“Life is the art of drawing without an eraser.” - John W. Gardner
I got up this morning after a night of somewhat restless sleep; you would not believe how noisy the rainforest is at night! It is going to take some getting used to. Car alarms and buses? No problem, but these damn geckos kept me up half the night.
When I got up, I decided against taking a shower as I was going to head downtown to the farmer’s market and knew I would just need a shower again as soon as I got home. I am trying to conserve where I can because clearly it won’t be in water intake or toilet flushing.
Instead of taking the bus I decided to walk downtown on the dirt road that used to be the only road between Quepos and Manuel Antonio. I thought it would be a nice way to see a little more of my surroundings and get a little exercise. I would like to point out what a courageous move this was considering the heat. The dirt road to downtown was an obstacle course, but with a beautiful view of the water that made it worth the sweat dripping down my back and almost broken ankle.
When I got downtown, I went to the farmer’s market and I bought fresh produce from kind merchants who were very patient with my lack of understanding of the colones (Costa Rican currency). I could do the dollar to colones conversion no problem, but couldn’t understand the numbers that they were saying, which were usually in the high hundreds to thousands. Sadly, all the years of watching “The Count” on Sesame Street did not pay off, as I didn’t buy a single thing that was uno colone.
To my surprise, there was cauliflower at the farmer’s market. Apparently the people on the “number one selling language cd’s” knew what they were talking about after all. Though I still feel as though “coliflor” should not be high on the list of things to teach in the first lesson.
The most surprising thing to me, however, was that there were Amish people there selling breads, jams, pies etc. I am used to seeing Amish people when I am at my parent’s house in Pennsylvania, but Caucasian Amish people in Costa Rica? Now that was a surprise. I would have taken a picture of them, but if I remember correctly they don’t believe in photographs, and I didn’t want to be disrespectful, especially because I hear their pies are to die for.
My afternoon ended by lying in my pool for a few hours reading my book. Rough life, I know. However, I would like to tell you that tonight after the sun went down; I did my first Costa Rican Crossfit workout on my front porch. Let me say this, while the sun was down, the heat and humidity weren’t… and if I had balls, I would have sweat them off. Just one more reason I am glad I don’t have them… the first of which being they are kinda weird and ugly.
Ok, off to bed, tomorrow I have to locate my school as I start Spanish classes on Monday. I can’t wait to begin learning the language as I am desperate to communicate with the Ticans in their native language. While they are very generous and gracious, and most speak English, I want to totally immerse myself in this Costa Rican experience.
As you can see, my first few days have been fantastic and I am already so glad that I moved here. Best decision I ever made, aside from bringing the floatie with drink holders… now that was genius.
Sunday, April 6, 2008
Pictures from day 2
The view during my walk along the dirt road on the way to town.
The farmer's market is usually along the wall by the water (which is also apparently where the drug deals go down at night), but they had some sort of event there today so it was set up behind the bus station instead.
Not only did the farmer's market have great produce and Amish pies, it also had live musical entertainment. These gentlemen were playing music on what appeared to be a wooden xylophone. I am sure there is a name for it, but I can't be bothered to look it up.Life in Costa Rica, "take 1"
When the winds of change feel too strong, close your eyes and let the wind blow through your hair.” – card given to me by Doodle (aka Katie), the night before I left.
I am here, unpacked, safe, loving it… and HOT! Holy moly is it hot here.
It isn’t so much the heat as the humidity. Guess all the “Texas girl” in me is gone because I am sweating my ass off. I don’t know how they expect people to conserve water around here. All I do is drink glasses and glasses of water and pee it out. Do you know it takes 4 to 7 gallons of water to flush the toilet?
