Quepos and Manuel Antonio

Well, it has been a great weekend and sadley today is MONDAY!! Back to school :(
A small group of us planned a little get away to Manuel Antonio, there were 9 people total. We got on a 12:30pm bus that took us to Quepos. It was a 4 hour busride, luckily the bus was kinda nice with big windows (the only time we get AC on the bus is when it is a charter with USAC). This is Quepos

We arrived around 4:30pm and it was raining pretty hard. We were lucky to arrive just in time to snag the last two rooms available at the "WIDE MOUTH FROG INTERNATIONAL BACKPACKERS HOSTLE" which was so cool. It was $10 per person per night. We had our own room with a bathroom and hot water. Sweet deal. The owner was really cool, she is pretty young, she speaks English Spanish and is from France. Everything in the hostle was very backpacker friendly, clothes lines, free internet, books etc. While we weren't back packers I would definitely return if I ever did take a backpacking trip.
They had three dogs and made it clear that they chew!


They also had a pool and and a few common areas, one was where the kitchen was, the ceiling was all flags from other countries, they also had a place with lots of chairs and couches to watch movies. We rented (for free) Blow and Garden State. We watched one both nights.



Friday night we all went to eat dinner and then went dancing (Duh- I didn't dance) with some ticos we met in an art gallery. We all had fun, the little night club was literally a huge straw hut. They had the island cabana thing goin on, so cute.

Now to the beautiful part. Saturday we visited Manuel Antonio (only a 20 minute bus ride for about 20 cents) which had a national park which did cost $7 to get in but was worth it. I FINALLY FOUND A BEAUTIFUL CLEAN BEACH!!!!!

Me and Manuel-

Nice clean beach eh? I thought I would have to be in the caribbean side to see this!

We were here for a while, we went swimming and laid on the beach for a few hours. I was in Heaven!! The sand was amazing, the water was perfect temperature and it wasn't that hot outside. It was perfect! After that we found a cool little place for a snack and ate some pizza before going back down to Quepos to wash up for dinner. We ended up going out to a really nice place to eat but I didn't take my camera. We had a nice time but were all too exhausted to go out dancing AGAIN so we watched the second movie that night. The next day we got up early and checked out by 7am and went back to manuel antonio where we had seen a good breakfast deal on a sign the day before. It was really cute and for 1500 colones ($3) we first got a plate with pinapple, papaya, watermelon, banana and a pancake. Next we got a plate of scrambled eggs and gallo pinto (beans and rice) and bread. It was so good and filling and cheap!!! Half of the group left at this time to go home to Puntarenas. 2 of us wanted to take the 1230 bus home and 2 others wanted the 3pm bus but the rest got the 9am. we wanted to try to find these waterfalls that we had heard were amazing. Well what happened was that Kiah and I ended up having to turn around because there wasn't enough time. What we did see was great. We were basically walking down a river (thank goodness I had the chaco sandals!!) with the forest all around us.

Ali and Ashley eventually found the waterfall, I can't wait to see pics. We headed to the bus and got back home to Puntarenas around 430. I was crashed out by 8pm and didn't wake up once! I was pooped!

ODDS AND ENDS

OKAY I JUST WANTED TO TALK ABOUT A FEW THINGS THAT ARE VERY CONTRARY TO THE US...FOR BETTER FOR WORSE!

1.) WHEN YOU ORDER A BEER, YOU ARE OFFERED A GLASS OF ICE AND STRAW BECAUSE OF THE HEAT
2.) YOU DON'T FLUSH TOILET PAPER
3.) THERE ARE HARDLY ANY DOOR NOBS, JUST HANDLES AND LOCKS
4.) NO FRONT YARDS, JUST ENCLOSED PATIOS WITH LARGE GATES
5.) NOBODY SAYS THANKS
6.) CONSTRUCTION BEGINS AROUND 6:00AM ON THE HOUSE RIGHT BEHIND ME!
7.) DRIVERS (NOT PEDESTRIANS) HAVE THE RIGHT OF WAY
8.) HOMES DONT HAVE HALLWAYS
9.) NO HOT WATER HEATERS (IF YOU HAVE HOT WATER, IT IS AN ELECTRIC DEVICE ATTACHED TO YOUR SHOWER HEAD)
9.) NO DRYERS- ALL CLOTHES ARE HANG DRIED
10.) HARDLY ANY WINDOWS THAT CLOSE
11.) BARS ON EVERY SINGLE WINDOW
12.) WAY CHEAP TAXIS
13.) A BUS LEAVES ALMOST EVERY HOUR TO ALMOST EVERYWHERE
14.) NO ARMY, THEREFORE NO WAR VETS
15.) LIMES ARE ORANGE IN THE MIDDLE
16.) ALL FLOORS ARE TILE
17.) THEY DONT COVER FOOD IN THE FRIDGE- PLASTIC WRAP AND TUPPERWARE HAVE NO PLACE IN THIS COUNTRY
18.) LUNCH STAYS OUT ON THE STOVE TILL DINNER
19.) "SALSA" MEANS AAAALLLLL SAUCES, KETCHUP, MAYO, MUSTARD, MARINARA, SWEET AND SOUR....YOU NAME IT!

