More Pictures from Semana Santa

bruised, bitten, and a little burnt - but totally worth it!

Semana Santa started off with getting on the bus to Puntarenas in San Jose on Tuesday afternoon. We stayed in Puntarenas Tuesday night so that we could get to Malpais and the beach earlier on Wednesday, and to help break up the trip. There's not much to say about that first night, other than the fact that we ate some pretty damn good Chinese (I don't know why, but there were a TON of Chinese restaurants there) for dinner and there was a boat on fire in the harbor when we got into town. Puntarenas was kind of dirty...definitely just a pit stop kind of place...but the hotel we stayed in was very nice and clean, and we even had tvs in our rooms!

Wednesday we took the ferry across the gulf to the Nicoya peninsula and then a bus to Malpais. Malpais is a very small town...not a lot to do...except go to the beach and surf, so that's exactly what we did! We stayed at really awesome Surf Camp and Resort - with a pool and everything :) It was a little strange though to stay in an open air room






Unfortunately our surfing pictures are on Myla's camera, so I don't have any to show you right now. There were lots of monkeys and iguanas hanging around too. The beach was a short walk from our hotel, and we definitely took advantage!





















After we spent Wednesday and Thursday in Malpais we headed to Montezuma on Friday morning. Montezuma was a LOT of fun, there was a lot more to do and a lot of ticos on vacation too :) We hiked to a huge waterfall on Thursday and on Friday we went horseback riding to a different waterfall. Sean and Caitlin were the crazy ones who actually did some cliff diving (the whole time I kept thinking about how much I wished Adam was there because I know he would've loved it...and he probably would have been one of the crazy cliff jumpers too). I stuck to the small stuff, rope swings and jumping off boulders :)

Pedicures, Cockroaches, and a Boy in Striped Pyjamas

I have a lot of extra time on Thursdays, so I figured I would update - I'm sure the title intrigued you :)

All of us girls got pedicures on Tuesday before going out to Myla's birthday dinner at a Caribbean restaurant in Santa Anna (soooo delicious!). This little Nicaraguan woman went to work! It was by far the most thorough pedi I've ever had - and for only $12 including tip! :)

I HATE cockroaches. Uggh...it gets worse and worse. And I swear they flock to me because they know I hate them so much. In the beginning I had deluded myself into believing that I just had to make sure I kept everything off the floor...Well, then I come home the other night and there's one on the wall above my bed. So now I know they can climb walls. When I told Floria about this she laughed at me and said "didn't you know that they can fly?" UGGH! They've gone from bad, to worse, to absolutely terrifying. They are so disgusting...and I keep seeing more and more of them; I don't know if it's the weather or what.

Yesterday, Myla's real birthday, all of us girls went to the Multiplaza to go to the movies and get some ice cream :) We saw the Boy in the Striped Pyjamas - extremely sad, but very good.

I've been reading the Twilight series; something I never thought I would do because I thought the plot sounded completely stupid - but I am ADDICTED. I read the first, 500 page, book of the series all on Monday. I read the second, almost 600 page, book on Tuesday and Wednesday. I checked out the third in the series this morning and I'm trying to keep myself from reading it because I know I will continue to read too fast (and Myla still has the fourth and final book checked out so I need to make the third last!) Besides, I'm hoping to take it with me on Semana Santa for some good bus ride reading. Self restraint is difficult for me when it comes to reading, and I haven't experienced a book that I could get lost in like this in so long - since the Harry Potters really. It reminds me of how much I used to love reading in High School, definitely a past-time that I have missed a lot in college - the only reading I had time to do then was textbooks :-/

Anyway, I highly recommend the series to any young adult females out there who are looking for an addicting read!

I don't have a lot to talk about really, since it's only been week days that I'm updating on. We don't have any big plans for this weekend other than watching March Madness games at Amigos. Our Semana Santa trip to Malpais and Montezuma begins early Wednesday morning - who has two thumbs and is super excited? THIS GIRL! :) Horseback riding to waterfalls, surfind, hammocks, and sun soaking here I come!

A little in town relaxation :)

Well this past week was fun, and relaxing because we're taking a break from traveling until Semana Santa next week!

