Curu Bioluminescent Tour/ Montezuma

     This past weekend, I went to a place called Curu. It is a wildlife refuge and national park. Curu is

located in the Nicoya peninsula, which is in the northwest area of the country. It took us a 2.5 hour bus ride to the coast, where we caught a ferry to the other side of the bay. The ferry was around an hour or so, and then it was about 20 minutes to our hotel in a small town outside of the national park. We left San Jose at 5 am in the morning, and arrived at the hotel around 10 am.
     Soon after arriving, we headed out to the beach in Curu where we spent the majority of the day on the beach. We also went exploring around the park to check out all of the cool animals! Daniel and I decided to explore the trail where we found a beautifully blue river. Did we dare to swim in it? Of course. The current was a little strong, but nothing a swimmer couldn't handle that's for sure. We jumped in and swam to a small island close to the other side. When we looked back, we noticed a sign facing the other direction. Daniel points it out and said to me, "Wouldn't that be funny if that sign said: beware of crocodiles?" I thought about his question for a minute, and realized there was a significantly high chance that, that could be written on that sign.

     The moment I realized what we were in for, I jumped back into the river and climbed out on the other side. I was in no mood to play with crocodiles! (Yes, later that day, we did indeed find out that is what the sign read.)
     Around 5 pm, we packed ourselves in kayaks and boats and headed to another beach down the coast. This is where the bioluminescent tour took place. We hung around, went swimming, at some delicious and fresh fruit until it got dark outside. Once it was pitch black outside, we ran ourselves back into the open ocean and went swimming in glowing water. It was one of the most amazing experiences I have ever had. The movement of the water (from your hands or body in general) made the plankton illuminate like fireflies in the ocean.
     The next day we went to Montezuma to go swimming in waterfalls. We hiked up the river to one of the most beautiful waterfalls I have ever seen! In it, were people jumping in and swimming around. My friend Daniel told me that above that waterfall, was another one, even larger, and you could jump off of it from the top. We gathered a small group of 4 of us and began the dangerous hike up the side of the first waterfall.
     When we arrived at the top, I couldn't even explain to you the beauty I saw. There was indeed a

larger waterfall, with a ton of crazy people jumping off. I didn't participate in that. At the top of said waterfall, was another smaller one and a small pond like body of water. We went swimming (the boys went jumping off the crazy, huge waterfall) in the pond, and jumped off the half-sized waterfall at the very top. They even had a tarzan swing from an overhanging tree, which was a lot of fun! Around 11:30 in the morning on Sunday, we began our trek back to San Jose the same way we came. Back in the bus, to the ferry and finally the bus once more.