I was considering “copping a squat” outside my house to try to save some water, but had a flashback of the time my friend Stephanie and I, during our Freshman year, were walking home from happy hour. Despite the fact that we were only 4 doors down from the bar we just left, we all of a sudden realized how desperate we were to pee, and decided we couldn’t possibly walk the additional 2 blocks back to our dorm. We decided to walk behind a building and relieve ourselves, in broad daylight, in a parking lot. As if that isn’t bad enough, because we had just left happy hour(ssss), our balance was not all that great and we fell onto the rocks where we were peeing, so not only did we sit for a minute in our own urine (attractive I know), but we also cut our butts on the rocks. That was 17 years ago, and I still have the scars to prove it (don’t worry, I will not post pictures of them on this blog). After our small fit of laughter, we looked up to realize we were peeing in the parking lot behind the Baptist Student Union. Guess God wasn’t such a fan of that.
So to catch you up on my first day in Costa Rica…I flew in late Thursday night and was picked up at the airport by a friend of my landlord, Diane, who could not have been more kind. Because I flew in so late, she said we should wait until the following morning to make the 3 hour drive to Quepos. Apparently the only people who drive after dark in Costa Rica are the taxi drivers and the drunks. Great, let’s wait until morning.
Diane lives reasonably close to the airport, so I said I would get a hotel room for the night and we could leave the next day. However she was house-sitting for a friend and said there was plenty of room and invited me to stay. She took me to this gorgeous house in Atenas to spend the night in the “guest cottage” which was a studio apartment adjoined to the house, but with its own private entrance. It was late when we arrived, but we sat on the back porch and had a drink, my first Costa Rican beer, Imperial. Muy bueno.
When I awoke the next morning in my “oh so cozy” bed, I was terribly confused as to where I was because while my clock said 5:42 a.m., it was totally sunny and Madonna’s “Holiday” was blaring on a radio outside. WTF?
Here is what I learned about Costa Rica my first morning:
1. Costa Rica does not observe daylight savings time.
2. In Costa Rica, the sun rises around 5:30 a.m. and sets by 6:00 p.m. every day of the year.
3. Due to the early rising and setting of the sun, people begin their work days very early. Especially construction workers who like American music.
4. The local “American” stations are a little behind the times…and by “little” I mean 20 years or more (I felt like I was back at a junior high dance, and was waiting for Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine’s “Conga” to come on so I could skip around with Kimberly Paggi).
After lying in bed listening to a few more 80’s songs, I decided “the rhythm was going to get me” (sorry, I couldn’t pass up that opportunity) and I got out of bed and walked outside where I sat on the porch next to the pool and looked out at the gorgeous view of the mountains. Not too shabby for my first morning in Costa Rica (pictures posted in the blog entry below).
Diane and I left for Quepos around 9 a.m. at which time it really hit me that I was living in Costa Rica. However, despite my complete nervousness in the week leading up to my departure, I all of a sudden felt very calm. It was beautiful and sunny… and did I mention it was hot?
It took us about 2 ½ hours to drive to Quepos, and when we arrived at the Las Palmas property, the property manager met us and gave me the keys. When I walked into my “new home” it was exactly what I had pictured, a little Costa Rican “cottage” with a bedroom downstairs and a loft bedroom upstairs. It is perfect. Additionally, the property was so much more beautiful than in pictures, pictures just don’t do it justice.
After we brought my luggage in, we turned around to head to town so Diane could take me to the grocery store before she left. As we were driving I was looking all around at the scenery and surroundings trying to get my bearings when all of a sudden Diane said “There’s a sloth!” I started looking up in the trees and asked “Where?” To my surprise, she responded “In the road!” Not what I was expecting to hear. She immediately pulled the car over so that I could get out and take a picture.
