Children's Museum Invaded by Big Kids! Read all about it on page 2B

      Today's Spanish class consisted of a field trip to the Popular Culture Museum in Santa Lucia de Barva. I think it's pretty coincidental, too, that I met this friend from a town I wanted to visit because of the volcano, visited and went part-way up the volcano to see the view of the city at night, and now am in this guy's town again.

       Odd.

      So, I was pretty hungry on my way to the museum; I soon realized it was because on Monday I'd eaten some bread for breakfast, and maybe a sandwich for lunch, Tuesday some more bread for breakfast and some chicharonnes for dinner (fried pork rinds, mmmmmm healthy), then Wednesday an orange and a liter of sweet tea. Wow, I do well with self-upkeep thing, yeah? Anyway, we arrived and an old Costa Rican woman taught us how to make bread. She made the dough, then we formed it into adorable little shapes and watched it rise in the oven, then left it to cook while we toured the rest of the museum. 

       The rest of the museum consisted of a covered shelter exhibit area with cross-sectioned examples of how Costa Rican houses have been built over the years. My favorite was the adobe houses made of nothing but mud, but that had little pockets carved out inside to store money, treasures, etc., and no one except the person who put it there knew the little treasure coves existed. 

       Then a fully-furnished colonial-style house, which was fairly (no, make that VERY) creepy when the lights got turned out and only candles were lit. After that tour, we ate our bread (which might have had a hint of garlic in the dough, but I dipped it in my hot chocolate anyway. Remember, I was famished), then headed back to ULatina.

        Later that night, a whole bunch-o-gringoes trooped to Stash's house, where we carved ayote! (The closest gourd/ calabash we could find to a punkin). Nells Bells and I shared one that we carved in the shape of a city skyline. Yami, Stash's host mom, voted ours the best :) 

         Halloween morning, four of us super-adventure types headed into San José downtown to take a whirl through the Museo de los Niños (Children's Museum). I had planned on going here that day I did all those other museums, but it looked like it would be much more fun with friends. I was excited because all the exhibit descriptions were in Spanish, but they were geared towards children, so I assumed they should be relatively easy to understand. The museum is housed in a yellow castle-shaped building, and has a really cool mosaic sidewalk alphabet running up the hill to the entrance. The first exhibit was about planets, then colonial and indigenous Costa Rica, the human body, a magnet exhibit, and some really funny emus. A lot of the exhibits had some super-cool tie-on aprons with period-relevant characters painted on them, like an indigenous chief and his shaman mistress, a Caribbean cook, and even a treasure chest full of pirate hats to play with! You can see the photos here. There was supposedly a room where you could put on a pretend-to-be-pregnant-belly, which I wanted to do (Nells Bells told me once, "Mica, your desire to be a mom really freaks me out.") but--ALAS--it was closed. Possibly for the better, I might have really enjoyed not getting to see my toes...

         In the human body exhibit, we also took tons of hysterical pictures, but this time all we were entertained with was a mirror--oh the joys of being easy-to-entertain :) Then there was a mummy room, where the mummy that stood up in its sarcophagus had broken at the waist and so came tumbling out onto Stash when she opened the sarcophagus door--all the more ironic because it was Halloween, and our group of big children almost peed our pants in the children's museum. How fitting. 

El y Ella, or You and Me.

          I met a friend through another friend. His name is Chuck, and he lives in a town  I've been wanting to visit because it has a volcano in it, one that is supposedly less frequently visited and quite beautiful. So of course I invited myself to spend the night on my friend's couch. We met up after I finished my classes, which were in Heredia anyway due to a guest lecturer, and Heredia is much closer to Barva than I would ordinarily be on a Tuesday afternoon. Chuck happens to have Tuesday afternoons off from work, which just seemed to work out too perfectly, you know? (In case you were looking for foreshadowing in that one, it wasn't intended, it did work out pretty perfectly, uttered without sarcasm or irony.) 

           We hung out around Heredia chatting and discovering each other's favorite childhood memory (or some other subject over which we  bonded, I forget); when we finally realized what time it was, it was already 12:30. Buses back to Barva and back to San José had stopped running hours ago (OK, so maybe only an hour, but either way we were stuck!) so we ended up having to (chastely, mind you) get a hotel. We solicited a cab driver to take us to the nearest, cheapest hotel, and as the desk worker handed us our room #7 we simultaneously noticed the name of the place: El y Ella. Him and Her, for those English speaking readers. One could only speculate the type of activities that occurred in such an establishment, and Chuck and I half-jokingly threw around the idea of asking for the price difference if we paid by the hour.

