Many students and teachers went out of state over spring break, but not as many went out of the country. Many who did go out of the country were taking part in the school sponsored trip to Costa Rica. Starting before spring break officially began, the trip spanned from March 27th to April 4th.
In total, 51 students went on the trip. To be eligible, they had to be enrolled in Spanish level 3 or higher, be in the Spanish immersion program, or be native Spanish speakers. The levels of those who went ranged from Spanish 3 to Spanish 6.
The students of course could not go alone, so 8 chaperones, many of them teachers, joined. Prior Lake High School Spanish teachers Ms. Dunklee, Ms. Lecceardone-Brown, Ms. Coleman, social studies teacher Ms. Sommers, and dean of students Ms. Durch went as well as Ms. Young Koplitz from Hidden Oaks Middle School and La Ola Del Lago staff members Ms. Glaser and Mr. Rojas.
However, before the trip was even proposed, a survey was sent out to ask families if they would prefer Spain, Puerto Rico, or Costa Rica as the destination. When Ms. Dunklee saw “Spain and Costa Rica were pretty much dead even with votes,” she chose Costa Rica partially because she had already done a trip to Spain with students in the past and the Spanish department tries to switch up destinations for the trip that usually gets offered every two years. Plus, Costa Rica is just all around a popular location.
After choosing the trip’s destination, more work happened behind the scenes. Ms. Dunklee coordinated much of it, finding “Ms. Lecceardone-Brown was a huge help because she had done a trip like this before.” In fact, when Ms. Lecceardone-Brown took a group of students to Costa Rica a few years ago, she used the same tour company and did a very similar itinerary.
Also, meetings were crucial in communicating information surrounding the trip, along with back and forth emailing. The meetings showed Ms. Dunklee the kids’ excitement because they would ask her about the next meetings, and she even recalled one girl saying “I never thought I’d say I’m excited about a meeting, but I am.”
Once in Costa Rica, the group visited four major cities: San Jose, although that was “mostly just for going in and out of the country because it’s the capital and that’s where the airport was,” Arenal, Monte Verde, and Manuel Antonio.
Despite doing almost everything all together, there were so many people that staying in the same hotel at each location just was not possible. Although the group was split into different hotels at Monte Verde and Manuel Antonio before, they got right back together after breakfast in the morning.
Each day, the group of students and chaperones worked to follow the itinerary provided by the tour group, Xperitas. To get from place to place they used designated tour buses, although at one point they used a boat to to get across Lake Arenal.
Arenal, known for its hot springs due to the volcanic thermal activity, created lots of potential for activities because of its national park area, big lake, waterfalls, and volcano. According to Ms. Dunklee, they “hiked to La Fortuna waterfall and kids got to swim around that area” before going to a local organic farm, learning from a presentation about different things grown there and later doing a service project of planting trees.
Ms. Dunklee recounts that when the group went to a resort with various man-made pools fed by hot springs, “You could walk in them with your bare feet, and all of the pools were fed with different temperatures of water” that they could try out.
After Arenal in Monte Verde, known for its cloud forest, there were opportunities to hike and zipline. The ziplining seemed like a favorite for many of the students, and some of the chaperones tried it as well. However, the beach day was another favorite.
On the pacific coast, at the beach town Manuel Antonio, Ms. Dunklee recalls that “Kids took surfing lessons, went boogie boarding and swimming, and then the next day we went to Manuel Antonio National Park where we went sightseeing for some animals.”
One of the days at the beach, a jellyfish was lurking, but the tour guides were prepared to neutralize any stings with vinegar and kids felt comfortable to get back in the water. Really the only minor struggles were the run in with the jellyfish, the hot and humid conditions while hiking that bothered some people, and a couple students not having a way to pay for their checked luggage because of confusion surrounding how to pay for things when in a different country.
Overall, despite the challenge of it being a lot to coordinate, “It went really really smoothly, and there was a lot of joy in organizing the trip,” according to Ms. Dunklee. Her favorite part was “Being immersed in Spanish. It was my first time being in Costa Rica, so I enjoyed seeing all of these things for the first time.”
Throughout the trip, the tour guides who spoke almost entirely in Spanish while sharing cultural information, doing presentations, being on the bus, and walking around different locations, greatly helped accomplish the previously set goal to “Speak in Spanish as much as possible and just be immersed in the language and the culture and learn.” The Spanish 3 students were not quite as comfortable with that as the Spanish 6 students, but it was beneficial nonetheless.
The group who went seemed to really enjoy their time there, so if you are interested and eligible, keep an eye out for the next trip and consider going!