There he was, my good friend Sal the sloth, crawling slower than molasses across the road. Keep in mind; this is the only paved road in between Quepos and Manuel Antonio National Park, making it a very busy road, thereby making Sal a very crazy sloth. Cars whip down this road and pass each other, with no regard for traffic coming in the opposite direction. Luckily a scooter had stopped right in front of Sal, as did the car on the other side of the road. People were watching the sloth for a minute or so (during which time Sal had only moved about 4 inches), when all of a sudden this Tican (native Costa Rican) man jumped out of his car, picked up Sal and carried him to the other side of the road. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; this man, just as casual as can be, picked up this sloth (which literally didn’t move, just sat there motionless) and carried him across the road! The man then put Sal on some foliage on the side of the road, walked back to his car, and drove away… just as if he does this every day. Unbelievable. I am living in a place where Ticans jump out of their cars to casually carry sloths across the road. Fantastic.
After the sloth was safely on the foliage, I walked up very close to him to get some pictures, he casually looked at me as if he was posing and didn’t mind me being there a bit. It really was a surreal experience.
Here is what I have learned about sloths:
1. Sloths are the slowest mammal on earth (which I totally believe after watching Sal today, he was seconds from death and barely moved).
2. Male sloths have an area on their back that looks like a scar (I was educated about this after mentioning how sad I was for the sloth that he had some how been injured, but not surprised because clearly this little guy was a careless risk taker).
3. Sloths come to the ground to urinate and defecate only about once a week (clearly they are not drinking as much water as I am).
4. Adult females produce a single baby each year. What is more amazing is that they give birth upside down hanging from a tree branch (having 10 lbs babies or twins doesn’t sound so tough anymore, does it?).
After hanging out with Sal, we headed to the grocery store so I could buy the basics (you know, toilet paper, bread, diet coke, cervesa). We went to the “tourist” grocery store, which means it was overpriced, but they carried Jiff. Worth every penny. While I didn’t want to take too much time at the store, as Diane had a 3 hour drive back home, I was amazed by some of the things I saw. Did you know you can buy tuna fish with jalapenos in it? Well you can here!
After getting back from the grocery store, I said goodbye to Diane, put my beverages in the fridge, put on my bathing suit and headed to the pool. Total heaven. And, for the record, I am sooo glad I packed my pool floatie because there wasn’t a single floatie here, let alone one with drink holders.
Despite the pure pleasure I felt at the pool, I came in after a short time because I had promised myself that my first night in Costa Rica I was going to watch the sun set. I heard from Diane that the best place to do that was Barba Roja (the red beard), so I jumped on the bus for 110 colones (about 25 cents), kindly asked the driver to tell me when we got to Barba Roja and made my way.
When I arrived at Barba Roja, I discovered it was an outdoor restaurant (as are most restaurants here) with a gorgeous back patio area on the edge of a cliff. I sat down, ordered a cervesa and sat there thinking how lucky I was, and how amazing it was that I was going to live in this beautiful place for 5 months.
As the sun was setting the waiter came up to me and pointed in the opposite direction from the sunset. I couldn’t figure out why in the world he would want me to look anywhere other than over the ocean at the setting sun, until I turned around and saw the rainbow behind me. Are you kidding me? Sunset over the ocean in front of me, and a rainbow over the rainforest behind me? It couldn’t have been more perfect.
Despite the kind people around me who I was chatting with, and the amazing sights I had just witnessed, I left the restaurant after the sunset, as I don’t think it is wise for me to have muchas cervesas by myself in a country where I don’t know anyone and don’t yet speak the language.
Note to self: I need to make some friends and learn the language quickly. Good thing school starts on Monday.
So, I left and took the very crowded and hot bus home, which means with my 2 bus rides in Costa Rica, I have officially now ridden the bus 1 more time in CR after living here for 1 day, than I have in San Francisco after living there for 9 ½ years. Pathetic I know.
See pictures of my first day adventures below....
I am here, unpacked, safe, loving it… and HOT! Holy moly is it hot here.
It isn’t so much the heat as the humidity. Guess all the “Texas girl” in me is gone because I am sweating my ass off. I don’t know how they expect people to conserve water around here. All I do is drink glasses and glasses of water and pee it out. Do you know it takes 4 to 7 gallons of water to flush the toilet?
