¡Pura Vida!

Over Spring Break, I went to Costa Rica along with my high school jiu jitsu team. What an experience! We did so many activities there, including jiu jitsu of course.

The trip lasted 6 days, from Saturday to Friday. My team and I arrived at Newark Airport at 5:00 in the morning to catch a 7am flight to San José. After the 5-hour flight, we arrived in San José. When we got outside, we immediately had a scheduled bus ride to our hotel, which was 2 hours from the airport. This was our personal bus throughout the entire trip. We finally got to the hotel and everyone decided to relax since we've been traveling all day. This was the start of a vacation I will never forget.

The next morning we all woke up, ate breakfast, and hopped in the van to go to a local beach for surfing lessons. Everyone was atrocious at surfing at first, but we all got the hang of it and it was really fun. Later that day we went back to our hotel to get ready to do some jiu jitsu on the beach. We set up mats on the sand and rolled for about an hour. While rolling, a local comes up to us and asks us to roll with us. After watching this man do some amazing jiu jitsu techniques, he later told us that he's a local UFC fighter. Everyone was so impressed that we got his contact name and social media name. That was a really cool moment for all of us considering we're UFC fans.

The next day, my team and I went ATV riding. All 12 of us mounted an ATV and followed the instructor to the trails. The instructor took us to a waterfall that was located somewhere on the trail. It was a good place to cool off and clean ourselves from the dirt. We got back on our ATVs and headed back to the town. Although it was the dirtiest activity we did, it was my favorite part of the trip. Later that night, we went to this local jiu jitsu school near our hotel. One of my jiu jitsu instructors knew the head of the jiu jitsu school we went to. My team met some of the locals who practiced jiu jitsu there. It was very humble to meet some of these people because they really don't have a lot but they are happy in how they live. This shows that we are very fortunate and we should appreciate what we have. We continued to go to this academy to practice with the locals until the end of the trip.

Throughout the rest of the trip, we did other fun activities such as hiking at a national park, zip lining, and horseback riding. All while we maintained doing jiu jitsu. The day coming home was sad but everyone was ready to go. We thanked the bus services and everyone who contributed to the trip, especially my teachers. Without them, going to Costa Rica wouldn't have been possible. So thank you so much, Mr. Tomaino and Mr. Butler. I learned a lot from this trip. I learned that there's another meaning to life other than expenses and materialistic lifestyles; it's about enjoying what you have. The smallest things in life can make anyone the happiest person in the world.