It all started on Thursday when Beth, Myla, Brika, Jeffrey (B and M's professor from OSU) and me went to Tihany. Tihany is like a mini circ de soleil - it was pretty freakin awesome.
I wish I had more pictures to put up, but you weren't supposed to take any pictures, even without a flash, and we got yelled at. It was hilarious though because they were putting people up on the screen and saying things about them...like a couple that had "beso! beso! beso!" at the bottom of the screen (kiss) and a group of old people that had "blah...blah...blah...." Lol, so we were talking about how funny it would be if they put our group on the screen and said "gringos! gringos! gringos!"...and lo and behold....they found us (not that we are hard to spot in a crowd of ticos!).














Just to make sure everyone remembers who people are here...in this picture, from back to front it's: Brika, Me, Beth, Myla :)







Friday night was Bingo at PAS, none of us won anything :( I stayed after school from 3-6 and caught up on the Grey's episodes online that I've been missing out on - crazy stuff has been happening! After bingo we all went out to our favorite bar in Santa Anna, Amigos, to celebrate Jillian's last night in Costa Rica! :(



Saturday we all chillaxed until we went to Cocos (the tico bar) to watch the Costa Rica-Mexico game. If you didn't know...soccer is big here! :) Unfortunately Mexico won 2-0. The day was fairly miserable, I'm pretty sure it got into the low 90s, it was definitely high 80s anyway.

Sunday was unfortunately yet another miserably hot day. I woke up at 9:30 already a little sweaty. I took the bus back to Santa Anna to join everyone at Amigos (our favorite, gringo-friendly bar in SA) for the OU-UNC game.

That was pretty much the weekend. I came home last night and went to bed at about 8:30/9! Even thought we hadn't done a lot, I think the heat totally zapped my energy because I was exhausted. I think my body is going crazy with so much sleep though, I feel really out of it today.

This week is going to be another week full of local relaxation and fun - tomorrow us girls are getting pedicures and going out to dinner for Myla's birthday (which is on Wednesday) and on Wednesday we are going to Multiplaza to do a little shopping and to go see a movie - the boy in the striped pajamas? (i don't know if that's the title in english, but that's the translation of the spanish title) Not exactly a happy bday movie, but it looks so good and we all want to see it.

I've decided that if I could have changed my packing...I would have packed fewer clothes, and a few more books! I've been slightly bored during the weeks...but, at the suggestion of dear Beth and Myla, I am going to start reading the Twilight series which is available through the school library - for free! Yay for libraries! :)

I can't think of much else to update you all on...other than I'm SUPER excited for our semana santa vacation - I can't wait to do some surfing and horseback riding! It's kind of crazy, but if you think about it...after next week I will be almost half way through my time here; it's going faster than expected.

Miss you already Jill! :-*

Trip to Manuel Antonio and Quepos

Hello everyone!

It's Monday, you know what that means...

weekend trip update time!

Well, the beginning and ending of the trip were a little rough...but other than that it was a great time!

On Friday after school we headed into Santa Anna to pick up the bus to San Jose. We were supposed to all meet at the bus stop a 3. Haha, well...by 3:10 all of the girls were there and we were only missing Sean. So we waited...and waited...and waited...and searched...and waited...until 3:45 when we said "screw him." Then, lo and behold, he was at the San Jose bus stop already when we got there. What a punk. It turned out alright though because we were able to hop on an earlier bus at 5.

I think we got into Quepos at about 9:30, with two things on our mind: hotel and food!

We found our place to stay fairly easily, and the owner of the place was really nice and very funny. When the 6 of us walked in he looked at Sean and said "What do you do with five girls?! I have one and that is enough?! All these women, they are a lot of trouble!" Haha...he was very cool. He also directed us to a restaurant that was still open. Our rooms were right off of the common area and we immediately met a Belgian and two Aussies who were hanging out. They came out to dinner with us to a BYOB place and the two Aussies told us their story about how they just decided in a couple of days that they wanted to do a world tour - they started off by going to the US and they are making their way down to South America; from there they are heading to Europe and then to Asia. I admire their ability to be so spontaneous - I'm not the pick up and go world backpacking type, haha!

After dinner we headed over to the small casino at the Best Western, just for a little fun. It was hilarious because for roulette they had like a BINGO ball setup, and they had a five card draw table (never seen that before!).

We turned in kinda early because we knew we wanted to get up early the next day to head to Manuel Antonio for the beach!

