Sorry I’ve been away for so long! Its been a crazy past 2 weeks. The weekend before last I stayed with my host family. When we were assigned our homestay families I got a big surprise: I was the only students assigned a host family all the way in Cartago, which is a province all the way on the other side of San Jose! It took over an hour and a half to get there. Everyone else was assigned homestay families in a neighborhood near the SFS center, such as La Presa, Boyero, or Atenas. My family turned out to be located so far way because my host father, Marvin, is actually the site manager at the SFS center, and lives with his family in Cartago.
In the afternoon they took me to the shopping district in San Jose. First we went through the central plaza, a main cultural gathering for people full of crowds and street performers, and then showed me El Teatro Nacional, one of the oldest buildings in San Jose. The shopping district itself is one long pedestrian street. There were some stores that were specific companies or brands, such as a two story Payless. Other stores though were locally run with random assortments of items, with sometimes only one variety of an item available. There were some cool stores, like a locksmiths with keys set into the concrete sidewalk in front of it. Every couple of feet there were people selling lottery tickets, yelling their prices at the top of their lungs. We ended up at the oldest market in San Jose, which was established in 1880. It’s a buildings crammed with a wide variety of stores and very narrow, crowded hallways. My host family bought me a “Costa Rica: Pura Vida” shirt from a souvenir store in the market. It shows how prevalent tourism is in the Costa Rican economy.
On Sunday, the grandparents came to visit. The grandmother started to cook as soon as she arrived, and stayed in the kitchen all day. For lunch we had chalupes, which were delicious, and then the grandmother made tamales, which I was given one of. Kenia walked me through the neighborhood so I could take some pictures before I left.
Right before I left Marvin’s car broke down and we had a suspenseful 15 minutes in the car, but he was able to get it started.
The week after that was full of mid-terms. This week we found out that unfortunately our week-long trip to Nicaragua was cancelled because of a border dispute between the Nicaragua and Costa Rica. Basically Nicaragua starts a border dispute every election year to distract from internal issues. This past Wednesday Nicaragua and Costa Rica made amiable agreements through international court, but SFS has already changed our plans, so we’re still not going. Instead we are going to Panama, which will hopefully be just as fun!
On the Friday before last we held a huge dinner celebration at the center for our host families, with a lasagna dinner, entertainment, a DJ, and dancing. We fit 180 in the open classroom area! We had a lot of guests because extended families still tend to live near each other in Costa Rica, so in some cases 17 family members would arrive for one student. As part of the entertainment we had a mini-talent show. I participated in a skit we entitled “A Day in the Life of a Gringo,” which the families found really funny.
The next day was the beginning of our first “Weekend Away,” in which we have all day Saturday and Sunday off instead of just Sunday, allowing time to travel. I stayed overnight in a hostel with 11 other people in Quepos, allowing access to the beaches and national park in Manuel Antonio. The name of the hostel was Serena Vista and it had a beautiful view of the Pacific Ocean from the reception area. The first day we stayed the entire day at the public beach in Manuel Antonio. It was very reminiscent of spending time at the beach at home, except with balm trees, warm water, and very white sand. I walked along the beach both ways, which ended at mangrove forests at each end. While I was reading on the beach a big, quiet, beautiful dog walked right past me through our group set up on the beach! When I began to pet him he sat down and settled right next to me for around 10 minutes, and then he just as suddenly as he stopped got up and sauntered away. He was so sweet! I have no idea where he came from but someone must have owned him because he was wearing a harness. I wouldn’t be surprised if he was a local dog that had experience with getting attention from random tourists on the beach. We took the bus back to the hostel as the sun was setting, which was really beautiful to see. The bus between the hostel and the beach was really cheap: 240 colones, which is about 50 cents in US currency!
That night I got ingredients to make cheese quesadillas with Parker in the common kitchen available in the hostel. Some of us also made cheesy pasta, all of which came out really good. Later that night a group of us, including some other people who were staying at the hostel, including a couple from Washington DC and an electrician apprentice from Canada, went to a restaurant with a bomber plane added as part of the building. The bar itself was inside the plane. The cockpit was still intact and the engines were used for the ceiling fans. The bar was dimly lit and had blacklights. I ordered a Pura Vida: a mixed drink that consists of cacique, rum, triple sec, and orange and mango juice. It was delicious! On the walk back to the hostel a 3-legged dog joined us and followed me all the way back to the room I was staying in! He seemed content to stay outside though.