So, here we are, a non-couple in a very couple-intended facility, and this is what we found in Room #7: 

• There was a hole in our bedroom floor that looked into the bathroom of the room below. That is a lie, however, because upon further inspection the supposed bathroom contained mops, buckets and other janitor-worthy cleaning supplies. But there was still a hole in our floor!
  
• The bathroom "door" was a see-through yellow shower curtain, and there were at least 2 cockroaches who failed to understand the point of remaining inconspicuously hidden from view. And one of them was massive, I might add, and obviously the cleaner, less-diseased of the two because he resided in the shower.
• The window had a great view.....of the roof next door and probably a fifty foot high smokestack pouring out foul pollutants. You know the type. Only maybe there was just an ugly view out a window that people were just  glad was there so they could see approximately what time it was/ whether it was raining as they shimmied back into their pants before hitting the afternoon at the office. Either way, it was unpleasant. But the room was for sleeping, (in my mind, possibly not the majority of the clientele) so who cared about an ugly view anyway, yeah?
•  The walls were covered with sad attempts at English phrases that have probably never even been uttered in English, such as "I so hiiiigh an I want to do it all niet long, but I cannnnn." Oh. Ohhhhhhh-kay. I feel for you, man.
• There were also scratches on the wall. Had we entered a rabid armadillo holding cell? The world may never know...
• Chuck and I awoke early in the morning because a) someone was hammering on the roof, b) the ugly window failed to open, (ahhh, so this is NOT a suicide hotel) and it was burning up in the room.
• Then we discovered a creepy green stain on Chuck's side of the bed, so we squished the two of us onto my side to continue our fitful slumber.
• When we finally awoke, Chuck threw around the idea of a shower, but mourned the loss of a towel. I told him he could use the blanket from the bed, but I think I was mostly joking, especially after he looked like he might vomit at the execution of that idea. As we got ready to leave, Chuck discovered a crunchy towel wrapped in a plastic sleeve---had it been sterilized? Had it needed sterilization?--So Chuck unfolded it and we both cracked up: Hey, Let's TWIST! Wow.... 
• So, my favorite part about this hotel was brushing my teeth--the sink was teetering above-and-behind the toilet and somehow the piping was connected: when I spit my excess toothpaste into the sink, it bubbled up in the stagnant toilet bowl. I realize the sink drains into the toilet, but I refuse to soil myself with thoughts about whether the toilet drained into the sink... the sink I used to brush my teeth....[shudder]
• Did I mention that this room cost 7,000 colones, which is approximately $14? It was totally worth it, if only for the complimentary continental breakfast of toilet water and free room service wake-up call via hammer at 5:00 am.
• We left. Hurriedly. And sadly, did not make it to Volcán Barva. 

I am a very long blog. Because very many exciting things happen to Mica.

