Welcome to another Costa
Rican catharsis! Or, if “catharsis” isn’t quite the right word, at least
another blog update on my travels and experiences in this incredible country.
Since my last blog entry, (which was far too long ago, I admit), I’ve traveled
to Mal País beach to watch a surf competition, gone dancing at the best
electronic music club in Central America, scored a header in a fútbol match, encountered
the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in the wild (stay tuned for photos at the
end), and given a 10-minute presentation on extraterrestrial life, in Spanish,
to a class in which I am the only non-native speaker.
A couple of months back,
when my friends Josh, Andy, and I decided we needed a break from classes and
the bustling, daily grind of taking the bus to San Pedro, studying at the
university all day, and then riding the bus home again, we did what any Gringo
abroad would do: hopped on another bus for 8 hours and headed to the Pacific.
Our final destination was Mal País beach, and we stayed at a hostel called
Tranquilo Backpackers, probably my favorite, so far, in Costa Rica. Tranquilo
has a central kitchen area where youth guests can store and prepare their own
food at any time, and make pancakes from batter provided by the management
every morning. Everything was kept very tidy, unlike some hostels I’ve stayed
at, with a row of hammocks lined up along the rooms for relaxing and looking up
at the verdant canopy, filled with native birds and even monkeys. Tranquilo was
an incredible place to stay, but beware: falling asleep overnight in a hammock only
seems like a slice of tropical paradise until you wake up with a ring of vicious
mosquito bites for a belt. Good times in the jungle!
On our first full day, we
started things off with the usual sorts of things one does after arriving at a
Costa Rican beach, such as lying around on the sand and taking photos, swimming
in the surf, and lying around some more on the beach. We were all pretty
content with doing nothing and working on replenishing our tans that had all but
faded to a nice milky tone in the month since classes had started. At least, we
were until we heard about the surf competition.
As we walked through the
tide down the beach we heard a loud voice booming in Spanish, between island
reggae songs, and noticed a huge concentration of bleach-blonde, well-bronzed
surfer dudes (or “maes” as they say in CR) and girls hanging out. Further out
in the surf, we could see lots of teenagers in competition shirts absolutely
shredding on the waves, and realized immediately that this had to be some sort
of competition. Once we located a spot to post up in front of the competition
booth, Andy and I were quick to start snapping some photos. I’ve never been
happier to have such a good zoom lens on my camera, because I was able to get some
really good shots of the competitors from the beach. My favorite pictures are
of an older Tico guy with long hair, who was carving around the waves off to
the side of the competition, as if saying, “I don’t need prize money on the
table to be totally gnarly, man.” Later that night we watched the sunset from
the sand as surfers continued to dot the waves far out beyond the tide, until
there was almost no light left, and then followed everyone in to a beachside
club party.
A quick side note: the
sunsets on the beaches here in Costa Rica are the most beautiful that I’ve ever
seen in my entire life. It’s amazing how the light reflects off the water and
the sand and paints the sky a gradual gradient from blue, to yellow, to orange-red
and eventually shades of purple after the orb has sunk beyond the horizon. I
was able to get some great end-of-the-day shots at Mal País that I’ve posted at
the end of this entry.
While I haven’t done a whole
lot of traveling since that getaway trip, mostly due to my course load at the
University of Costa Rica, I have had a lot of cool experiences here in the
city. As I mentioned earlier, I went with a group of friends to an electronic
dance club called Vertigo in downtown San José to see a Belgian house music DJ
called Jimmy Van M. Vertigo is advertised as “the best electronic club in
Central America,” and with good reason. There are several tiers to it and a
main dance floor filled with lighting effects, and the sound system packs
enough bass to be heard up and down the street outside. We had such an
incredible time dancing that we didn’t end up getting back to our neighborhoods
near San Pedro in a taxi until the first rays of morning sunlight were flaring
on the horizon. Now that’s the sign of a good night.
Since this is a “study”
abroad, not “party” abroad trip, after all, I’ll emphasize that even though my
studies aren’t as fun to talk about in a blog as the “extra-curriculars” I’ve
experienced here, they have been the real success of my Tico life. It has been
amazing to observe my own improvement with the Spanish language, as I’ve gone
from thinking I was a hotshot on arrival in January, to realizing I could
hardly understand anyone’s conversational Spanish, to my current situation of
being able to understand almost everything and speak pretty effortlessly. I had
a definite “step-back-and-think” moment last week after I completed my portion
of a class presentation in Astronomy and realized that I had been speaking
constant Spanish for almost 10 minutes without having to make a translation
from English first in my head. I’m still a long way from being able to call
myself “fluent” in Spanish, but after living here for almost five months I
think I can confidently say that I am “functionally fluent,” or at least “bilingual.”
I had the same feeling this weekend when playing soccer with some Costa Rican
friends, because I was able to yell back and forth with them in Spanish during
the game without thinking too much. Oh, and I definitely earned some respect after
scoring a goal on a header.
I’ll cut this blog post
short before it reaches term-paper length, but I’ll be making another trip to a
beach town called Montezuma this weekend before final exams start really
breathing down my neck, so I’ll be putting together at least one more photo
blog post before I head back to the good ol’ U.S.A., in July. I also returned
to the hot springs and coffee plantation in Cartago last weekend, with the
Grupo Kansas, which I already described in my first blog entry on Macho Gringo,
so I’ll just let the photos at the end here do the talking. What set this trip
apart, however, was a large tarantula-esque spider that we found crawling on a
boulder by the hot springs. I haven’t been able to figure out exactly what kind
of spider it was, but it sure looks cool in the close-up photo I shot,
especially after the two little nieces of one of our group coordinators were
done splashing it. (In retrospect, probably not the best idea.) But without
further ado, enjoy the photos! Click to enlarge.
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| The main booth of the surf competition |
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| A surfer warming up Tai Chi style |
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| The long-haired surfer who stole the show |
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| Kid at the bottom left had better watch out |
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| Mal País beach |
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| Blood red colors near the end of the sunset |
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| Surfers paddling out as the sun sets |
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| Purple shades in the sky |
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| I love the beams of light coming through in this photo |
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| Our little poolside friend. Using the word "little" loosely |
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| El Valle de Orosi in Cartago |
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| Grupo Kansas returns to the hot springs |
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| Another view of the tarantula |
