First Time Experiences and Manuel Antonio

Bueno, I apologize for the delay between posts. This weekend I was not around a computer at all, and during the week I just got a bit lazy, so here it goes.

Family: My family here in Heredia consists of one mother named Cármen who is not married (don´t know where the husband is or what happened to him) with several kids, one of whom is the director of the language school I am at. When I first arrived she was very friendly, very talkative, and it seemed like I was going to have a good time. Things started getting much worse after that. I decided to have a bowl of cereal that night, because I was a bit hungry, while watching some tv, right before going to bed. I put the bowl on the ground and put the milk away, and she woke up and walked with me to the couch to watch tv with me. I didn´t know whether to hide the cereal and risk her seeing it or just tell her (I didn´t think she would be that mad) so I just decided to be honest and tell her that I was eating some cereal before bed. She gave me this look, then continued to watch tv with me, which I thought was weird. It took literally 3 minutes to finish the cereal then I went to bed. The next morning at breakfast she told Elena (another student from New Hampshire staying with Cármen) and I that we could buy whatever food we wanted and keep it in the fridge but just don´t take anything of hers. I found this to be quite rude and odd, considering we were living with her. I glanced up on the shelf, and noticed the cereal was gone. She hid the cereal and gave me a lecture on not to eat food over a bowl of cereal. I couldn´t believe it. Throughout this past week, conversations with her have been horrible because she acts like she knows everything, including the laws of America, and when I proceed to correct her she says no and remains stubborn. It´s very frustrating. That is the least of the problems though. The food situation got worse. One night she made spaghetti and I wasn´t that full after one plate of it, so I asked if there was a little bit more I could have. She looked at me, chuckled a bit, and said, "Uhh, no." I was shocked. I just figured there wasn´t any left so I didn´t make a big deal out of it. What made it worse though was that Elena told me Cármen mentioned what happened to Elena the next day and started saying, "I gave him a big plate. I mean he didn´t pay twice," referring to me. I couldn´t believe this! This is not normal for a host family to deny a student more food. They are supposed to provide a sufficient dinner and breakfast. I have continued to sneak some food out of her fridge every night ever since, because she continues to not feed me a filling dinner. I have informed the school of this, and last week our class of 4 spent the majority of the time laughing and gossiping about her and how she is quite the character. I´m not going to bother switching families, because I only have less than week left, but it is just a bit frustrating and ridiculous at the same time. I will admit though, we have gotten into some pretty heated debates which I feel has made my Spanish better since I have to articulate my arguments to her because she speaks no English. So some good has come out of living with her. Ok, enough family talk.

School: Classes are better. I´m with really advanced students and the teachers are great and really don´t care what we do as long as we are constantly talking and using correct grammar. I have met a bunch of other students who are really great and who I may try and travel around with depending on our schedules. Nothing too exciting or interesting though.

Now on to the fun stuff!!!

Last Wednesday, after class, I did the most dangerous, nerve-wracking, adrenaline-pumping activity I´ve ever done in my life: I went bungee-jumping! I went with 2 other people, Chase and Kelly, and Elena came along even though she wasn´t going to jump. The drive was about 40 min. away and as we moved farther and farther away from the city and closer and closer to the mountains, I got more and more nervous. We turned off a main road onto a dirt road and there was an old bridge with a few platforms on both sides. When we got out of the car to look down, my heart rate definitely doubled. We were in the middle of these mountains that was just surrounded by green on a bridge that had a river running through it. There were rocks throughout the river, so not only was there no way we could touch the water on the jump (which I´ve heard people do in other places), but if there was an "accident", that would be the last "accident" any of us would have. Chase was designated by the group to go first since he didn´t seem that nervous. He survived, but watching him do it made the rest of us a bit more nervous. Next it was my turn. As they were strapping the ankle braces on to me, I tried to calm myself down but it wasn´t really working. I got on the platform and tried not to look down and just straight out, but that didn´t really help. When they gave me the go ahead, I started having second thoughts, and then......I just lept out. It was soooo damn scary, watching the entire world fly by, wind pushing my eyes and neck and head back into my body. And I was just screaming the entire time. I could feel all the blood rushing to my head, and even after the first jump, when I was dangling and swinging around, I was screaming from all the adrenaline. It was a huge rush. Probably the scariest part though was having to reach for the cable they dropped down and hook it up to a harness that was fastened on my waist. It wasn´t as tight as I would´ve liked it to be, but I managed to get pulled up with no problems. My legs and hands were trembling from it all. But it was so worth it. I later found out that it was an 80 meter drop - 80 friggin meters (over 260 feet)!!! The jump came with a video that a guy took from the top of each of us jumping, and I also had the guy that drove us to the place take a video with my camera. To say it was crazy is an understatement - definitely the most insane thing I´ve ever done. Jumping off a bridge with a thick piece of stretchy rope attached to you, who comes up with this stuff?? Anyways, I´m definitely planning on doing it again elsewhere in Costa Rica.