OKAY THAT IS IT FOR NOW, I AM SURE THE LIST WILL GROW!

Viva America

Central America Celebrates it's independence on September 15th, not Just Costa Rica, all countries from Costa Rica to Mexico (except for Beliz). I was watching the news and Wow, can mexico celebrate!! I forgot that I watched those parties on TV last year with Domingo. Here in Puntarenas I participated in the march of torches on Friday night. All of the kids march from the school and down several blocks, then turn down towards the beach and go back up along the water. All kids and kids at heart have a "farole" which you can see in the pic, there are infinanite possibilities of what they can be...homemade or store bought

Here I am with Alexander's Spiderman farole

Here is a blurry pic of the street, it was really cool

All of the people at 6pm sing the independence song and begin the march with a small band (like Bert in Mary Poppins, but it took 5 people to play all the instruments that bert had!)
here is Alvaro (DAD) and Alex (BROTHER)

After the march, we went back to Ingrid's grandmas house to eat the cake we got for Luisito. He had been in the hospital since I got here (he went in the day I arrived). Every single day Eduardo and Merida went and stayed with him so that his mom could go home and rest because the kids have to have a parent or family member there 24/7. I went to visit him once, he was so sweet. He had an infection in the femer but things seem to be better now, the point is he got out on Friday, the night of the march! We got him a welcome home cake. He is in the middle with the huge grin. I really like this picture for some reason!!

After being at the grandmas house, we left alex with Ingrid's aunt and we went out to the Americanized bar on the beach called Happy Days. Tons of USAC students go there, I felt like I was in Bullys. One major difference- at the bars here, they offer you a glass of ice and straw with a beer because it is soo hot! This is Me and Ingrid in the green and her two cousins anna and maria, way cute and way nice!

Here is me and Ingrid (MOM)

We had fun...I drank three "Pilsen" beers, they are OK. Not that strong but nice and cheap!
I wanted to include some pics of town, the homes are very different. They are all attached (at least by a fence/wall) and have gates, no front yard, sometimes no patio, all metal roofs and power lines are a total mess. The neighborhoods look very different, no yard to show off, no cool roof lines to distinguish onself, the only way people really stand out is by their gates. Some people just have chain link (yuck). All homes are all tile flooring, never carpet, never hardwood. Maybe in other places, I am not sure. It is easy to think that all of these homes are shit boxes because of how they look, but many of them are very nice and have very nice things. I was extremely suprized with how my house looked inside compared to how the neighborhood looked. Curb appeal does not exist here!

This is our house




these are the doors into my room, my room is right behind the kitchen basically

On the 15th we went to the parade (me, Alvaro, Alex and my friend Hannah) We had a good time, the kids play the drums so well and they are so young! The dancers were way cute too. I have lots and lots of pics but only uploaded a few.

Me and Hannah

Eduardo has been working on a Hammoc and finally finished it, I took pics of the entire process, here are a few
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First Bad One

I guess it was bound to happen, my streak of everything going great was just waiting to jump in front of a bus…and it did! My culture class has this field study credit available for the students in the class, if we pay for the credit $150 (which I did) I can attend a few field trips for the culture class. Sounded great, and I truly believe that the others will be fantastic, this one just wasn’t what I was expecting. We visited “La Isla Venado” which is an island in the Gulf of Nicoya which is rather close to Puntarenas. So on Friday morning at 9:30am we were pulled out of class and got to leave for the 10am Ferry to Playa Naranjo. After the hour Ferry ride, we (about 27 of us) boarded 3 little boats. The island was about a 45 minute little boat ride. We were all revved up!!!

