On the Oxcart

Nightlife in Costa Rica=tons of us dancing.

Tons of us dancing=tons of us sticking out like a whole bunch of Americans.

We did everything in groups. Very large groups. More or less like a herd of cattle. "On the oxcart," however, refers to something else. There's an actual story that explains the saying, but it refers to someone having a hangover; they're on the oxcart. Fun fact.

A lot of the bars we went to were typically salsa clubs, but by the end of the night a dj was up playing a whole bunch of electronic stuff. I wouldn't say that the nightlife was much different than here, except that every guy was down to dance. Not sway their hips back and forth, but legitimately dance. I could have gotten used to that.

I think I'll miss dancing in large herds the most though.

Just when I thought I was ready to go home...

More Tamarindo please!

My last full weekend here was perfection--I couldn't have asked for a better ending to my trip. (Okay, no ending at all would have been more perfect). But seriously, the beach we went to was awesome, and I've never stayed at a nicer resort. Ever.

After we got there and the cute bellmen carried up our bags, we sat on our balcony admiring our view of the beach. Then we got ready and walked down the streets of Tamarindo. It was a cute little town lined with cafes, clothing stores, and hot surfers. Food was a priority though, so we found an Italian restaurant and grabbed some dinner. Definitely got my pasta fix.

Saturday morning we woke up to go zip lining. We had 8 cables to zip across, one of which I did upside down. I don't remember the last time I laughed myself to tears like that. (Click on the first picture of me zip lining) It was that hilarious. Another cable I got to go across "superman style." That was also pretty fun...

We got back to our hotel around noon. But before we headed to the beach, we went by the supermarket and discovered Cuba Libre--ready-to-go bottles of rum and coke. We spent the rest of the afternoon laying out on the beach, staring at hot bodies and shopping. Sounds like a terrible day, I know. It ended with a really ugly sunset too. It did start to pour later on in the night. But by that time, we were in a cozy restaurant right off the beach. No complaints here. I ordered a macadamia-crusted tilapia with a side of gallo pinto and a salad. I couldn't have been happier. Got my wine fix too.

The following morning was quite the experience. Up at 5:00 am, we were ready to see some animals. But first, we walked along the beach (as the sun was rising) towards a cove where we were met by some swamp boats. Ten minutes into the boat ride, we all felt like we were searching for an anaconda. We did see some blue herrings and a crocodile, but our tour guides told us that we needed to hike if we wanted to see any howling monkeys. So we drenched ourselves in bug spray while others prepared their Jessica Simpson flip flops for a hike in the mud. Mud. Ha. That's an understatement. But in the end, it was totally worth it. We got to see some howling monkeys. (Thanks to our tour guides screaming at them and acting like monkeys themselves). We even got to see the crabs that were nesting all over the place. That was pretty cool!

Since we were back at the hotel by 8 am, we were able to get to the beach by 8:30. The rest of the day went more or less like this: beach, ocean, pool, beach, ocean, pool, beach, ocean, pool, shower, lunch, bus. Yet again, another horrible day. Getting on the bus definitely wasn't a highlight, but the weekend was so great that I smiled the whole way back.

Here is what's in store for the weekend

This weekend we are going to Tamarindo, a beach on the northern pacific side of Costa Rica. Unfortunately it is my last excursion, but I think it'll be a good one. :)

Again, it sounds like we're staying at one of the nicest resorts possible. I think out ISA program got really lucky this term. Because our group has more students than usual, we tend to stay at the hotels that can accommodate all of us...the bigger ones.

And as for my "cool experience that I can't have in the U.S.," I signed up for the canopy tour. With this I get to zip line across 11 cables surrounded by, hopefully, more monkeys and other wildlife. I'll be doing that early Saturday morning, so we should have the rest of the afternoon to just relax by the beach. I think a majority of this weekend will consist of laying on the beach and soaking up that last-minute equator sun. We don't get much of it around here in San José.

At 5:30 a.m. on Sunday morning we have the chance to see some howler monkeys! There's a boat that will be taking us around in order to see some birds and other things too. What's cool about this is that it's optional...and free. So even though it's at the crack of dawn, it's totally worth it! Plus we don't leave until noon that day, so we can spend even more time at the beach. I may even take some surf lessons too.

¡Hasta luego San José!

La Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles

Just thought I'd share a little bit of culture with you. Read it! It's interesting.

Last week some of us went to Cartago, the original capital city of Costa Rica. Now it's most famous for the Catholic church. Besides it being one of the most beautiful I've ever seen, this church is also extremely famous for its influential history as well as its cultural importance today.