The next day after class, Chase, Elena, and I went into San José to check out a big music festival going on in the city. It was International Music Day around the world or something so there were a ton of local groups performing in different parks all around the city. The first group we saw was a rock band and they sucked, not to mention the fact that the lights and sound system didn´t work half the time. We walked down a street to another park and saw an African percussion group that had about 6 guys playing different types of bongos and drums and just making crazy beats. They were great. Then we walked about 2 miles to a gym that had performers because a guy from my class said he was going to be there. When I couldn´t find him, I remembered he said he was going to some dance performance with our teacher, so I wanted to go find him at this theater. Chase and Elena didn´t feel like coming, so I told them I would meet them at a bar called El Pueblo (The Town) at 10, which was when we were meeting other friends also. This was when things started turning a bit weird. I took a cab to this theater, and there ended up being no dance performance at this theater. I didn´t feel like going back to the gym so I walked to another nearby park where I could hear music playing. On the way though, I could hear people calling me over, and I turned around and it was two girls on the street. I debated going over just to talk to them, because that would have been quite weird, but when I took a closer look, I was pretty sure the two women were not women...I then briskly walked to the park a block away. Now this concert going on at this park wasn´t normal either. It was a heavy metal/death metal band, so there were literally about 100 kids with black lipstick, black eyeshadow, wearing black clothes, with either black or dyed magenta-red hair. Luckily, I was wearing a black shirt that night so I blended right in with everybody. To say the least, the music was not good. I knew there was a soccer game going on at that time, so after about 20 minutes of chilling in this park, I decided to go find a bar and just grab a few drinks and watch the game before 10. I noticed though that this area was covered with casinos. So for the next hour, I pretty much went from casino to casino (about 4 or 5 in all) pretending to play only so I could get a complimentary beverage. The time passed and I met up with the rest of the guys at El Pueblo. We were out till about 2 and by 2:30, I was home in bed.

Friday, I made plans to go to Manuel Antonio and catch the public bus out of San José after school around 5ish. Kelly (the one who I went bungee jumping with and who met us at El Pueblo the night before) was planning on going to Monteverde with some other people, but missed the pick up at a nearby park, so she showed up at my place and so I invited her to come along. It was great traveling with another person, even though I would´ve been fine alone, it definitely made things enjoyable. Manuel Antonio is a small small town on the Pacific Coast, so small in fact that most buses take you to another town called Quepos about 5 km away from Manuel Antonio. So our bus stopped in Quepos and we started our search for a hostel. After going to different places and failed bargaining, we found a new hostel that had only been open for 4 weeks (and so wasn´t in any guide book) that was located below a pharmacy on the road connecting Quepos to Manuel Antonio. It had several rooms with 4 bunk beds in each room, and was the cheapest one we could find. Plus it had a common kitchen and a nice big common room with a tv with cable and an XBox hooked up to it to watch movies or play games. There were also several groups of travelers staying there so it made things fun. We didn´t have that late a night that night because we wanted to get up early to go to the National Park in Manuel Antonio (that´s pretty much the only thing to do between these two towns).