• We had a killer 9 essay question exam on Monday in our Poverty & Human Development in Latin America class, an exam that took almost everyone the entire 3 hours of class to finish: ugh. Then Spanish class where we watched Pan's Labyrinth. Every time I watch Spanish movies or tv shows with English subtitles I always try to understand without looking at the subtitles, but it takes a lot of self-discipline. Usually I can understand the majority. Then Jacobo and I watched Bordertown, a Spanglish movie about the "unsolved" (or rather un-tried) murders of several women sweatshop workers in Juares, Mexico. It would have been a lot better--in my opinion-- if it hadn't starred J.Lo. One of my many pet peeves is celebrities who think that just because they're famous in one thing they need to go gain fame in another in which they have little to no talent, E.G. Britney Spears and J.Lo as actresses and Lindsay Lohan and Hilary Duff as singers. Really, people, you don't need to hog all the fame, leave some for the talented people. 
• Anywho, now that I'm off my wee tiny soapbox, more about the week. Tuesday's classes with Prof. Q. had their exams in McDonald's café, then a quick tour through the Jade Museum and our second museum in a Nicaraguan restaurant while it rained its daily amount.  The Jade Museum was really cool, with lots of jade jewelry, stone tables and (my favorite) ancient pottery. The most interesting thing is that there is no jade to be found naturally in Costa Rica--meaning it all arrived here via trade with surrounding Central American countries, most likely Guatemala and Colombia. Yay for interacting with your neighbors! Miguelito informed me that I pronounce the word "museum" funny, as if it is spelled "muzim." Hmm. There's a movie festival going on this week of Latin American films at a local theater, completely free, two times a day, one film a day until Halloween. I want to go!
• That night I got bitten by lots of bugs at Frodo's house after our night at the bar. It itched.
• Wednesday morning Kate and I headed to a pool at a San José ritzy gringo hotel, where we sunbathed and had a super great time swimming in the rain. Then T. McGee's class where we were both fairly hung over which made the class last even longer than it ever should have. 3 hours is a long time to begin with, but when you're nauseous and have a headache and no bread to sop up the extras in your stomach, the last thing you want to be "learning" about is pollution and gross things in the water you're drinking to clear your head.
• Thursday held Spanish class and not much else, as far as I recall... 
• Friday morning super bright and early the group met at ULatina to leave for our Program weekend field trip. We were supposed to be there at 6 to leave by 6:30 but definitely didn't even end up leaving until around 7:30. I sat with Prof Q. after we picked him up near the bus station, so I couldn't resist talking with him instead of listening to music, reading or sleeping on the bus ride. We drove through Braulio Carillo Park where Jake and I pointed out all the places we had interesting adventures; we drove over the Río Sucio again, and could see where it was joined by the "clean" branch of the Dirty River, a brown branch on the left and sparkly blue on the right. 
• We arrived at Dole banana plantation for a tour and information session guided by the Public Relations manager who was wearing the funniest shirt. The banana field was enormous, with all the banana clusters wrapped in blue plastic bags (we asked--they are recycled, thank goodness), hand-dug trenches to channel excess water away from the plants, and all the banana plants (not trees, technically herbs according to our guide) tied to one another with bright orange twine. The guide was very knowledgeable and informative, and had the knack for keeping a group of 20 American teenagers interested in what he was saying--- he was funny. He showed us how easy it is to cut through a banana plant with your machete (something I must buy before I return home! They look so fun!), and I got to climb up a rickety bamboo ladder to put a blue plastic bag around a banana cluster (funny how the shortest person in the group had to do the "tallest" job.) Then we watched as two of the workers harvested a cluster, one underneath to catch it as it fell from the tree, and one wielding the machete to cut the cluster from the herb, then cut the herb down entirely because each plant only produces one banana cluster per lifetime. So labor intensive and so much organic waste! The cluster got pulley-systemed back to the processing plant, which we could visit because it was not a busy  day for processing. Special care was taken to protect the bananas from bruising by the leaves (hence the plastic bag) and by other bananas (they used foam pads in between each bunch of bananas), and by handling in the processing plant (so they traveled via water, which was reused for a week or 2 at a time before refreshed, thank goodness). Although bruising the skin does not injure the fruit inside, bruised bananas violate the international fruit trade regulations---ridiculous, no? All the "unsightly" bananas are marketed within Costa Rica or used for organic fertilizer.  Then we all got to taste banana liqueur (pronounced "licker" by us Southerners: Mom asked me if it was liquor or liqueur, but they are both pronounced the same, in my world.)
