Way more tico than the other tourists...

Playa bandera

Melanie, chofer designado

Que linda la playa!

It was a heavenly weekend at the beach. Not at all in the way I would have planned a weekend getaway MY way, but that's why I joined the Peace Corps. For new experiences beyond my control.

We left Saturday morning at 4AM! This would not have flown with Robin Russell...There were 11 of us, but this time we had two cars. Jake and his family in one (Pablo, Teresita, Tito, Paula, and Sharon) and Brigette and her family (Jackie, Melanie and Stephanie) in the pick-up truck, plus me. We had to take the same road we took last weekend to the river, but this time I was mentally prepared and our car had shocks, so it was an entirely different experience in the best way possible. We arrived at Manuel Antonio around 7:15 and were the first people at the beach (shocker). We got a prime parking spot under some trees, and I had my first Costa Rican monkey siting! They were just hanging out in the branches checking out the tourists down below. We had gallo pinto and coffee for breakfast and then spent the next eight hours walking, swimming, lounging, sleeping and eating more (hot dogs that weren't hot for lunch, not sure what you call those...). It was pretty wonderful. The beach got really crowded by around 11 am with gringos and ticos all on their Semana Santa vacations. It was super hot all day and us three gringos got a little sunburned, but no worries mine has already turned into a nice base tan.

Around 4:30 we all piled in our cars and headed to Parrita, about a half hour away where Jake's family has a family friend who invited us to stay on her property. The road to her house was all palm trees, and then we arrived at a modest piece of land with an even more modest house. It had two bedrooms and an open kitchen area, unfinished cement floors and walls, a hanging hose for a shower, and some chickens in the back. Dona Signa lives there with her 12-year-old son, Justin, who had down syndrome, and she happily welcomed all 11 of us, smelly and covered with sand from a day at the beach, to enter her home, use all her running water to shower (literally, it shut off that night), and sleep on air mattresses in her kitchen and in tents on her front porch. Costa Rican hospitality and its finest.

Sunday morning we woke to roosters crowing around 6 am and packed our lunches for the day (I learned how to make arroz con pollo, a staple here) and headed out to a nearby beach called Playa Bandera, which was completely empty and SOOOOOOOO beautiful and peaceful. I guess there are no tourists there because no buses go there and there are no restaurants or shops, but it was awesome. Brigette and I found some palm trees to sit under and try to protect ourselves from a second day of sunburn, but our two hour walk in the afternoon ensured a somewhat painful car ride home. After an even more perfect day, epitomized by eating the juiciest watermelon and then jumping directly into the warm, refreshing ocean, we headed back to Dona Signa's to drain her water supply once again and then hit the road.

I'm feeling very recharged and relaxed, which is good because we have a LOT of work in the next two weeks as we are hitting the halfway point of training and are actually being expected to know and speak Spanish. Que lastima!

View of San Jose from my hike

There used to be a kilo of meat on that plate...

The loooongest car ride

Los mejores huevos!

Semana Santa!

Tuesday we had a birthday party for my Spanish teacher, Karina, during class, and she gave us our first official Tico dance lesson. She kept it simple so we could all actually do the steps, but for some reason she just makes it look a whole lot better than we do. Fortunately it's much harder for the guys, who actually have to lead, the girls just need to know how to take directions, so if we find good dance partners we're safe. After class, we went back to the meat restaurant, Donde Alcides, to meet Maritza, who had offered to take us to explore her finca. She was all decked out in a matching grey and pink spandex exercise top and capris, think LuluLemon except her brand had a cross on it. She took us through a private gate and on this beautiful hiking trail that only she and her family and special guests have access to. She was in GREAT shape and gave us a workout, and then on our way back up to the restaurant we stopped by the pig sty, where there were some pretty cute pigs being fattened up for you know what. I considered becoming a vegetarian for about five minutes, until she invited us back into the restaurant for a "cafecito," which this time included Smirnoff ices, coffee, tea, Coke, a GIANT plate of pork and beef, baked potatoes, sweet plantains stuffed with cheese, cabbage salad, and grilled pineapple for dessert. When we paused to take a break from eating, she asked us if we wanted more!

Wednesday was our last day of class before Semana Santa, and my family has been off of school/work all week so they have been staying up CRAZY late, like I'm talking pushing 11pm here...My host mom's brother and his wife and baby are in from Buenos Aires (CR, not Argentina), and he brought his guitar so I got a little impromptu performance after dinner. My host mom and her brother played guitar and she and her daughter harmonized and they could WAIL. It was amazing, like they had a whole routine down. From what I could understand, all the songs were about Jesus, but beautiful nonetheless. I guess it was the closest to a seder I'm going to get.

Thursday morning I was awoken by Mark, Jake, and crazy Geraldo outside my window, on their way to hike up a mountain. I decided to join them, somehow blocking out the vow I made Sunday never to go anywhere with Geraldo again. It was a beautiful day and he pointed to an antenna on a mountain waaaaaaaay in the distance and said we were going to the top of it, and we smiled and nodded to humor him as we have learned to do. But two hours later, we were indeed hiking straight up a mud path through a jungle to reach said antenna, which he promised was the best view in Costa Rica. After getting over the fact that my knees would never be clean again and that I might die on the antenna, it was pretty beautiful. Fortunately we made it back in time for lunch, and my host mom had been making bread all day, so it was straight out of the oven and delicious. In the afternoon I went to mass with my host sister and cousin. The church is small and all the doors were and windows were left open so there was lots of natural light and fresh air, and it was a very nice, simple service. Again, I understood little except the name Jesus Christ being said repeatedly. Last night we had movie night at Brigette's house and watched Slumdog Millionaire with Spanish subtitles, which was confusing when they spoke in Hindi because then there were English subtitles too.  Today I am planning to take it easy and help my family cook lunch, and tomorrow I am going camping for the weekend with Brigette and her family, which should be a little more tame than last weekend...