The next morning I had the hostel’s free breakfast: toast and coffee, that was actually delicious. The bread was a kind of French bread that you could toast in a toaster oven with butter and jelly available. That day I went to Manuel Antonio Park with Pin, Joana, Kate, James, and Matt. We got to see a sloth with a baby and a lot of capuchin monkeys. Manuel Antonio has 4 beaches connected by trails. I hiked the Peninsula trail, which took about an hour, and then relaxed on Manuel Antonio beach, the most popular beach in the park. Unlike the public beach from the day before, which had some big waves good for surfing, this beach had gentle rolling waves that were really fun to swim in. We got back just in time for the rented van to pick us up at 4pm to bring us back to the center. We got stuck in traffic for an extra 4 hours, and then we arrived back at the center we discovered that the center had no water because a water main had broken in Atenas…which was really unfortunate because I had not showered since going to the beach. I had to jump into the pool to get the sand out of my bathing suit.
The water didn’t come fully back until Tuesday. You never know how important water is until you have to dip into the pool to stay clean at least a little bit, not be able to wash dishes for meals, and having to deal with toilets not being able to flush…it wasn’t very pretty basically. But we survived.
On Monday, we visited an organic coffee farm. We got to see how the coffee was grown and processed, and they served us a delicious treat of organic coffee, tamales, and a sweet cake they traditionally make for weddings. They also showed us 3 puppies that had just been born on the farm last week! They were adorable.
On Thursday we went to Santa Rosa National Park. Our trip seemed to be plagued by bad luck though. As our bus was beginning to drive away from the SFS center to embark on our trip it suddenly stopped. The bus’ brake had gotten stuck in engaged and the bus driver could not fix it. As a result, we had to wait for a new bus to arrive, making us over an hour off schedule. When we got to the park we had lunch, which included a rice with black beans that’s unique to the Guanacaste area and is really good. We had field lectures in the afternoon. A troop of spider monkeys that went by near us distracted us from one of the lectures though…I don’t think Edgardo, my Tropical Ecology professor, appreciated their presence.
We also visited La Carosa, the site of a significant (although only 14 minutes long) battle in Costa Rican history. The original building had been burned down by poachers in 2001 who wanted revenge against park rangers. It is truly sad that people, who were doing something unethical in the first place, would have the insensitivity to burn down a vital part of their country’s culture and heritage.
That night we went on a hike to look for night life. We saw spiders, scorpions, frogs, and roaches. I learned that scorpions glow in UV light. Scientists still don’t know why they evolved this way! We also got to star gaze. The sky was really clear due to our remote location, so the stars looked gorgeous.
The next day we had breakfast at 5am to hike to Naranjo Beach before the peak heat of the day. It was disconcerting waking up before 5 am because it was still fully nighttime, with the stars shining brightly in the sky. I got to see the sun rise while eating my oatmeal. The hike was long, but doable. When we arrived at the beach though bad luck struck again. We were informed that the beach was closing down because a tsunami had hit Japan at 8am that was an 8.9 on the Ritcher scale, and large waves had hit Hawaii. Since the park administration feared large waves would hit the beach around 4pm, they wanted everyone to leave. At first they told us we could at least have our guest lecture about sea turtles, but that ended up being cancelled, so we spent a mere hour on the beach to take pictures and have an early lunch then we had to turn back. It meant that we missed camping out on the beach and a planned night hike to a sea turtle nesting beach, which was very disappointing.
We started to hike back, with Sergio in a van and Edgardo in his 4-wheel drive SUV stopping along the road to shuttle us back as they found us. Since we were now hiking in the middle of the day, which we specifically were not supposed to do, the experience was grueling despite not having to hike the entire way. Blisters began to form on the heels of my feet and the soles of my feet were beginning to feel the strain. Some of us were running out of water and some had to resort to using an inhaler. I don’t think any of us could have hiked all the way back. On the road back we discovered a frog that had completely dried up. I felt like that frog. It was such a relief when Edgardo finally picked up the group I was with. It was like being saved! Since our schedule was now ruined we had free time from when we got back at noon until a tropical ecology lecture at 4pm. I passed out in my tent. We also ran out of pasta for everyone at dinnertime, meaning the some unlucky ones had to scrounge up a meal with whatever food was left. We cut our losses and left early the next morning. Despite what went wrong I really enjoyed seeing the wildlife at Santa Rosa.
On Sunday I spent a relaxing day. I walked to downtown Atenas, which took about an hour. It was a really enjoyable walk, and I got to take some pictures of some interesting or quirky things I saw along the way, including packages of toast I saw being sold at a store. After going to Atenas, I learned how to make a type of salsa called pinko de gallo, and ate it while lounging by the pool. It’s really easy to make and it turned out delicious! Last night I also learned how to make empanadas and tres leche cakes during a cooking class the one of the cooks from the center held. Both of them are easy to make and are really delicious!
These past 2 days we’ve been getting ready for the trip to Panama. We’ll be leaving on Thursday and coming back on Wednesday. I can’t wait to go!
Note: I'm having trouble with my internet connection, so I will add photos tomorrow!
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