Legend has it that on August 2, 1635, a little girl found a black doll buried in the woods. So of course she takes it home with her. But when she wakes up in the morning, the doll has mysteriously disappeared. The girl discovers that the little doll had made its way back to the very same spot in the woods where she had uncovered it earlier. This goes on a couple more times before the little girl decides to bring the black statue to a priest. Believing it has magical powers, he decides to lock the doll up in order to keep it from escaping. But once again, the doll returned to its original home.

They marked this doll as the Virgin Mary. It was named "La Negrita," or the Little Black One. The importance of it being black was to express the importance of diversity and equality in Costa Rica. The Virgin Mary did not have to be European or white.

And because the church at the time was continuously being destroyed by earthquakes, the people of Cartago took it as a sign from the Virgin Mary and built a new church around this holy doll, exactly where she was found.

La Basílica de Nuestra Señora de los Ángeles (The Basilica of Our Lady of the Angels) is the holiest of churches in Costa Rica. To this day, the little statue is still believed to have extraordinary healing powers. And so every year, on August 2nd, people from all over Costa Rica (even Panama and Nicaragua) WALK to Cartago to celebrate the miraculous discovery.

Cartago prepares for 2 million people. That is half of Costa Rica's population! For some it may take hours to get there. And for others, their journey begins days in advance so they can make it to Cartago by August 2nd. (On foot!) Once people start to arrive, they crawl on their knees (no break yet) down the aisle repenting sins and making promises to La Negrita if their prayers are answered. We got to see a little bit of this in action when we went. Just a typical day at church, crawling on their knees.

This was something so different for me, so foreign. And it was incredibly moving.

"I wanna see it turn on"

I cannot get over where I was and what I did this past weekend. It was unreal.

Our excursion started with a waterfall...La Fortuna, straight out of a movie--insanely beautiful. Getting there wasn't all that easy though. We climbed down at least 400 steep steps just to get close to the waterfall. Once we took a few pictures in front of it, we had to maneuver around these slippery black rocks in order to get into the water, just a warm 60 degrees. Ha! People were calling it refreshing. Numbing was more like it. But with water that gorgeous, temperature didn't matter. I could have stayed in that waterfall for the rest of the weekend. Especially if that meant not hiking back up those 400 steps. Talk about exercise--talk about refreshing.

The weekend only got better. We were told that we'd be lucky to see Arenal Volcano. Most of the time it's too cloudy, too foggy, too rainy, etc. They were right about the rain, but it cleared up and we got the most amazing view of Arenal for the rest of the trip. Not to mention our hotel was right at the base of it. It couldn't have been more perfect.

Los Lagos is an amazing resort! Our rooms were awesome with front and back patios, therefore views all around. It had three major pools all equipped with water slides and 4 private hot springs that we all took advantage of at night. One of the coolest parts of this hotel was its landscaping. All different types of plants and flowers covered the resort. I can't even describe the work that must have gone into making that place look the way it does. A specific area of the hotel was dedicated to the butterfly garden and ant farm. But along the way you could find insane plant life, colorful frogs, turtles, iguanas, and crocodiles. We saw some pretty cool looking things in there. The baby crocodile was my favorite and the ants were pretty sweet too. (You can see them carrying the green leaves up the tree branch on the left). And okay, the best part of the hotel was, of course, the spa. I took full advantage of that within the first three hours we were there. First I got to take an amazing shower, solely based on the fact that it was warm 100 percent of the time. Then I laid down in this incredibly peaceful room that looked straight out into a jungle. Yes, a jungle. Words can't describe.

After a fun night of drinking and relaxing in the hot springs, we woke up bright and early Sunday morning for our "canyoning" tour. I was so excited about this, but I honestly hadn't put that much thought into the process. At least not until we were strapped into a harness, clipped to a wire and standing on the top of a cliff staring down at a 200-foot waterfall. (No, I did not have a panic attack for those of you who are wondering. Brittney, Lauren, and Cassidy) It was pretty incredible to repel down 5 different waterfalls on a rope backwards. I would easily do it again. It's a must for anyone that has the opportunity! The end of tour was met with, yet again, another exhausting hike up a mountain. What goes down must come up? Har, har, har.

There were two downsides to this excursion. One, that no picture does this place justice. And two, it was way too short of a trip. A day and a half just didn't cut it. But the time that I did spend there was incredible. I am so thankful.

Here is what's in store for the weekend

This Saturday we're going to Arenal, an ACTIVE volcano in Costa Rica. I've heard amazing things about it.

We don't get to leave on Friday. However, we will be on the bus by 6 am on Saturday. Once we get there, we'll hike straight to what looks like a crazy beautiful waterfall called La Fortuna. There we get to swim and relax the rest of the day.