I think we got up somewhere around 8 in the morning, had a fantastic (and fairly cheap) breakfast at the hotel and then caught the bus to Manuel Antonio. There were a ton of market stands lining the street along the beach. The walk through the national park wasn't nearly the hike that Cahuita was - but along the way we saw four sloths, some capuccins, and an iguana :)

Third beach was absolutely gorgeous - and totally worth the $10 and walk to get there. It was in its own little cove right up against the edge of the jungle...beautiful. Unfortunately I was an idiot and left my camera at the hotel for the first half of the day, so you have to wait until I get pictures from the rest of the crew for me to add them here.

We stayed at Third Beach until about 1 - soaking up the sun, swimming in the ocean, floating with the greatest of ease (yay salt water)! There was quite the episode when a very large raccoonish animal started skulking around the edge of the beach looking for unattended food - well, he found one! And even though Brika started running up the beach at him, he made off with this woman's bag of bread. It was absolutely hilarious - definitely funniest home videos materal, I wish we had a video of it!

We headed back into town for a small lunch and a little bit of market shopping (I got two beautiful necklaces for $6) and then we caught the bus back to Quepos. It was miserably hot and the sun was ridiculous - I swear I was putting sunblock on every 20 minutes but my shoulders are toast!

We showered, changed, and freshened up to head back toward Manuel Antonio to go to El Avion for dinner. El Avion is a restaurant based off of an actual cargo plane that was left in Nicaragua,bought, and transported all the way to Manuel Antonio. The restaurant is right on the edge of a cliff and has a gorgeous view - so we got there by 5 to make sure we had a good spot for sunset watching. And - we definitely did! The sunset was absolutely gorgeous!




















After sunset watching and a fantastic dinner we went back to Manuel Antonio - our real reason for going back was because Sean and I had talked to a guy earlier about horseback riding in the morning and we told him we would come back to set up a reservation... we went all the way back and he wasn't there! :-/ So, what else would we do except for split some bottles of wine on the beach! Haha :) The six of us passed around some bottles under the stars while we waited for the next bus back to Quepos - it was pretty awesome. After we got back, Sean, Jillian and I went out for a night of dancing.

Sunday we got up for breakfast, walked around town for a while, had a huge lunch (burgers!) and then got on the bus back to San Jose at about 2:45. We got into SJ at about 6:30 and hopped on a bus to Santa Anna. The bus we took, however, was a bus that takes the calle vieja route - a route which no one in the group had gone on at night before - big mistake. We missed our stop, went all the way to the end of the route, had to get on another bus to take us back...it was a big mess! We didn't get back into Santa Anna until almost 8! (what should have been about a 40 minute bus ride turned into 1:30!) We grabbed some pizza for dinner in Santa Anna and then I headed back to Belen.

Well, that's about it. I wish I had more pictures to show you; I will add the pics of the beach as soon as I get them from the others. This weekend there are no big plans - we are staying in town for BINGO at PAS on Friday night (which is also Jillian's last night here!) And then there were 5... :(

Week 2

This week has gone by super fast - I can't believe tomorrow is already Friday and I might be embarking on my next weekend excursion! I say "might be" because we have all been talking about going to Manuel Antonio on the Pacific coast but there hasn't been any definite plans made yet as far as I know. I'm sure that by the end of the day today I will hear something.

If the weeks keep going by this fast my time here will fly!

The only exciting story from this week I guess would be St. Patty's day. It was very strange to have a St. Patty's where hardly anyone else recognized or celebrated it. Me, Beth, Myla, Bircka, Jillian and Sean all went out in Santa Anna. We weren't planning on drinking a lot until we found out that there was a drink special with 1 1/2 shot vodka, oj, pineapple, and mango juice for only 700 colones! (aka about 1.25 each!) It was the first time anything has been crazy cheaper than in the states - so of course we took advantage :) No worries though, we were all in a big group and very safe.

I know one thing - I want my belated corned beef and cabbage dinner when I get back!!! I have such a craving for it; I only get it once a year and I couldn't here :(

I'm starting to adventure a little more on my own - I took the city bus by myself to Santa Anna on Tuesday night and I walked around town after school by myself. Slowly but surely I am getting more comfortable with my surroundings.

