a beautiful day here in paradise and they came walking out of the airport at around 11am our time. We pulled the bus around, loaded the kids in, and made our way through the capital city to get out into the Turrialba area. We had lunch for them ready on the bus and they all seem to be very good eaters as most student groups are.

Their first stop was in the town of Cartago which was the first Captial city of Costa Rica. Their guide's name is Diego. Diego filled them in on the history of the capital city and also the Central Valley where they landed.

The Central Valley is the area of Costa Rica that has most the population and is surrounded by volcanoes and mountains. The tallest volcano in Costa Rica is located on the south end of San Jose and it is called Irazu which measures just over 11,000ft. The kids landed at 3,000ft which is about 3,000 more than Miami. The drive today will take the kids through the country-side with views of two different volcanos (Irazu & Turrialba; two of Costa Rica's six active volcanoes) and then through some plantations of coffee and sugar-cane. If you like coffee let me know I will send your kids home with a bag of Costa Rican coffee!

To all you Miami Heat fans congratulations I see the Heat just won a close game. Well thanks for tuning in to the blog and believe me the pictures get better. Just wait for the Pacuare River rafting pictures tomorrow. Enjoy your Sunday and we promise to take excellent care of your children.