Nosara

¡Hola a todos! Este fin de semana fui a Nosara con mis amigos Chelsi y Mike. Erá mi fin de semana favorita en Costa Rica. Muy bonita, muy divertido, y la comida erá deliciosa. The bummer about traveling to Nosara is that the only bus from San José leaves at 5:30am. Thus, I met Chelsi and Mike at 4:30am Friday morning and after a very long, hot, and dusty ride, we were in Nosara at around noon. We weren't sure where to stay, so we took a cab to Playa Guiones and asked in the first place we found. "¿Sabe donde está un hostel muy barato por aquí?" When everyone at the bar laughed, we were worried, expecting them to tell us there were no cheap hostels in the area. Instead the guy behind the counter (from New Jersey) told us we were standing in one. And thus we found Kaya Sol. Kaya Sol is not your average hostel. Kaya Sol, for $10/night (standard for all hostels), includes a bed with clean sheets, clean towels, a pool, hot showers, and a bathroom with ALL THREE soap, paper towels, and toilet paper. This level of service is unprecedented in Costa Rica. To top it off, everyone we met at the hostel was really friendly and nice. The cabinas each have 5 beds and our roommates Charlie and Helen were both surfers on holiday. On the beach path Friday night we met a large helpful surf bum who gave us the DL on everything we would need to know in Nosara: Frog Pad for internet, book exchange, and surf board rentals. Olga's for lunch (casados), and the Italian pizzeria for dinner. Todo perfecto. 

Uncle Bo happened to be in town on his annual surfing trip, and we met up with him around lunch time on Saturday. His group was a little late coming (more were expected to arrive later that afternoon), so he gave us surfing lessons on a board borrowed from his friend Bud. Between the wonderful lessons and perfect beginner waves, we're all hooked. So much so that we went to the Frog Pad and rented a board to surf again on Sunday morning. Saturday night all of Bo's clan had arrived (about 10 men from North Carolina) and they were very nice and took us out to dinner at La Casa Tucan. A fun time was had by all, we played a little musical chairs so everyone could chat with everyone. And of course, they had the bartender swap the surf movie to the UNC-Duke game, which added to the excitement of the evening.

Sunday morning we hit the beach and surfed for a few hours which was a total blast, and after the men finished their session (they started much earlier than we did), the let us use 2 more boards so we could all try at the same time. ¡Qué divertido!

We hit up the wheat french toast, banana pancakes, and fruit at Kaya Sol for breakfast, and then headed to the bus. Nosara is so beautiful and laid back, and we had so much fun hanging out with Uncle Bo and his friends, the 3 of us agreed that this weekend had been the highlight of our time in Costa Rica.

Now I'm getting excited for Mom and Dad to visit, they arrive on Saturday and will be here for all of Semana Santa, Holy Week.

More photo links: Costa Rica 12: Playas del Coco, Saprissa game, Castro's, Nosara.

Costa Rica 13: Nosara, Sin City girl's party

¡Pura Vida!

Eleanora

New Schedule + Saprissa

So. I’m finished with my formal Spanish classes. For the first 4 weeks I took Intermediate 1 and then for the next 4 I took Intermediate 2 and now for my last 4 weeks of ISA I am free! Well, sort of. I made the mistake of telling my architecture professor about my new schedule and now I will have architecture from 9-12 on Mondays and Wednesdays instead of 1-3 in the afternoons. Oh well. The funny thing is that he basically added me to his class of ticas. Now I just have to get up the guts to talk to them because they certainly aren’t going to make any effort in my direction. I have a new project: a condo for a family of four at the top of a 28 story building in San José. The really cool thing is I’m working with lots of green: check out www.verticalgardenpatrickblanc.com to get the idea.
With my new-found time, I have joined the gym. It was a little pricy (probably not for US standards but compared to everything else in Costa Rica it is), so I plan to go every day if possible. I’m a little embarrassed because my ratio of sore : how much I’ve worked out is not really even, but I guess that’s what happens when you first start up after not running for 3 months. They have some cool looking classes (belly dancing, pilates), but unfortunately most of them are at times when I have class. I’ll have to find a time to check at least one of them out.
Unrelated, last night I went with ISA to a Saprissa soccer (“fútbol”) game. It was really fun. Everybody got out their purple and orange and we had a great time cheering them on – even though they’re pretty terrible. We still won, 3-1 against the Brujas (witches). The funniest part of the game was the amazing amount of times players either headed the ball (often in no particular direction), fell dramatically on the ground, or both. They even brought one guy off the field on a stretcher, after which he stood up and walked away like he was fine. Go figure. Maybe that’s part of the fun of Costa Rican soccer games – the show. There were also an absurd number of food and drink vendors yelling the whole time. “¡Té frío! ¡Té frío! ¡Qué rico! ¡Té frío!” and “¡Pizza!” which sounds very much like “¡Saprissa!”. Calvin and his little brother (visiting on spring break) got some of the pizza (2 mil) and in the box were two smooshed, old-looking slices of pizza, one on top of the other, and someone’s old chewing gum stuck in the corner. Um, what?