• Next came EARTH University, (Escuela Agricultura de la Región Tropical Húmeda, or the Agriculture School in the Tropical Humid Region of Costa Rica), where we had lunch, toured a school-owned farm, and got some information about the university's programs. It's unique in that there are 400 students from all over the world, and all of them major in Agronomy, the only course of study offered at EARTH. The farm we toured was really great: we saw the cow pen where they kept and milked their herd of cows, for which they played "suave" music, to improve the milking amounts and milk quality. Our guide told us the cows don't like reggaeton, haha! Then we saw the corral where all students get experiential learning by artificially inseminating 30 cows--sounds like fun, huh? We saw the biodigestor that collects all the farm's poo, and captures the methane gas released from it, which is then used to power  gas ovens in the kitchen. The excess water and organic material drain (pulled by gravity) through a series of ponds to essentially filter the gunk out; the silt on the pond's bottoms is too strong/ acidic to be used as fertilizer for fields, but the farmers have discovered a way to make fertilizer from the ever-abundant pond plants. When we walked up to the pond, we heard something rustling in the plants and assumed it was a bird, but then a Jesus Christ Lizard skittered across the surface of the water and submerged near the bank. Right as he went underwater, a crocodile surfaced in the middle of the pond--how can you not love nature? The farm also had a Swine-fattening area, where the cute pink piglets turned into large brown pigs that I thought were cows from a distance. I also saw a pink dragonfly with white wings (it was prettier than the giant pigs.) We returned to EARTH (I giggled at the idea of intergalactic travel), we had free time to swim in the pool (where we gave ourselves Martha Washington hair and inadvertently chased off the practicing water polo boys), then a BBQ dinner and traditional dance presentation from some of EARTH's graduating international students. Dancers wowed us from Haiti, Ecuador, Bolivia and Honduras with all sorts of amazing moves and beautiful costumes. It made me regret not being more in touch with my culture, not having any traditional dances of my own heritage to share with my children. Do any readers have specific family traditions that are 100% from your heritage? I think our only one is Thanksgiving and Christmas... What do you think symbolizes "American" culture? After the dance performance, we practiced our own "moves" and learned theirs, and were super sweaty by the time we arrived at our hostel.
• We spent Friday night and all day Saturday at Los Tucanes, a farm-turned-lodging-area near EARTH, where we got delicious traditional meals and tours of their different farmy aspects. They grew coffee, macadamia nuts, sugar cane, and various fruits; had an oxcart and adorable oxen to pull it; a closed-cycle macadamia nutshell slow-burning furnace that satisfied the majority of the farm's energetic needs; they grew and processed everything except the coffee. We picked coffee beans and macadamia nuts, Steffi learned how to drive the oxcart while Jake and I rode in the back, then we squeezed  the sugar-juice (tapas de dulce) out of sugar cane and drank it, while munching on the "meat" of the sugar cane (we were all hyper for about a minute, then just wanted to doze in the sun). We learned how to boil and purify the tapas de dulce juice, then form it into hardened blocks of pure sugar, then how to wrap them in sugar cane leaves. The sugar was delicious, I must say :) 
• We then stopped at Lechería Las Lapas, or The Macaw Farm, a New York family-owned dairy farm. We all got to milk a cow, then watch the milk get separated into skim milk and pure cream via centrifugal force in a funnel that entered small spinning container with two spouts.  Did you know it takes 10 gallons of fresh milk to make 1 gallon of cream to be used for ice cream? The ice cream was (delicious, first of all!) the farm's main product for selling, so the skim milk retained from the milk went to the calves after weaning them from their mother's milk, but before weaning them from milk entirely. I bought a 1/2 pint of sesame seed ice cream because I'd never heard of it before and wanted to try something very new--I recommend it. This farm is still very small, so its products are only found in Costa Rica. 
• Then we drove to the community center in rural La Argentina where we met the farming families with whom we would be staying. Since we were such a large group, each family had a few students. I was staying with Melba and Gerardo at their small farm, La Finca Agroecológica Los Manantiales, with Kimmy. The house had 2 parakeets who craved attention and would dance, sing, laugh and talk to get it; it had an entire room full of 7 beds specifically for people who came to stay, like we were doing. From what I understand they almost constantly have at least one guest, often several at a time, and some for some months at a time. What test of patience! Melba and Gerardo were an older couple with 3 kids who were starting families of their own; their farm consisted of young organic coffee that had not yet reached production age, sweet potatoes, some fruit trees, a horse, a cow, 2 pigs, egg-laying chickens and a rooster (and the eggs were super-yummy. Even Loly, the most vocal parakeet, loved to eat the eggs! and drink the coffee, too...) They also had a tilapia pond, and had found a baby ocelot in their house which they kept in a large cage in the backyard, complete with a flowering tree where it could eat its daily raw steak and raw eggs. Her name was Contessa, and what an incredibly beautiful animal---because she has lived in captivity, she will neither grow to the size of a wild ocelot, nor can she re-enter the wild.
• On Sunday, after Kimmy and I slept for almost 11 hours, we had a delicious family breakfast, then headed out for a property tour (7 hectares, about 15 acres) and river walk with Gerardo and Timo, their newest guest, an American student studying abroad in Panama. The hike through the woods was beautiful: we saw a cute little red frog with blue pants, and after clearing the trails a bit and almost falling down the super-steep hill, finally made it to the really clean river. Hot after the hike, we decided to swim in all our clothes: the water was electrically refreshing. I found a crab and Gerardo found a walking stick bug. On the way back, the three students were teasing Gerardo about lying to us about his age. He was supposedly 67 but we claimed he was 21 because he was in far better shape than we were; he practically ran up the 70 degree incline we climbed down! We made it back to the house, had a delicious lunch, played with the birds some more, and dried off from the river, then got picked up by the bus to head back to San José. What a long but incredibly memorable weekend. I must say that staying with the rural families has been one of my favorite parts of studying abroad so far. How can it get better than a Spanish speaking family that lives in an area that reminds me so much of my TN home?