It sounds like Adam and maybe 3 others are really thinking about coming down the last week of April - which would be really awesome, but kind of sucky at the same time because my break is in the first week of April. Basically, I'm going to have to figure out where they can stay and what they can do while I'm at school everyday. I mean, I know they are big boys and they can fend for themselves...but you kind of have to travel to really find stuff to do. It's kind of like being in Chelsea actually - you have to go a couple towns over to get to a movie theater and whatnot.

Well, that's about it really. Nothing too crazy to update you on. Hope all is going well in the States!

My Weekend in Cahuita

My first Costa Rica weekend excursion was a HUGE success! In a nutshell, the beach and jungle were beautiful, I got to see a three toed sloth in action at the national park, as well as a whole family of capuccin monkeys, we went snorkeling, and I got to spend some quality time in some hammocks!

The bus ride to Cahuita was about 4 hours long - so we did not get into Cahuita until about 8/8:30. But, while it was still light out, we got to see some beautiful countryside along the way.


There were seven of us who went: myself, Beth and Myla (who are the other student teachers here at PanAm's elementary school), and Bircka (sorry if I butchered your name, I'm not sure how to spell it!), Jillian, Sean, and John (the other four are all Spanish study abroad students at Conversa).

Our first night in we did not do much except for get dinner and go to the bars for a couple of drinks. Cahuita is a pretty small town - there were only two bars really and they were right across the street from each other. On our first night we met a guy who was traveling from France - he was very cool and gave us some insight on the area.

We stayed in the cabinas that Jillian's host family owns - practically right on the beach. It was really nice because the rooms only ended up being $26 for two nights!














On Saturday we got up early to watch the sunrise - which turned out to be very unfruitful because it was overcast. We went back to bed for a little bit before getting up again for breakfast and to head to the national park. We ate breakfast in a great Caribbean style restaurant that was known for having the best crepes in the area :)

After breakfast we headed to the national park - which at the time we did not realize committed ourselves to about a 5 hour walk through the jungle and beach...but it ended up being soooo worth it!

Throughout our walk in the park, which we were very lucky that it was mostly overcast and not really that hot, we saw: LOTS of crabs, birds, a three-toed sloth! (so exciting because they're usually rare to see), a whole family of Capuccin monkeys, a howler monkey, and, of course, we got to spend some quality time on the beach!


















The family of Capuccins literally just miuraculously appeared out of the woodwork right after we had got done talking about how we were disappointed that we hadn't seen any. They basically surrounded us, came right up to us on the path. I was honestly less than two feet away from a couple of them, and they just sat there checking us out - it almost seemed like they were more curious about us than we were of them! The whole time I kept thinking to myself "Adam is going to be sooo jealous!" I wished he was there with me for it, it was an amazing experience.










































Right when we got to the beach the sun started to come out - we got sooo lucky with the weather! It was overcast and not too hot for our walk through the park, and when we got to the beach we got the sun we wanted! :)




























After our 5 mile walk through the park and beach we were pretty tired - and definitely ready for some food! We headed back to Cahuita for lunch and some relaxation before getting ready to go to Puerto Viejo for the night. Puerto Viejo is a city about a 20 minute bus ride south of Cahuita, it's bigger and has more bars. We had dinner and quite a few drinks in Puerto Viejo before cramming all 6 of us (John didn't come) into a taxi back to Cahuita. We had one more drink and a little dancing before going back to the cabinas :)

Sunday we got up early to go snorkeling! Cahuita has a a very large coral reef. It was really cool, we were probably out in the water for about a hour. It was too bad though because the water was fairly murky because it had rained two days ago - Maimo (Jillian's host dad) said that in two days we probably would have had at least twice the visibility. But it was still cool, we saw a lot of different coral and fish.

We checked out at about 11:30 and John, Beth, Myla and I caught a bus to Limon at 12, and a bus from Limon to San Jose at 2. I was so exhausted from the weekend that I slept most of the way back, which made it a lot quicker! Having been using public transportation all weekend, I felt brave enough to try out the bus from Santa Anna to Belen all by myself, and I did just fine :)

Well, that was my weekend in Cahuita. I have a TON more pictures to show you all when I get home...but for my family's sake I didn't want to put too many on here and make it take 2 hours to upload :)

I love you all! And it looks like this coming weekend we're traveling to the Pacific beaches in Manuel Antonio - so more beautiful pics to come next Monday for sure! :)