Day Eight.

Monday's journey starts out at 5:30, just early enough for the sun to begin rising. As I got up and stood in my sleeping bag, Brennen was still laying on his couch bed, and Sean was just getting off of his kitchen table bed (yes you read that right). We all slowly got ready by 6:10 to leave for breakfast at the same restaurant we had dinner yesterday. We arrived at the restaurant and were welcomed with fruit, eggs, rice and beans, and plantains. After finishing breakfast we headed off to the cloud forest. 

Once we arrived, Brennen, Sean, and I(all the guys) realized that we didn't prepare well for a rainforest; short sleeves shirts and no rain jackets. But thankfully Brennen was able to use Kenda's rain jacket, and I was given Kendra's shawl, but Sean was a trooper and just went in with chacos, jeans, and a t-shirt. We split into 2 groups of 10 (one with the students and one with the interns) and headed into the rainforest. 

My group's tour guide lead us into the rainforest with the understanding that we should try to be quiet and listen for bird noises. We then found and learned about the many birds of Costa Rica and headed off farther inwards where we found these animals that looked like a raccoon mixed with a fox with a white nose. All the names of these animals that I'm talking about are not in my vocabulary yet so please ask our children more if you want to know. Anyways, we went to a big red bridge, in which some of the people in my group began to jump and make it wobble (aka Kristen). After the bridge, the group solely focused on finding sloths. Which lead us to walking to another trail, to the back of a restaurant but finally our journey lead us to not finding one. 

After the rainforest we headed back to the cabin and had lunch (sandwiches) and packed up our bags and left back for Franco's in San Jose. During our ride back to Franco's, we all looked at all the beauty God had created, and also marveled at the heat he'd brought. We arrived 4 hours later, needing to pack for the next day, and eat the final dinner of the trip. We had pork and gravy, with tres leches as dessert, which is the best by the way. Bruce came along with all the interns, and even his kids, so that we could say our goodbyes. Tears were shed, but also laughs and smiles as we said our goodbyes to everyone, and finally realized this was our last full night as a team together. I'm not sure what the girls did after the meeting, but the guys were very efficient in packing, and definitely not slacking off and staying up all night...

By Noah Quay