Día del Cariño y Costa Rica

Caution: Very long blog post ahead

It seems like the days fly by, I just realized I haven’t posted in two weeks! So much has happened since then.  I’ll begin with an excursion Laura and I took on the lake. We decided to take out a boat and go for a casual cruise. It ended up that 1: it was much harder than it looked and 2: it is quite a sight to see two gringas trying to row a boat with a current and a forest of lake plants below. We had a hilarious time trying to coordinate our paddles and not drift too far away. While rowing back in, a man was filming us on his cell phone for a solid five minutes. To our dismay, we never went viral on YouTube as we thought might happen. Always an adventure :) 

They love to celebrate holidays here in Santiago (as do I, which is convenient), therefore Valentine’s Day (Día del Cariño) was a blast! On Monday, the 6^th graders had a big presentation in front of the school which they call their trabajo civico. The kids all looked so nice and tidy. The boys were super suave in black pants and white collar shirts and the girls had their hair down and were wearing beautiful cortes and huipiles. They began by singing the national anthem and reading poems about friendship. Two of the kids performed a traditional Guatemalan dance and I loved it! For the finale, five of the girls performed a “modern” dance. They whipped off their traditional clothing, slapped on some lipstick and wore short skirts! They danced to two songs, Jennifer Lopez’s “Get on the Floor” and Pitbull’s “Rain Over Me”. I just about died, it was so out of character for a lot of them! Quite scandalous for Santiago. Hah Got to love Guatemala! On Tuesday (Valentine’s day) the ENTIRE school piled in the back of hired pickup trucks and we drove to a nice area outside of the city with a giant fútbol field, basketball courts and pretty trees. The whole day we relaxed, played games and enjoyed the beautiful sunshine. Here, they all do a gift exchange instead of handing out cards. They traded their gifts and then gave out hugs. Needless to say, my heart melted! On the way back, one of the trucks of kids passed another on a windy road! Oh Guatemala! Hah I’ve been dreaming of the day when a holiday would arrive and I could do a project. I had prepared materials to create Valentine cards and we weren’t able to do it on Tuesday, so the holiday continued on Wednesday. All my students were so creative with their messages and designs. I particularly enjoyed one of the messages by Francisco to another boy, Miguel, in the 3^rd grade class. It said: “What are you doing Miguel? Are you going to school tomorrow? When you don’t look sick, I’ll give you a hug” hahaha! Though most had messages like “friends forever” or “I love you” I really liked his creativity and got a good chuckle out of it.  

On Thursday I left for my adventure to Costa Rica! I took a boat from Santiago to Panajachel, a shuttle from Pana to Guate and then a plane into San Jose.  Claire and her friend met me at the airport and then we went to her host family’s house in San Joaquin. Her family was really nice and it was interesting to get a little taste of a tico life. We ate at an amazing pizza place and went to bed early because we left at 6 in the morning to go to Tamarindo, a beach town in an area called Guanacaste in the north of Costa Rica. Along with 13 of her other study abroad friends, we took a shuttle and arrived midday. It was so nice to get my feet in sand! The beach was huge and it reminded me a lot of Hawaii. Tamarindo is famous for surfing so there were a lot of international visitors, everyone spoke English and it had a really relaxed vibe. We ended the day with dinner overlooking the coast and a breathtaking, fluorescent orange sunset. It was so great to see Claire and meet her friends and the setting wasn’t too bad also ;)

The next day, I left to go to Manuel Antonio, one of the most famous national parks located southeast of Tamarindo. It was my first public bus adventure in Central America! Although it was a long journey, I had heard so many good things about the park I was determined to go. I met some girls at my first bus stop who warned me that the day before they waited for two hours and it didn’t come so they gave up. Yikes! However, I lucked out and the bus going to Liberia was only 20 minutes late. My next bus to Puntarenas left an hour after I thought so that wasn’t bad as well. When we started getting closer to Puntarenas, I happily took in that blissfully distinct ocean smell as we neared the coast. Puntarenas reminded me a little of Venice, CA: big beaches and funky people! My last bus went to Quepos, a town outside of the park. I arrived at night and was ready for my adventure to start the next day. Through my bus rides that day, I really felt like I got to see a lot of Costa Rica. I met some nice people and though it was a long trip, I enjoyed myself.

The next morning I got up early with anticipation and took a bus from Quepos to the town of Manuel Antonio. The ride was absolutely stunning. Starting from Quepos, we wound up into lush, green hills that were home to million dollar views overlooking the ocean. Everywhere you looked were really cute hotels, fun restaurants and fancy boutiques. The last stop was at the beach, which was a postcard-perfect, coconut-filled paradise. Long, white stretches of sand met with turquoise waters and there wasn’t a cloud in the sky. It was gorgeous and in that instant, I understood what all the hype was about! I found my way to the entrance of the park and with a passion fruit, pineapple and banana smoothie in hand, I started my day. One of my goals in Costa Rica was to see a sloth. I was warned that they were harder to see than imagined, but I was pleasantly surprised when within ten minutes, I saw one! It was nestled high up in the trees sleeping and the only way I saw it was by latching on to a tour group and looking through their telescope. However, I already felt fulfilled and I had barely gotten there! Further down the path, one of the tourist guides excitedly pointed out a toucan, which he said was quite rare to see. I followed a mass of camera-toting tourists and snapped some photos, only to be further intrigued by the presence of an iridescent blue butterfly the size of a bird breezing by. I almost had to laugh, how was this happening?! It was too good to believe that I was seeing such amazing creatures one after another. But, it continued! A little further down, I saw another sloth! This one was much closer and I could watch the little oso perezoso slowly move from tree to tree. They really were quite mesmerizing, it’s amazing how much time you can spend watching them. After my Costa Rican wilderness safari, I made it to the first beach and it was even more beautiful than the one outside of the park. I walked through the waves and took in the amazing views. The water was the warmest I have ever been in. I hate to even say it, but it was so hot and humid outside I almost wished it were colder! But it was pure bliss. Up in the palms, monkeys chattered and hopped effortlessly from tree to tree, occasionally snagging snacks out of unnoticing tourists’ bags. They had the cutest little faces and were really entertaining, though as always, it makes you a little sad to see them so accustomed to people.

The next beach (Espadilla Sur) was much larger and less crowded and equally as beautiful. I had some lunch and took a dip in the tropical waters. Later that day, I hiked to Puerto Escondido, which was a smaller and rockier beach but was perfect for a relaxing afternoon view. I was having a great time exploring all of the world- class beaches and I contemplated more than once how I was ever going to drag myself from that place. On my way back I saw ANOTHER sloth and this one was the icing on the cake, it had a baby clinging to it! Awwww!! All in all, it was a perfect day and I was so happy I made the trip, it was worth every hour in the bus and then some.

The next day, I took in a few last hours at the beach and a guava sorbet and then hopped on a bus to San Jose. I met up with Claire later that night and savored my last few moments in Costa Rica, which included a trip to McDonald’s haha I left that next day and was back in Santiago later in the afternoon. I was so thankful to have had such a wonderful vacation. It was really cool to see another Central American country that was so different from Guatemala. It was much more Bob Marley and beaches than cortes and tuk tuks and I felt like I had gone to another world, which was great for a little break.  I couldn’t have pictured more perfect beaches, ones that rivaled or were better than some of the beauties I’ve seen in Hawaii, Italy and Brazil. I ate some amazing food, had great company (whether it was human or animal) and enjoyed being a beach-bumming backpacker. It was really hard to leave such an amazing destination, but I missed the kiddos and was happy to be back at school.