Over-qualified National Symphony and an Entire Day Spent Walking

• The next memory-worthy activity was our 10/8 cultural activity to El Teatro Nacional in San José where the Costa Rican National Symphonic Orchestra was performing different different movie scores. Just for kicks and  giggles I dressed up "fancy" for the performance, although the dress code was jeans and tennis shoes---sometimes I just have to stand out, ya know? Jakey and Miguelito also dressed up, so I looked like I had a couple of handsome dates. The Theatre was really beautiful inside with all the dimmed lights, ornate gold trim, leather theatre seats, painted ceilings, affluent and middle class Ticos alike: the performance was good, too. The Orchestra played theme songs or medleys from classics  like Return of Superman, Indiana Jones, James Bond, Harry Potter Order of the Phoenix and Pirates of the Caribbean End of the World, as well as other movies like Memoirs of Geisha, High School Musical and Happy Feet (which was my favorite, very dance-worthy).  
• Afterwards a few of us went out for a tame night that turned kind of wild: we had pizza and beer at El Patio, a restaurant where the pizza was the only cheap thing, then to Barrio California where I met a Costa Rican from Boston with whom I got very frustrated because he spoke fluent English with an almost-inaudible accent, thus wanted to speak in Spanish even though I wanted to speak in Spanish; then to the Latino Rock Cafe where we didn't have to pay the usual cover charge and watched a pretty good live music show whose drummer we thought was naked, then a fairly crappy DJ named Caesar and Joe and I danced to his "spins" which I could have spun, having never spun anything in my life. 
• Due to our upcoming midterm exam on Monday, Jakey and I decided to spend Friday studying at the University of Costa Rica. The first time I went there just to walk around, I decided that I wanted to go there. We sat at a café to eat lunch and study a bit, then walked around the beautiful campus (it actually has trees!), got some ice cream, and sat in a park area until it started raining and we made our way back to the starting-place café. Walking around campus I saw the "bouncer" for Black Tropical Bar in Barrio California...that says I go there too much. That night we had a movie night to watch my first Quentin Tarantino movie, Death Proof. If you have the choice, don't watch it, although it is kind of funny...but mostly strange. And the girl from Rent has a really bad fake laugh.
• Bright and early on Saturday morning Jakey and I bought our bus tickets that would take us to Volcán Barva in Braulio Carillo National Park (foreshadowing: or so we thought). IF YOU WANT TO GO TO VOLCAN BARVA, GET TICKETS TO HEREDIA, THEN TO THE VOLCANO, NOT GUAPILES! The bus dropped us off at the Téleferico (Canopy Tour), which was about 50 aerial miles and 75 miles by the nearest road from where we wanted to be. But, we were just a few kilometers outside Braulio Carillo National Park, so we started walking. We pretended we were road signs, ran the speed limit, created impossible body positions, stood on booby traps to view the view, staged hilariously frightening pictures, arrived at a death  camp, and finally entered Braulio Carillo to "start" hiking, although we'd been hiking since 7:30ish.  So of course I was hungry. But someone apparently stole my mandarin orange and banana from my bag on the bus, and Jacobo warned me not to touch anything on the trail or roadsides because "it's probably poisonous." Thanks, Mom :)
• Braulio Carillo is a huge park, and is separated into two different sections, Volcán Barva (where we wanted to be) and Quebrada Gonzales (where we were and planned to have fun if it killed us!) It's an interesting park because it wasn't destined to be a park but ended up being so as a compromise between constructors of the Guapiles Highway (which splits the park in two) and the people of the area who didn't want the highway to come through. So, although you can hear the highway and it probably chases the more silence-loving animals further into the forest, it is by far the most easily accessible by car, yet one of the least-visited. I wonder why? Most of the park is at the altitude of cloud forest, so Resplendent Quetzals can be found there, amongst the other abundant wildlife. We began hiking on the west side of the highway, on the Las Palmas and Botarrama trails. I found a massive tree, and we found some penis-roots which were disgusting looking. Sick, no? Totally. I know. 
• So after that the trail ended in a stream, we forged it and got a great view of the Río Sucio (named Dirty River for its brown color, which is actually derived from volcanic mineral deposits rather than dirt), saw an animal that looked like a bunny without long ears, and had a couple of girly photo shoots whenever we stopped to sleep in the sun. Then some more hiking on the El Ceibo trail across the highway, tons of ants and a hummingbird, and waited beside the road until a bus picked us up and we had to lie in the aisles since there were no more seats. 
• Then the bus broke down.  
• But the view was beautiful.
• And we eventually made it back to San José to eat a 3:00 lunch, walk around to find some ice cream and take a bus back home because we were finally tired of walking. 
• Once again, Sunday was for resting. And some more studying....maybe.....