The teacher is Arturo (for when I refer to him in the future) and he is a brilliant tico! He is so smart about so many things, I can’t remember if I have mentioned him yet or not. Anyway, I like listening to him speak about anything. Anyway, he organized a radio program to come and follow us around and they were also taking video of what we were doing. I got to do a little interview, my Spanish was most likely awful!! So these guys were following us around with a camera and microphone and talking with Arturo a lot. Our first stop was at a really small beach on the island, literally it was about 5 feet from the water to the foliage (I guess it was some sort of tropical forest). We took a brief hike through on a trail about 5 inches wide. We are all wearing flip flops and shorts…. No bueno for walking through where the bushes move because angry animals live beneath them. We saw beetles and spiders (wah hoo) and could definitely hear a very loud hum of some sort of bee hive really high up. I didn’t like walking there as you could imagine. We got back and ate lunch on the beach. Then we loaded up onto the boats again and arrived at our final destination. The place looked like anything I would expect to find in Costa Rica. Dirty stone building, a bar full of cervezas, a concrete dance in the disco etc. Nothing shocking, even the cabins didn’t seem to be as bad as he had mentioned. I was wrong. The cabins were terrible, Besides the lavish comforts they provided (none at all) they also provided the protection from other bugs with two HUGE wasps nests just outside of our door. There was one bathroom with a hose of cold water. Truthfully, it was like camping. I do enjoy camping from time to time….But I would have been prepared for camping. Besides, my initial reaction was “this is going to be an adventure, I am going to see a totally different culture. One that is very poor! Potentially the poorest part of Costa Rica, and all of this will be worth it”. I was very interested in walking through the marketplace, seeing the neighborhoods, seeing the schools etc. Arturo had made such a big deal about it all, that I thought we would be plucked right in the middle of it all. No. Friday afternoon consisted of a boat ride, we fished (by we, I mean the other boats, we didn’t have fishing equipment on our boat), we swam, we took gifts to poor children (for about 25 minutes), we came back and changed our clothes and were ready to eat dinner by 6pm. Arturo did prepare some great food. He made two kinds of fish, Sea bass and something else good but I don’t know what it was, and small shrimp and huge shrimp. They were amazing! I hadn’t tasted shrimp that fresh in my life! Yummm. Then the dinner tables were removed and the space that remained became the dance floor. The rest of the group proceeded to get wasted with island ticos. I did partake in two Imperial Cervezas….livin large! When it was time for bed, I was feeling pretty tired and expected to fall right to sleep….definitely didn’t fall right to sleep. I think I saw the sun come up before I actually slept. I cant say for sure, but I think my limits were tested on this trip. I was already disappointed with the lack of diversity on this trip…had there been some sort of amazing experience, I think I would have been more “okay” with the rooms. All I kept thinking was “what am I doing here?!” I woke up around 6:45am and figured I had gotten about 1.5 hours of sleep. I love waking up with sandpaper eyes! I went ahead and stayed up, and was surprisingly chipper! How could I not be with Alison, she is such a sweetie! She is an early riser like me! The other two were definitely zonked out for a while longer-lucky bitches slept all night!!!!!!! We ate breakfast around 8:30am and got on the boats at 11am to catch the 12:30 Ferry back to Puntarenas. By this time I was very antsy and fidgety just wanting to go home. I should have known something was wrong…I am usually more go with the flow type. What was happening was that I was getting a really bad fever. I was sick in bed all night with terrible body aches and a temperature that seemed to be pretty bad. I was hot and cold every five minutes. It sucked. For the first time, I missed HOME. I was given a prescription acetimetifin that would reduce the fever and help me to rest. I took it with some egg drop soup Ingrid had delivered. I felt ok and was looking forward to sleeping off the fever. For 3 hours I laid in bed tossing and turning. I was listening to my big fat greek wedding which was playing on my computer. Ingrid came to check on me and was alarmed that my fever was not only still present, but worse. I had to wait another hour but at that time I was able to take 2 more of the pills. Ingrid had towels of alcohol and was putting them on my head and neck and stomach. Eventually the pills began to work and I was able to relax. She left and I slept off and on through the night. The next day, Sunday, I slept almost all day, till around 5pm. No fever but NO energy. It was the strangest thing. Some type of tropical GRIPE (the flu). I am so glad I fought it off! Okay, next time I get sick I promise not to go into so much detail….here are some pics of the weekend…some of it was fun but the trip overall and my sickly end SUCKED!!!!!!!!!!
Okay these are the little boats we had to ride in forever!

This is a sea snail

This is Arturo thinking he is Jesus...we found a rock in the water, it was pretty cool, other people got better shots.

Me and the chickas on the boats

The classy Bar ;)

Getting directions from some cute little doggies

Street on the Island...just dirt. The homes were pretty cool, we did see a TV in one. They aren't totally primitive!