Our hotel sounds really nice too. Being so close to the volcano, we get to enjoy the natural hot springs that are heated by the ground. Our hotel is supposed to be surrounded with them, each with a swim-up bar. There's also a spa, so I'm definitely going to take advantage of that.

I also signed up for "canyoning." I am so stoked. With this tour, I get to repel down four waterfalls and apparently "trek through the forest on magical trails." It sounds pretty great.

So unless there's a catamaran that takes us on a ride through lava, I'm pretty sure this trip is going to be even better than the last.

"I should have brought my goggles"

Sand in between my toes, check. Sunburn that will turn into a nice tan, check. Motion sickness on that badass catamaran I blogged about, check. Bee sting to the forehead, check.


We left for Manuel Antonio Friday afternoon right after our classes. (First, I grabbed a calzone from that guy). It was about a five-hour drive--NOTHING like the Lubbock drive, I assure you. Everything outside our windows was gorgeous and it didn't smell like cow manure. Not to mention we watched The Hangover and Friends the whole way there. At the halfway point, we stopped at this little place to pick up snacks and other munchies. I bought a bag of mini empanadas filled with pineapple jelly.

At about 6:30 we arrived at our hotel. We dropped off our suitcases and went straight to the beach. Afterward we had dinner and drinks at the hotel then hung around the pool until we were ready to go sleep in our (AIR CONDITIONED) rooms. It was really nice getting to know some of the girls more and we had a lot of fun together the rest of the weekend.

Before our 7:30 breakfast on Saturday, we managed to get a bazillion pictures of these super cute monkeys that were hanging around our rooms. They were everywhere.

By 9 am on Saturday we were sweating, waiting to get on the "Tom Cat," a catamaran from hell. Okay, I take that back. It was pretty sweet. The boat was huge, the alcohol was free, and the ocean was sublime. And for the first time in Sane José, we were surrounded with 100 percent sun. About an hour into the trip, we stopped to watch for dolphins. We were warned beforehand that we might not see any at all. Well, we saw tons. They were beautiful. It was really cool.


Unfortunately this is where my experience took a turn for the worse. At this point, I had less than one drink in my system. So when I started getting queasy, I knew it had to be motion sickness. There were a good handful of us that weren't feeling too hot though, so at least we were in it together. By the time they started passing out snorkeling equipment, I was permanently bent over my knees praying for the spinning to go away. But I mustered up some strength, sat up, put on those flippers, and hopped into the water. It was incredibly refreshing and instantly I felt better. And I got to see even more aquamarine life--tons of fish!

For the bumpy ride back, I found a nice spot to take a nap in. It ended up being in the sun, hence the red skin. By the time I woke up, we were back at the dock preparing to unload. Huge relief. And we were back by 2:00, so we spent the rest of the day shopping at this cool little souvenir market and swimming at the beach. It started to pour while we were in the ocean, so naturally we wanted to stay in. :) So fun! And then I got stung by a bee. Not so fun.


That night me and some girls went out to dinner and got to the restaurant just in time before happy hour was over. Fresh calamari, juicy steak sandwich, and two strawberry daiquiris. 16 bucks. So far, that was the first time I spent more than 8 dollars on food, and that still isn't bad.


The same adorable monkeys came to our Sunday breakfast. This time, they got even closer--taking bananas directly out of our hands. Later we went to the National Park of Manuel Antonio. We took a neat 30-minute walk through all sorts of greenery. Further up on the left you can see that we even spotted a couple of sloths. At the end of the trail we got to swim in this private little cove that had an even prettier beach than the one we'd been at all along. It was a perfect ending to the weekend.

¡Estoy una estudiante en la Universidad Veritas!

So okay, the Spanish language is finally making its way back to me. Definitely not completely, but enough to at least understand conversations at the dinner table. (Yes, it was that bad before). No, I won't come back speaking fluently. But I am picking up even the simplest of things that make me feel a little bit more confident.

Note to self: Keep practicing the language when I go back to the states or I'll lose it again.

I love my teacher. I love my teeny tiny class of five. And I don't even mind that it's a four hour class starting at 8 am. I'm in Costa Rica where schedules don't matter, and no one wears watches (unless you're from the U.S.). It's nice to have some sort of routine I can follow every day. It's the only time since I've been here that my type-a personality is being paid attention to...probably a good thing.

I really love this university too. It's super artsy fartsy, and there are always Tico students out and about doing, making, and creating all sorts of things. Just the other day me and some other 'gringas' (slang term for girls from the U.S.) were asked to help make an AXE deodorant commercial. Our job was to tackle him in the street--pretty ideal situation considering he wasn't half bad to look at.