Kali, please make fun of me for my love of documentaries

• After my weekend in Monteverde came a fairly tranquil week; Monday we had a debate about the pros and cons of a welfare state in my Poverty & Human Development in Latin America class, then Spanish class in the afternoon where the 3 separate levels of Spanish watched a movie together. It was called "Voces Inocentes", Innocent Voices, a heartbreaking film of the civil war in El Salvador, based on one boy's true experience. As sad as it was, it was a beautiful movie and should be watched (just like any other documentary or true-life-experience film about hardship), to both give the audience a glimpse of life in developing countries and a greater appreciation of what we have. It sounds cliché, but it really makes my problems seem small; that same day I got my Spanish exam back and I was disappointed with the 85 I made. But at least I'm not living in a war zone, dreading my 12th birthday because I know I'll be drafted to fight for a cause I don't believe in. That being said, some activist/documentary films I like, recommend, or want people to view are: Invisible Children (child soldiers in Uganda), Voces Inocentes (Salvadoran civil war), Bordertown (killing women in Juares, Mexico), Maria Full of Grace (drug trade), Recycled Life (living at the Guatemala City dump), Painting Without Permission (Chiapas, Mexico Periclean Scholars' involvement), A Place Called Chiapas (intro to the  The Future of Food, Who Killed the Electric Car?, 
  
