San José street art and Panama travels

Buenas, everyone! Once again I've had more new experiences than seem humanly possible to fit into one blog entry since the last time I posted, but I'll do my best anyway. It is now one week after the end of Semana Santa vacation, which is basically Spring Break here at the UCR, so classes have begun in earnest and the days of traveling to a different beach every weekend are definitely over (both because I actually have a good amount of homework now and because my bank account tells me so.) That isn't such a terrible thing, however, since I'm noticing consistent improvement in my ability to both speak and understand Spanish, which is really the reason why I came to Costa Rica in the first place. I'm also looking forward to getting out and experiencing more of what San José has to offer closer to my home-away-from-home here in Cedros, and that's exactly what I've done in the past couple of weeks.

I'll start with my most recent urban activity. I went with a couple of friends this morning to see the National Orchestra of Costa Rica play at the National Theater (Teatro Nacional.) It was an incredible experience, especially because the special guest soloist was a virtuoso on the piccolo. I was in awe when, for the finale, they played a dramatic Stravinsky piece that I recognized from the Disney movie "Fantasia." This orchestra is definitely a "must-see" for anyone visiting San José in the future, especially since the price of entry was only just over five U.S. dollars with our UCR student ID cards.

Before I write a little bit about my trip to the islands of Bocas del Toro in Panama for the week of Semana Santa, I want to talk about the graffiti that is abundant around the UCR in San Pedro and in San José. In fact, calling this spray painted art "graffiti" really misses the mark in my opinion, because it's evident that an immense amount of time and artistic skill goes into many of these pieces. We're not talking your average urban tags here that are nothing more than sloppily scrawled vandalism, but well composed works that represent the emotions and culture of the city. Another friend from the Grupo Kansas program and I walked around the city early one morning a couple of weeks ago to take pictures of this street art, and we're planning to return for more tomorrow. I'm going to post some of my favorites at the end of this entry, and I'll put the rest up when I get around to doing the next one. I hope you'll enjoy and appreciate them as much as I do.

As I've said already, for Semana Santa vacation in late March I traveled across the border into Panama by bus, taxi, foot, and boat to reach the islands of Bocas del Toro. I was accompanied by three friends, Christina and Rochelle, who are also members of the Grupo Kansas, and Rochelle's son Shawn who is attending elementary school in San José. We had a great time camping at the "Mar e Iguana hostel," although camping was admittedly a little uncomfortable because of the humidity, but it's hard to argue with $5 a night, right? We visited a different beach every day, such as Starfish Beach and Red Frog Beach, which undoubtedly lived up to their names as we saw lots of those two animals, and rode bikes to Bluff Beach. But my favorite activity of the trip was definitely a guided boat tour that we took to see dolphins in Dolphin Bay, snorkel in Coral Cay, and finally chill on the beach for a few hours at a beautiful and remote island called Cayo Zapatillo. One of the funniest things that happened on this trip was when a little Panamanian boy asked if we would give him our soccer ball at Red Frog Beach. We politely denied him, of course, to which he responded by catching several of the famous red frogs in a leaf and demanding a trade. We also went dancing with a few Guatemalans we met at the hostel, which was a very cool cultural experience. The only problem with Bocas del Toro is that it is a very tourist-y town, and so is definitely on the expensive side. If I could do it over again I would probably choose to make it a three or four day trip rather than a full week to save money, but it was an amazing time nonetheless.

Here are my favorite photos of the San José street murals, and a few of the best ones I was able to snap in Panama to finish things off. Until next time, Pura vida!

"La Calle de la Amargura"- the student hangout street near campus. (A reminder: you can click any of these photos to enlarge them.)

The first of many graffiti photos, this one was taken near La Calle

Street artists paying homage to the natural world

This one might be my favorite

"Think." "Feel." "Dream."

Another one of my favorites

The art right across the street from campus in San Pedro

The cat bus from the movie "Totoro," which is very popular here

La UCR!

Andy in photographer mode

Another favorite. OK, so I have a lot of favorites

A great shot of a typical city street on the way to the Avenida Central

Andy again on our street photography mission, round one

The first of the Panama photos- bananas are a huge part of the economy here

A couple more amazing graffiti pieces

Bienvenidos a Panama!

These types of boats, or "lanchas," are the primary mode of transportation in Bocas

The best dolphin shot I could get

The Bocas del Toro crew on Cayo Zapatillo

The view from the shore of Cayo Zapatillo

Local kids fishin'

Conch shells

The architecture of Panama- very colorful and in harmony with the ocean

A sailboat in the harbor at the end of a long day

These last few are some hasty iPhone pictures that I snapped on the way out of Bocas Town

The famous Caribbean rice and beans!

More of the architecture