The kiddies we gave presents to. They were cute. One thing I dislike about this culture is that NOBODY says THANK YOU! It is so weird to me, not just on the island, everywhere in Costa Rica and it makes me crazy!

This is the shore in front of the cabins and the bar place.

Random pics

Just a few pics that I just uploaded of san fransisco and of tequilla the little poochita!!!

QUE UN TORMENTO!!!

There was a huge storm, they said had nothing to do with hurricane Felix but I think different…when I saw the news and the satellite images of where the hurricane was going, some of it did pass right over us. We didn’t experience any wind, just an enormous down pour and extremely loud thunder. We are off the coastline therefore we become part of a storm that would have been in the ocean only. Anyway, Eduardo and I were sitting at the dinner table drinking some afternoon coffee…it really was raining hard and with a metal roof, it was very very loud. The thunder rumbled through the house , I think the thunder cloud was directly above us. Right after that, we heard the loudest thing BAM!!! Lightning struck down on top of our house, it sounded like someone fired a gunshot. I am sure the look on my face was comical because I was sure we were all done for!!! Even Eduardo was a little scared. We turned off and unplugged everything and just sat and watched it come down. Last night was the same, well the thunder wasn’t so loud but the rain was. My blankets were a huge mess today because of my tossing and turning through the night. It was the first night that I didn’t sleep well.

On another scary note, Ingrid (my “mom”) may have Dengre (not sure how to spell it but that is how it sounds), which you cannot vaccinate for and you get from mosquitoes. To say the least, I am nervous. Apparently it is much more dangerous for kids and older adults, but when young people get it, it just becomes a large inconvenience. You have to go to the doc constantly to monitor your blood pressure and “plaques” I don’t know what they mean by that, I am guessing it is either platelets or white blood cell (which is what I think it is…but who knows). She is up and down; the antibiotics she is on are very strong and usually knock her down pretty hard. Luckily her parents live here too…I would feel weird, like I should take care of her…Not that Alvaro isn’t doing a good job, he is….but you know! I would feel like I had to fill a slot! But no, I am right there with Alex, just one of the kids! Hee hee.

I have been watching movies in Spanish in the afternoon when I don’t want to read Spanish…. I watched 13 going on 30, my best friends wedding, liar liar, closer and some Greys Anatomy. Normally I ignore the Spanish because I know all the words in English. That’s bad! One good thing is that I am understanding almost everything that Alex says, and he does speak very fast especially for a 4 year old. That has to mean something. He actually calls me Jillian, and quite well. I think he is learning English from Dora the Explorer. The Dora in the US speaks a lot of Spanish and I hear Dora speaking English here too. I should watch more of the little kid shows, they would most likely be easier to understand than CNN in espanol. BABY STEPS!

The weather just said that the rain is supposed to continue for the whole night. Que Bueno…not!!!

This weekend, a few of us want to go visit Jaco, really it isn’t an interesting place for me to go, I have heard that it is very Americanized but people flock there for the surf. The reason I want to go is because I heard they have sushi! Of course there isn’t sushi in Puntarenas…it makes not sense to me, a huge amount of fish are caught right here…hence the lovely fishy smell in some spots of the Punta!

Friday my culture professor is taking our class to an Island called Isla Venado. It is very small and very poor. We are to buy something to give to the kids. They get very excited when the gringos come because they always get treats. I think I am going to take them some apples…sorry, no candy…I don’t know how the dental system is there at Venado Island!!! Anyhow we are going to stay overnight in really crummy cabins I guess. The professor says he will make up for it, he is cooking us dinner…it sounds like he will be making shrimp and fish and soup and salad! I am excited for that. I really don’t know what to expect from the island….the poverty is suppose to be a little unsettling…but definitely unforgettable. He lights up like a Christmas tree when he talks about the people of the island. His name is Arturo and he really is an amazing teacher. I wish he taught in the US. I have tico professors, I am happy about that. I had also heard that other professors from other places take sabbatical to come teach at USAC locations around the world to teach their area of speciality. I am not sure if our USAC program has all Ticos or no…can’t say for sure. Anyway, the point is that I will have new pics up next week from the weekend.