Saturday we woke up a little after 6. Kelly took a shower and I got ready for the day. The hostel has a balcony that runs across the back, which you have to walk across to get from some rooms and the kitchen to other rooms and the common/tv room. This balcony though gives a view of the forest that is absolutely breathtaking. There were no clouds and the sun was beaming by 7, so there was just a fields and plains and blotches of different shades of green until the horizon. Suddenly, a monkey climbed across a couple trees right in front of me. That was a good sign that we were going to see lots of stuff in this park. We took a public bus to Manuel Antonio where you can walk to the entrance. But in order to get to the entrance you need to walk through a trail and in order to walk through the trail you have to cross a tiny stream. Now at high tide, this little "stream" can get a little above ankle-high, because it is fed from water from the beach right next to it. That´s right, ankle-high deep water!! Luckily, there are men with boats who are willing to take you across the 10 foot wide stream for a measly dollar. Kelly and I decided to brave it out and walk across this 10 foot stream that had water up to our ankles, risking everything in our day packs from getting destroyed. 5 seconds later, we made it across safely, with only our feet wet. That was close!! It was pretty damn hysterical watching people actually take a boat across from fear of water, even though we were at a beach. We got to the park by 7:30 and decided to walk a trail that took us around an isthmus with several look out points and different beaches to visit. We didn´t seem much wildlife besides several huge iguanas and lizards and lots of butterflies and other insects. Once we finished that, we saw a tour group heading to see some monkeys, so we jumped behind and followed. It was on the same trail we just finished, so we didn´t know what was going on because we would have seen them. But all of a sudden right next to us, there were about 6 white-faced capuchin monkeys crawling from tree to tree searching all over for food. Then one monkey grabbed a huge spider out of one tree and crawled to a branch about 5 feet in front of us all and started picking it apart and eating it. Very cool. After lots of pictures and oohs and aahs, the guide found a three-toed sloth about 20 feet above us. It was crawling on a branch ever so slowly. The guide said it only moves about 110 yards a day, and is only 5 times slower than a snail. What a lazy useless piece of crap! But watching it move almost in slow-motion was pretty interesting. On our way to another trail, everyone stopped and started staring at a backpack. I couldn´t figure out what was so great about it until I saw a monkey crawling over to it very cautiously. Then I heard screams from a couple in the water and I figured it out: we were watching a robbery in progress. When the monkey started to unzip the pack, the guide ran over and scared it away, as the couple ran over to make sure it didn´t take anything. But it definitely would have if the guide hadn´t done anything. Kelly and I decided to break off from the group and go ahead on another trail and on the way we saw tons of monkeys in the trees all searching for food, as well as another sloth hanging on a tree. I still can´t get over how lazy those things are! Along the trail I noticed a branch on the side had two different colors on it. When I looked closer, it turned out a snake was wrapped around the tree. It was very creepy looking and so after some quick pictures, we moved on. Then we ran into a tour group who had a scope set up looking at some zebra grasshoppers (brightly striped yellow and black grasshoppers). They asked us what we saw and we told them oh monkeys, sloths, and a snake. When we said snake, they turned right to us with a look of surprise. We told them it was right on the side of the trail a bit back and the guide was surprised he didn´t see it. Then a woman in the group said all we´ve seen are spiders and bugs. I felt bad. They paid $20 a person for this guide who couldn´t even find this snake on the side of the trail. The guide told us it was a rainbow boa snake, after looking at our pictures of it. We continued on to several other trails and later ran into another pack of monkeys that were even closer than before searching through the jungle for food. These trails also led to some great lookout points to the Pacific and the rest of the park. The trails were so damn awesome because everywhere I turned, there were lizards and iguanas scurrying about. It felt more natural there than in Monteverde and Santa Elena because of that, and the trails were less marked and there were fewer people. We got out of the park at 12:30. 4 and a half hours of hiking, at least 5 miles in total. We laid on the beach for about an hour, swimming in the water and body surfing the waves. The water was so amazingly warm, no need to get used to it. Like a bath. We got back to our hostel, made some lunch and passed out till it was time to party. We went out with the people in our hostel, good group of people who had been here for a little over the month getting certified to teach English. It was a good relaxing time.

Sunday, we packed our things and jumped on a bus after convincing the driver to fit us in even though we didn´t have a ticket. The drive was just UNBELIEVABLY BEAUTIFUL!! Equally, if not more so, than the drive from Santa Elena back to San José. We drove along the Pacific Coast and was on a ledge that just gave way to the most beautiful views of crescent-moon beaches. Got back into town around 4ish and was back at home with the wonderful Cármen by 5. For dinner, half a bowl of chicken soup with a few scoops of rice. Don´t worry, I filled up on other stuff that night.

I am currently figuring out other travel plans right now and getting excited for my birthday tomorrow. There is a teacher here named Samuel who has the same birthday as I do, so he´s going to get the teachers together and I´m going to get the students together and we´re all going to party hardy in town. Should be a good time. I´ll try to keep the rest of the posts more frequent and shorter. On the list of things to do: Volcán Arenal, river rafting, beaches on the Caribbean, Panamá.