I was considering “copping a squat” outside my house to try to save some water, but had a flashback of the time my friend Stephanie and I, during our Freshman year, were walking home from happy hour. Despite the fact that we were only 4 doors down from the bar we just left, we all of a sudden realized how desperate we were to pee, and decided we couldn’t possibly walk the additional 2 blocks back to our dorm. We decided to walk behind a building and relieve ourselves, in broad daylight, in a parking lot. As if that isn’t bad enough, because we had just left happy hour(ssss), our balance was not all that great and we fell onto the rocks where we were peeing, so not only did we sit for a minute in our own urine (attractive I know), but we also cut our butts on the rocks. That was 17 years ago, and I still have the scars to prove it (don’t worry, I will not post pictures of them on this blog). After our small fit of laughter, we looked up to realize we were peeing in the parking lot behind the Baptist Student Union. Guess God wasn’t such a fan of that.
So to catch you up on my first day in Costa Rica…I flew in late Thursday night and was picked up at the airport by a friend of my landlord, Diane, who could not have been more kind. Because I flew in so late, she said we should wait until the following morning to make the 3 hour drive to Quepos. Apparently the only people who drive after dark in Costa Rica are the taxi drivers and the drunks. Great, let’s wait until morning.
Diane lives reasonably close to the airport, so I said I would get a hotel room for the night and we could leave the next day. However she was house-sitting for a friend and said there was plenty of room and invited me to stay. She took me to this gorgeous house in Atenas to spend the night in the “guest cottage” which was a studio apartment adjoined to the house, but with its own private entrance. It was late when we arrived, but we sat on the back porch and had a drink, my first Costa Rican beer, Imperial. Muy bueno.
When I awoke the next morning in my “oh so cozy” bed, I was terribly confused as to where I was because while my clock said 5:42 a.m., it was totally sunny and Madonna’s “Holiday” was blaring on a radio outside. WTF?
Here is what I learned about Costa Rica my first morning:
1. Costa Rica does not observe daylight savings time.
2. In Costa Rica, the sun rises around 5:30 a.m. and sets by 6:00 p.m. every day of the year.
3. Due to the early rising and setting of the sun, people begin their work days very early. Especially construction workers who like American music.
4. The local “American” stations are a little behind the times…and by “little” I mean 20 years or more (I felt like I was back at a junior high dance, and was waiting for Gloria Estefan and the Miami Sound Machine’s “Conga” to come on so I could skip around with Kimberly Paggi).
After lying in bed listening to a few more 80’s songs, I decided “the rhythm was going to get me” (sorry, I couldn’t pass up that opportunity) and I got out of bed and walked outside where I sat on the porch next to the pool and looked out at the gorgeous view of the mountains. Not too shabby for my first morning in Costa Rica (pictures posted in the blog entry below).
Diane and I left for Quepos around 9 a.m. at which time it really hit me that I was living in Costa Rica. However, despite my complete nervousness in the week leading up to my departure, I all of a sudden felt very calm. It was beautiful and sunny… and did I mention it was hot?
It took us about 2 ½ hours to drive to Quepos, and when we arrived at the Las Palmas property, the property manager met us and gave me the keys. When I walked into my “new home” it was exactly what I had pictured, a little Costa Rican “cottage” with a bedroom downstairs and a loft bedroom upstairs. It is perfect. Additionally, the property was so much more beautiful than in pictures, pictures just don’t do it justice.
After we brought my luggage in, we turned around to head to town so Diane could take me to the grocery store before she left. As we were driving I was looking all around at the scenery and surroundings trying to get my bearings when all of a sudden Diane said “There’s a sloth!” I started looking up in the trees and asked “Where?” To my surprise, she responded “In the road!” Not what I was expecting to hear. She immediately pulled the car over so that I could get out and take a picture.