Early Adventures

Well, aside from being bit up by mosquitoes, things are still going great! While I am still uninterested in going out with the 20 year olds to get wasted and surf, I did have a small adventure that will soon lead to more alike. First, I began my dance class….it was so fun! Most of you know that I am a horrific dancer so for me to say that the dance class was fun really is a huge step! I really had a blast, Carlitos (que suave!) is my teachers name and he really makes it more comfortable…some of the students do know what they are doing and many of the others are just like me…terrible! We began with Merigue, we will move into Salsa and Cumbia soon but the Merigue dance is much more basic than Salsa. It is fun when I dance with someone who knows how because it doesn’t seem to matter that I don’t know how, he literally spins us around and puts our bodies where they need to be to look semi normal! Anyway, in November we take a trip to San Jose and go see a formal dance performance and then we all go out dancing at a fancy club. I have a lot of work to do, he says our homework every week is to go out dancing on the weekend….this weekend I got an F! hehehe

Friday after class, Alli and Ashley (two girlies from So Cal)


decided we wanted to take the Ferry to the Nicoya Penninsula across the gulf from us….so we did. It really was a quick trip. We got on the ferrie at 12:30 and arrived to Paquera around 2. Here is a view of the “punta” of Puntarenas. It is the tip of the little place I call home. Pretty weird huh?


It looks like a tiny little tropical island! However, where I am is not a tropical get-away by any means, I am sure I will have more pictures of Puntarenas soon.

This is a pic from the pier where all of the cruise liners dock, though right now is not peak season.

See how the beach is wet all the way to the top? There are high and low tides but it also rains every day therefore there aren’t dry beaches yet…the rain will start to slow down mid October/November, and the dry season begins in December (right when I leave!).

Okay back to the story about my trip to the Nicoya Penninsula….Once we got to Paquera, we then jumped on a bus for another hour (only because it stopped about every mile and a half) to go to a beach that seemed like it would be nice based on our lovely travel books. The hotspot to go is Montezuma but it is definitely for an overnight trip for a weekend that we have completely free. So we stopped at the closer beach called Tambor. It is large bay where Whales come…the pics show gorgeous bright blue water and nice dry sandy beaches. What we saw was totally different. It isn’t that the pics lied….it’s that it is winter here and because we are getting sooooo much rain, the rivers are high and dirty and the rivers let out near this bay…therefore the water was dirty and brown!! There was basically some ocean water in the driftwood!



While the water was incredibly warm, it was full of wooden debris and wasn’t looking like something that we would call refreshing. We walked up and down the beach a bit…basically killing about 2 hours before the bus came back. We ended up accidentally flagging down a taxi (my fault). Lots of ticos like to wave and say hello to the gringas…when he drove by and waved, I waved back…to which he slammed on his breaks and put it in reverse. He offered a good deal so we jumped in. Ashley sat in the front and got to practice some Spanish with the driver. The ticos really are nice so far! The taxi man got us back just in time for the 6pm ferry. The ferry that took us back to Puntarenas must have been for the night trips because they had loud reggeton music and an big bar, the last thing I expected on a Ferry. It was a nice exploratory trip… the next one we take will be there but we will go and stay in Montezuma for fri and sat night in a hostle. The beaches in Montezuma and Mal Pais are suppose to be fantastic and they are pretty close together.

Saturday morning we had a field trip for the USAC students. These are cool, but sometimes it just sucks to be with 40 other students! We went to a National Park and took a hike (I say “Hike” but really it was a very slow walk because there were so many of us, and with all of the stops for picture taking etc. it took forever!) through the rainforest. It was pretty cool. The have some HUGE trees with enormous roots! It was incredible walking through here because the sounds you could hear. There must have been dozens of birds up in the top that we couldn’t even see because it was so loud. Now I am sure that many of the noises were coming from animals or bugs that I never want to see…but it was cool to hear the sounds of the rainforest.

Next we ate a nice tico lunch and got on a bus AGAIN and went to a river that lets out into the ocean. The University of Costa Rica has done studies that show that there are significantly high numbers of Crocodiles per square kilometer for the first 20 km from the ocean up the river. Basically, nobody swims there. The crocs were everywhere! We were on a boat that seated about 25-30 people…

We took a nice cruise with a guide who told us all about the birds and lots of facts about the vegetation… but we really just wanted to see the crocks. We kept spotting them and pulling the boat very close to where they were to snap some pics. I knew that we would be seeing a good show because there was raw meat in a cooler that I knew was for the crocks. Eventually we found one who looked hungry…I don’t think I have to say a whole lot more, the pics say it all. Some other students got a video, why I didn’t think of it I have no idea but if I get a copy I will post it on Myspace.


We also got to the very still mangroves which were way cool…the tree roots grow very weird because of the changing tide, this river is highly affected by the tide because it is so close to the ocean. I felt like I was in the swamps (or what I imagine them to be like) in the south. There were little crabs everywhere!


Well I think this is enough for now.