Pura Vida.

Eleonora

Playas del Coco

Playas del Coco is a beach town on the Pacific coast, north of the Nicoya Peninsula (home of Montezuma, Santa Teresa, and Mal País), almost all the way to Nicaragua. This weekend I joined a group of all girls to make the trek. Janelle, Ashley, Elyse, Kelley, Anjela, Byung, Cat, and I met at the Super Zhen on Friday after our Spanish exams (mine went well – hooray!) and took a “direct” bus to Playas del Coco. Here in Costa Rica, direct does not that the bus doesn’t stop, only that you don’t have to switch busses. Thus, we got on the 2:00 bus and were delivered in Playas del Coco cerca de 9:30. This semester really has been a semester of bus rides. Every weekend it’s at least five hours on the bus. I don’t mind though, the scenery is always great and people-watching is interesting, especially when people are standing in the aisle. En realidad, usualmente I pass out tan pronto como I sit down. When we got off the bus there were the usual group of ticos competing for your attention: “Taxi?” “Hotel?” “Hola babies” or whatever they may come up with. [“I am NOT your baby!” Ashley replied to us rather than the men.] We started walking and one particularly persistent one kept telling us about a hotel which he claimed was $5 – it was actually 5 mil ($10) per night per person but the place which I think could best be described as a pensión was fantastic: huge room with a bunch of beds (bunks and doubles) and also a sitting area, then another room with more beds and a kitchen, then a little dish-washing room and then bathroom. It was perfect – traveling in a group of 8 we could not have found better. The woman who ran the place was really friendly and sweet and we loved it immediately. We got burgers for dinner (the cheapest food in town).Saturday morning we split up: some of the girls headed straight for the beach while the rest of us scouted out breakfast (green tea smoothie and breakfast sandwich on a bagel), and then joined the others. At breakfast we met two cute girls from the states who just graduated from college and are doing volunteer work in Costa Rica for a few months. Sounded like fun to me. The beach was a little dirty in spots but still pretty and the water was very refreshing. There was a strong breeze that pelted us with the dark sand and before long we all looked like we had been having dirt fights all morning but we persevered and enjoyed the time chatting anyway. The funny thing about traveling with all girls is that you really do talk about girl-talk all the time. I can count on one hand the conversations we had over the weekend that a boy would have enjoyed. (Hair, clothes, boys, boyfriends, you name it). When we couldn’t take the heat/sand any more we headed back to the hotel for delicious cold showers. We explored the nearby super and found that it carried everything. Literally everything. Coffee, food, alcohol, clothing (ugly), jewelry, souvenirs, and it even had a DVD rental section. We put on dresses for a sunset photo-shoot and then returned to the super to buy pasta, wine, and salad-makings with which we had quite the feast. Saturday night dinner was probably the highlight of the weekend. Sleeping that night was tough because of the heat and the mosquitoes, but a few rounds of cards got us tired enough to try again.
Sunday the die-hards went back to the beach and those of us who felt the need to cover up wandered town (I had some AMAZING french toast with banana sauce and bananas on top). We had been told on Saturday that the bus station was closed so we tried again and to our chagrin we were told that the direct bus home was sold out. Luckily, busses to Libería run on the hour and from Liberîa to San Jose every 2 hours. (Read, “LEE-bah-REE-ah”, not like the country Liberia). We shopped around a little and then regrouped and got on the 1:00 bus. We arrived in Liberîa just after 2:00 and found the next bus with seats available was going to be at 6:00 so we hunkered down in Burger King’s air conditioning (it was H-O-T HOT outside) and played cards and ate french fries and pb+j’s for a few hours. (We had bought the sandwich stuff on Saturday for lunch). The time passed surprisingly quickly and then we took the very long bus home. Finding a cab in San José proved to be the hardest part of the trip.

For more photos: Costa Rica 11: Santa Teresa and Playas del Coco

Costa Rica 12: Playas del Coco and Saprissa soccer game