Here is what's in store for the weekend

This weekend me and my fellow foreign friends are going to Manuel Antonio, a beach on the Pacific side of Costa Rica. I CANNOT wait to get there.

¡Quiero que la arena entre mis dedos de los pies!

We should get to our hotel some time Friday night. It's right on the beach, and apparently our rooms are all supposed to have an ocean view. The hotel itself sounds pretty small, so I think everyone staying there will be from ISA (my program). This gives me a better chance to meet some more students. Hopefully I'll cross more Ticos too.

On Saturday I'll be going on a tour that includes dolphin-watching and snorkeling. All the gear and equipment is included. And get this. We're gonna be sailing on, at least, a 37-foot catamaran while being served fresh fish, fruit, salad and alcohol! Yo Ho. Yo Ho. A beach life para mí.

South Padre, you're about to get your ass kicked. Miami, I think you are too.

La tierra de las frutas

First off let me start by saying that the fruit in Costa Rica is amazing. A-M-A-Z-I-N-G. You cannot get fresher fruit anywhere else. Apples, mangos, papaya, bananas, pineapples. You name it. I have never been one for Hawaiian style pizza, but holy cow! There is this cool little cafe next to my university that serves personal pan pizzas for, more or less, four bucks in U.S. money. This is no pizza hut; it's much better.

Okay, a little trivia for you. (Or maybe I'm the only one that did not know this).

Any idea where cashew nuts come from? Fruit! Each one kind of looks like an apple or pear. And in that funny shaped seed on top is a single cashew. Yup, just one. I was told the fruit itself is pretty disgusting, but from every single one we get another little teeny tiny cashew nut. Thought that was pretty interesting.

I've also included a picture of what my lunch has been looking like every other day. Or rather, what the guy who serves it looks like. He makes some really great calzones and other things that I have yet to try--burgers, burritos, empanadas. He sets up his stand everyday outside the school at about 12:00. I make it a point to get there no later than 12:05. :)

The immersion is starting to kick in

Losing my appetite, feeling lonely, sleeping excessively, and crying easily are just a few things I have stumbled upon recently due to some culture shock. It sounds a little dramatic, I know. But it's been four days now, and I'm happy to say that things are definitely looking up. I finally feel a little bit more comfortable with everything and I'm really starting to absorb more of the Costa Rican culture.

And I am very proud to say that the easiest things I have adapted to are the changes in my living conditions. Taking quicker and colder showers, sleeping with a lack of air conditioning, and using a waste basket for used toilet paper (that's right, no flushing) are just minor things that have influenced me to appreciate the small things in life. Bear in mind, I am not complaining. My family is nothing less than generous. I am very well taken care of over here.

"Pura Vida." The literal translation: pure life. But the significance is much more important here in Costa Rica. It's a way of life, implying that we should live in the moment, that life is good. Everybody here is so calm and relaxed. Nobody's rushing. Nobody's anxious. Talk about adjusting to change!

It's awesome.

Okay and dinner last night...I had some great zucchini dish with ground beef, vegetables, and rice, topped with some cheesy, soup-like sauce. So far, definitely my favorite!

Be jealous. Very jealous. :)

Casa de Costa Rica

I'm not gonna lie. Out of all the rooms in my home-stay, I got a pretty sweet setup. Privacy to the max! It's been hard not to stay in my room considering how much space I have.

Not to mention, my Spanish is really not up to par and neither is my family's English. It's easier to avoid the crickets chirping if I just keep to myself. The language barrier between me and the mother of the household has been a little discouraging. I thanked her for being so patient with me though (in Spanish, might I add). She and the rest of the family are really sweet and extremely generous; it's just been hard to express my gratitude.

P.S. I had an amazing tortilla soup tonight with an arroz con leche for dessert. Mi cena fue deliciosa! And that is my room upstairs on the left. Tight balcony, I know.

My last American meal...until July 31st

I mentioned living smaller in my last blog. So okay, eating Babe's Chicken was my last hurrah. For those of you who don't know, eating food from Babe's will always look like this. If it doesn't, you're not doing it right.

I expect leftovers for when I come back.

So the journey begins, in my room, that is

I am learning how to live smaller. So far, it has been an experience in itself, a valuable one at that. I have already gone over the 'what if' and the 'do I really NEED this,' but still my room is an obstacle of clothing, toiletrees, and shoes. (Oh yeah, stuff for actually STUDYING abroad too.) One way or the other, I will have packed too little or too much.

The less I bring the more room I have for excuses to go shopping. Just kidding Mom and Dad...I'll be far too busy partying, skipping classes, and making out with random Costa Rican men to go shopping.