• I don't remember anything happening on Tuesday. I sat beside Miguelito in class. And went to a bar in Barrio California which has quickly become everyone's favorite: a girl apologized to me in the bathroom for snorting coke, and a guy who asked me for a cigarette told me he thought I was Costa Rican until I started talking. 
• Wednesday brought with it Zarina's class, which continues to get more and more unbearable. Her 3 hour lectures are basically things we all learned in some Biology class taken over the years (and because we're all in the environmental program and obviously interested in environmental issues, we have all taken at least one Biology class in our short lives).
• Matito and I gave our presentation on the Salvadoran civil war in Spanish class (the US was involved, and not in a good way. You should educate yourself about it.) Basically the US funded the El Salvadoran government and military that were killing the guerilla fighters and innocent bystanders, and the US then-president Jimmy Carter did not respond to the Salvadoran president's plea for the fighting to end. 
• After that class, Kate, Matito, Marcus and I headed northwest of San José to Alajuela's stadium: JUANES CONCERT!!! The 1 hour bus ride and short walk downtown were un-painful, the lines were long, but we made it inside the stadium fairly quickly. We had tickets for the cheapest seats, which ended up being in the middle of the fútbol field covered in cardboard. A local band, Escat played first, a Costa Rican band fronted by a singer with immense lung-capacity. If you are unfamiliar with Juanes, you must definitely check him out, especially if you like Spanish-speaking sex gods.  You can hear some of his songs on his official website (link above), or his myspace as well as drool-worthy pictures. The concert was wonderful: it started raining on us about 1/4 of the way through, just a slight mist but by the end of the night we were absolutely soaked. Juanes played a few songs, then left, causing the audience to chant "Otra, Otra!" (another, another! similar to encore), and he finally reappeared to appease us, which was GREAT because he hadn't played my favorite song yet and I was disappointed. It ended up being the very last song he played, Nada Valgo Sin Tu Amor, and I must admit that I squealed like a small child when I heard the first few notes. Made our ways home from Alajuela, then bed para tener sueños dulces de mi amor y cantante favorito :) 
• Friday 10/3 I woke up bright and early to catch the bus to Tortugero, but there was yet another miscommunication among our group and I ended up waiting where the others were not. So I went back home to sleep some more (only running on 2 hours at this point) but ended up making alternative weekend plans instead. The silver lining of getting left behind was that today was Chicitico's 5th birthday, so M.N. invited me to the fiesta :) It was at her mom's house, which is very nearby, and Spiderman-themed (not el hombre de las arañas like I would expect!) I met M.N.'s sisters, their kids and their grandkids, all adorable I might add: there were mostly women there, but neither of Chicitico's parents showed. Perhaps they were working and would celebrate later. We ate pizza, a yummy bread-pudding-esque dish that M.N. made, croissants, cake and ice cream cones. We sang "Cumpleaños Feliz", Chicitico blew out the candles; then we let them again, and he smashed his face into the corner of the cake, coming up to breathe with a huge blue-icing grin. I guess it's a funny cultural tradition! 
• Saturday morning I was up early again to catch the bus to Volcán Irazú, about an hour south/SE of San José. The bus left at 9:00 from downtown, where our taxista dropped us off: I wanted to tell him where I'm from because I eavesdropped on his phone conversation with his cousin, who was apparently in Tennessee, but he stayed on the phone until after we left. We drove through Cartago, a city that has some cool ruins, and eventually started climbing the volcano's steep sides. The views were beautiful, green pastures of pillow-grass (looks soft and fluffy like a pillow, that's the name I gave it), and fields of crops. It must have been the perfect day for harvesting onions because they were all lying on top of the soil, roused from their cool little beds to dry in the sun, still in perfect little rows--a scene my camera just couldn't capture. All the green and the fields and pastures, with crops and cows really reminded me of home :) We arrived at Irazú and first thing  saw a coati playing on the ranger station roof. Coatis are part of the raccoon family, and I just learned that they are also called hog-nosed coons, Brazilian Aardvarks, and--my favorite--snookum bears. Haha!!
• We began hiking around the Crater Principal, which had a tiny lake in it that was labeled "Regeneration Area." I like that. The other crater had a bigger, sulfuric lake in it (let's swim!!) that was bright green; we could see the layers of sediment in the crater walls and so many different colors of rock. And some people think rocks are boring! It was surprisingly chillier than we expected (and we expected chilly due to the altitude), so we continued hiking to stay warm. The surrounding area was covered with these plants called "sombrillas de pobre" or poor man's umbrellas, because of their potential diameter. I finally got the photo I wanted. Kate and Nicole opted to stay at the ranger station to rest,  but I wanted to get my money's worth of hiking so I traipsed to the highest point. The road was in terrible condition, much like most Costa Rican roads, but this one actually had a sign advertising the fact. The vegetation grew on both sides, but dropped off on the left so--if it had been sunny and clear, which it was not--you could have seen for miles, I mean kilometers. I was very out of breath, but I like to attribute that to my being at 11,260 feet above sea level rather than to my being out-of-shape. The hike was "strenuous" enough that I could remove my jacket after a while, but put it back on at the top, where the clouds blew away and I could see both craters, the regeneration pond and the lagoon inside the crater, perfectly clearly: my camera promptly picked a perfect time to lose all battery power. If you'd like to see a photo, maybe I can draw you the one from my memory :) 
• After catching my breath, enjoying the view, watching the clouds come back over the volcanoes, and practicing all the French I know, I headed back down from the summit. Wearing my red rain jacket, I met a little hummingbird friend who hovered around a tree, then zoomed towards me and my jugular, soared past me, returned and hovered by my right elbow, not frightened by my shriek or attempt to cover my face. I think he thought I was a big juicy red flower and wanted to pollinate me or sip my nectar (as dirty as both of those sound). I continued walking down the road only to be the target of another bird "attack", this time by a sooty robin that flew really close to my head, then plopped down on  a branch. 
• When we got back to San José, Kate and I debated the possibility of returning to Pavas for the fiesta celebration we were invited to, but ultimately decided against it because we didn't know any of the details. And the slum areas of San José are probably not the best places for two American teenage girls after dark, if you catch my drift. So we continued walking through the streets of downtown, heading nowhere in particular, which is the way I like to walk. Then we saw two police trucks and a big crowd (definitely a throng) thronging around an empty precaución taped spot: we found a viewing area and realized it was a body, a man had just died of a heart attack in the middle of the street. I'd seen dead bodies before, of animals and people whose open-casket visitations I...visited?, but never someone who had just finished dying. It reminded me of my past fear of dead bodies: even though I'm not afraid of them anymore, my heart still jumped (which is ironic because mine was doing what his couldn't). 
• Just like God, Sunday was a day of rest (not that I'm comparing myself to the Big Guy, don't get that idea) from my relatively-tame-but-still-tiring weekend.