You might not be believe me when I tell you, but...

Okay where do I even begin. Yesterday morning I woke up at 5:30 to meet Mark, Jake, Brigette, and 6 members of their families for our trip to "the river." Geraldo, the crazy grandfather, told us he had rented some kind of bus to take us there. We all met at the church at 6 am, and Geraldo had packed a giant sack with a machete sticking out as well as his birdcage, live bird in toe. The "bus" finally showed up around 6:45, which ended up being an SUV that his friend from the feria was driving. SO, 5 of us sat in the way back, 4 in the middle, and two in the front. Being the smallest of the gringos, I got the way back with the kiddies...big mistake. Two hours and MANY winding, unpaved roads later, I was not feeling so hot. We finally made it to a house in the middle of the woods near the river, and I didn't make it much past there. Por Dios, the family had a functioning restroom they let me use, and then there was this bed outside next to their lunch table with this giant stuffed tiger that I basically slept on all day. It was super hot out but there was a nice breeze and the bed was covered by a roof woven from palm leaves. The whole thing was pretty surreal. I was totally out of it and I could just hear people speaking Spanish in the background and coming over and looking at me for a while and offering me pills and drinks and food, none of which I was able to ingest. I finally walked down to the river to meet everyone (having to make a couple pit stops on the way) and laid in the water for a while, which was pretty refreshing. Then bag to bed with the tiger until we headed home around 4. This time I got the front seat, and things were going okay until Geraldo started yelling and all of a sudden we pulled over and he and our driver decided to go for a spontaneous hike in the woods. We gringos were confused and a little bit annoyed, but everyone else seemed to think it was funny. They came back about 15 minutes later with some lemons they'd found and then we kept on driving. About 5 minutes before we returned to paved roads, we heard a giant pop and suddenly our car was lower than it had been. Thinking a tire had been punctured, we got out to check it out, and turns out the whole wheel had fallen off. Simultaneously, the car started steaming. Simultaneously, I started to feel pretty sick again. It was getting dark and things were getting desperate, but somehow our driver was able to replace the tire with his spare and we were on the road again within a half hour. This time we made it all the way back to Tarbaca, a place I never thought I'd be happier to see. When I got back to my house, I told my host mom that I was sick but mistakenly used the masculine form of the word, and she immediately responded, "Estoy enfermo! No! Estoy enfermA!" Then I went straight to bed and slept for 12 hours...

Today was a better day and now I am able to laugh about my experience and look at it in perspective. Apparently Jake captured some of my finer moments on camera yesterday, I am yet to determine whether they will be posted. After class we stopped by the most popular restaurant in Tarbaca, Donde Alcides, to talk to them about a project we have to do for class. They asked if we wanted a "refresco," which is generally thought to be a light snack or drink, so we accepted and they came out five minutes later with beverages, three giant baked potatoes drenched in butter, and a GIANT plate of beef. Costa Rican hospitality has manifested itself in SO many different ways...

Fun at the Feria

I finally have some free time! Since my last update, I went back to class for the rest of the week and Thursday, I taught my first English class to the 6th grade students in Tarbaca. We designed the lesson assuming they knew absolutely nothing, but it turned out they were familiar with the basics, hello, my name is, how are you, etc. So we got to work on some new vocabulary and they were really fun and enthusiastic to learn, which was kind of surprising and exciting. After class they showed us their favorite game, which is taking folded up cardboard boxes and ¨sledding¨ down a grass hill on top of them. Brigette and I attempted to follow with mixed success...

Thursday night there was a blackout in Tarbaca for about an hour. Fortunately my family was well prepared with candles and all 7.5 of us (there are now a grandma, sister, and baby living with us for a few weeks) piled into Yazmin´s room to read ¨Leyendas Ticas,¨which I think were kind of like ghost stories although I couldn´t quite follow the plot. Yesterday was training again in San Jose, and this morning we got up and took the bus (after waiting an hour and being passed by two that were too full) to Acerri for the feria, which is like a farmer´s market every Saturday. There are SO many fresh fruits and vegetables and people playing music and dancing and the weather is perfect, it´s AWESOME. Mark and Jake´s families come down at 4am to set up and sell eggs, oranges, tomatoes, squash and broccoli, so we helped Geraldo sell some eggs. Pictures to follow.

Tomorrow Mark and Jake´s families are taking us to some river about two hours away, where apparently we can swim, fish and cook sausage. Next week is Semana Santa, Holy Week, which means everyone has work and school off and everything is closed leading up to Easter. We have class Monday through Wednesday but then get a four day weekend, during which my family is planning to cook all day every day and go to church. They don´t do Passover here so I suppose this will have to suffice as my celebration.

More pictures and stories to come...

Vistas Bonitas

Playa Dona Ana

Sunset in Cedral