There he was, my good friend Sal the sloth, crawling slower than molasses across the road. Keep in mind; this is the only paved road in between Quepos and Manuel Antonio National Park, making it a very busy road, thereby making Sal a very crazy sloth. Cars whip down this road and pass each other, with no regard for traffic coming in the opposite direction. Luckily a scooter had stopped right in front of Sal, as did the car on the other side of the road. People were watching the sloth for a minute or so (during which time Sal had only moved about 4 inches), when all of a sudden this Tican (native Costa Rican) man jumped out of his car, picked up Sal and carried him to the other side of the road. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing; this man, just as casual as can be, picked up this sloth (which literally didn’t move, just sat there motionless) and carried him across the road! The man then put Sal on some foliage on the side of the road, walked back to his car, and drove away… just as if he does this every day. Unbelievable. I am living in a place where Ticans jump out of their cars to casually carry sloths across the road. Fantastic.
After the sloth was safely on the foliage, I walked up very close to him to get some pictures, he casually looked at me as if he was posing and didn’t mind me being there a bit. It really was a surreal experience.
Here is what I have learned about sloths:
1. Sloths are the slowest mammal on earth (which I totally believe after watching Sal today, he was seconds from death and barely moved).
2. Male sloths have an area on their back that looks like a scar (I was educated about this after mentioning how sad I was for the sloth that he had some how been injured, but not surprised because clearly this little guy was a careless risk taker).
3. Sloths come to the ground to urinate and defecate only about once a week (clearly they are not drinking as much water as I am).
4. Adult females produce a single baby each year. What is more amazing is that they give birth upside down hanging from a tree branch (having 10 lbs babies or twins doesn’t sound so tough anymore, does it?).
After hanging out with Sal, we headed to the grocery store so I could buy the basics (you know, toilet paper, bread, diet coke, cervesa). We went to the “tourist” grocery store, which means it was overpriced, but they carried Jiff. Worth every penny. While I didn’t want to take too much time at the store, as Diane had a 3 hour drive back home, I was amazed by some of the things I saw. Did you know you can buy tuna fish with jalapenos in it? Well you can here!
After getting back from the grocery store, I said goodbye to Diane, put my beverages in the fridge, put on my bathing suit and headed to the pool. Total heaven. And, for the record, I am sooo glad I packed my pool floatie because there wasn’t a single floatie here, let alone one with drink holders.
Despite the pure pleasure I felt at the pool, I came in after a short time because I had promised myself that my first night in Costa Rica I was going to watch the sun set. I heard from Diane that the best place to do that was Barba Roja (the red beard), so I jumped on the bus for 110 colones (about 25 cents), kindly asked the driver to tell me when we got to Barba Roja and made my way.
When I arrived at Barba Roja, I discovered it was an outdoor restaurant (as are most restaurants here) with a gorgeous back patio area on the edge of a cliff. I sat down, ordered a cervesa and sat there thinking how lucky I was, and how amazing it was that I was going to live in this beautiful place for 5 months.
As the sun was setting the waiter came up to me and pointed in the opposite direction from the sunset. I couldn’t figure out why in the world he would want me to look anywhere other than over the ocean at the setting sun, until I turned around and saw the rainbow behind me. Are you kidding me? Sunset over the ocean in front of me, and a rainbow over the rainforest behind me? It couldn’t have been more perfect.
Despite the kind people around me who I was chatting with, and the amazing sights I had just witnessed, I left the restaurant after the sunset, as I don’t think it is wise for me to have muchas cervesas by myself in a country where I don’t know anyone and don’t yet speak the language.
Note to self: I need to make some friends and learn the language quickly. Good thing school starts on Monday.
So, I left and took the very crowded and hot bus home, which means with my 2 bus rides in Costa Rica, I have officially now ridden the bus 1 more time in CR after living here for 1 day, than I have in San Francisco after living there for 9 ½ years. Pathetic I know.
See pictures of my first day adventures below....
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