Oh, the Joy of Spontaneous Decisions :)

Nicaragua Was So Great, I Decided to Spend a Second Day There:         

           Early in the morning after our night in the dorm room at the Bearded Monkey, Jeff and I headed into central Granada. The central park was kind of run down looking, but the Central Market we walked through to get to the bus to Rivas was really incredible. It stretched for blocks, packed with barely room to walk between the vendors of any number of things: we passed booths selling fruits and veggies, fresh meat, live chickens, spices, soap bars, etc. I would have loved to explore more, but so early in the morning I must admit that the mixture of smells was really making my stomach churn. Garlic, freshly butchered meat sitting in the sun, dog poop, human sweat, and the decaying smell of gutter things is just not as pleasant at 9:00 am.

           The most amazing thing (in my opinion) was walking through this massive central market, two obvious Americans, obviously traveling with lots of stuff (albeit not expensive stuff,) and no one even attempted to rob us. In Costa Rica, "gringoes" are fairly obvious, but if you're semi-dark skinned like me or speak Spanish as well as Jeff, sometimes it's not as obvious. In Nicaragua, however, the people are significantly darker skinned, so we stuck out like sore, pale thumbs.

           The bus to Rivas was absolutely packed, with people standing up in the aisles and doubling up on seats. We boarded early, so we got some seats, but that made disembarking a little more difficult. The buses in  Costa Rica sometimes get this packed, but the buses are actual line buses: in Nicaragua, they are old school buses, and running up and down the Nicaraguan roads has done a number on their shocks. I can't even imagine how one of those buses would fare on Costa Rica's terrible-quality road systems...

           Once we arrived in Rivas, Jeff left the bus to smoke a cigarette, and I stayed on to guard our stuff. A young girl came onto the bus to sell something, and I apologized to her for only having Costa Rican colones. She offered to change my money for me, and actually gave me a fairly good deal (again with the good Nicaraguan people!) so I bought some of her plantain chips. Then we got into a conversation, and she asked where I was from and whatnot, if Jeff was my boyfriend, ("but why? such a cute pair!" she said), if I had a baby, if my nose ring and tattoo hurt, that I was really brave when I said they didn't, etc. Then her friends got on the bus, and I was suddenly bombarded by pre-teen Nicaraguan girls asking me if they could have my earrings, marveling at how they matched my eyes and my shirt, and squealing "Caballito!" (little horse) when they saw my little horse tattoo. Always cautious, I tried to answer their questions while keeping an eye or two on our bags, making sure an extra friend wasn't taking off with them while I was distracted: nope, the girls were all completely enthralled by this American girl, and Jeff stood by laughing at the situation.

                 Our tentative plan had been to catch a cab to the lake port of San Jorge, then catch the ferry across the lake and stay for 2 nights on Ometepe Island. But the bus we were on was continuing to San Juan del Sur on the Pacific coast, so we spontaneously decided to see where that led.

                San Juan del Sur was a cute little beach town, where we stayed in some hotel that had super steep stairs I would not want to try going up when I was intoxicated in any way. Our room had 2 beds which we termed "the sand bed" and "the sleep bed". We filled the sand bed with sand during our midday nap after beach time, then slept soundly with the window open in the non-sand-filled bed that night. The beach was fairly littered, and the water looked dirty due to the dark sand, but the local kids (and us foreigners) were simply enjoying beach time. It was really nice to get to the beach again, since my home in the states is an ungodly 11 hours west or north of the nearest beach. Ugh. While we were sunbathing, we were semi-unaware that the tide was rising until it was right upon us. I had asked Jeff to warn me beforehand if we would be moving, since I had untied my bathing suit from wanting to get a tan on my back without lines. Predictably, the tide snuck up on us and the whole beach almost got a show of the Very White Parts of Mica while I tried to move my bag, mine and Jeff's clothes, and my shoes to the drier place where Jeff was relocating our towel. Oh geez. I would ordinarily be all for a nude beach (it's actually on my list of things to do before I die), but Nicaragua is actually more conservative than Costa Rica. And Costa Rica doesn't really acknowledge homosexuality as a lifestyle, and Catholicism is written into the Constitution. [Ahem], so no topless beaches on this trip.

               Anyway, that afternoon we had some really delicious fresh ceviche, and an entire fried fish for dinner, and found some really great Nicaragua tourist T-shirts for $5: Nicaragua is far cheaper than Costa Rica. Despite the fairly good exchange rate (530 something colones to the dollar), Costa Rica is one of the most expensive Central American destinations.  

               For the interested traveler, San Juan del Sur has no nightlife. All the bars and even the liquor store were closed when we went walking after dinner. I left the hotel through a locked gate to see if we could re-enter with our room key, to no avail. Jeff asked some other guests how to get back in (since no one was at the front desk), and it turns out the hotel personnel had "forgotten" to give us our second key. So the nice Swedish couple loaned us theirs since they weren't leaving.

And Even a Third Day:

           We caught an early bus back to Rivas, where I reunited with my little friend Amanda the Plantain Chip Vendor, whose friends were enchanted by my tattoo and earrings; then we took a taxi (after a very confusing conversation with taxistas, each one trying to tell us that that other guy doesn't actually have a taxi, he'll rip you off, etc.) to San Jorge, the port to catch the ferry to Ometepe Island in Lake Nicaragua. 

             On our bus ride from San José to Granada, among the multitude of topics Jeff and I discussed was pet names. I told him all the strangely named pets I've had, and on the spot decided that I would name my next dog Quincy McFatkins the Nicaraguan Doggy, and perhaps call him Nic. Or something. Anywho, I tell you this simply for the following reason: we met a dog at San Jorge, the skinniest, most malnourished dog you have ever seen. And ironically, due to my previous pledge, I named him Quincy McFatkins the Nicaraguan Doggy. After he gobbled up the soda crackers I gave him, we changed the name to Quincy McCoolkins the Nicaraguan Doggy, and apologized that we didn't have any more food to give him. Poor little guy.

               The ferry was chugging across the lake (super slowly) and when it finally arrived, we climbed up to the top floor (POOP DECK!) to get the absolute best sun, breeze, and views. Logically, to reach the top deck you must climb something, but instead of stairs there was a ladder. Which I attempted to climb while wearing a dress that would not cease whipping in the wind, wearing my backpack and keeping my hair from stabbing me in the eyes with one hand, climbing with the other. For this reason I'm glad we didn't hurry onto the ferry to beat the crowds, but were instead at the back of the line. Until I started to climb, when two men appeared out of nowhere and declined when I offered for them to climb up before me, rather than stand underneath while I climbed. Perverts. 

              Volcán Concepción and Volcán Maderas make up Ometepe Island. It actually was two separate islands that joined from built-up volcanic material between the two peaks. They are really incredible, especially as you approach them from the lake, and every few minutes they grow a little bit bigger--or perhaps we were shrinking, the closer we got. The lake was higher than usual, so the cars that disembarked the ferry had to drive through a foot of water to reach the road, and we passengers had to cross a makeshift walkway made of sand bags. We found a taxista to take us to a hotel, (which ended up being an overpriced taxi ride and the hotel was where all the tourists from the boat ended up, at different times from different taxistas. Jeff and I are of the opinion that about 5 different taxistas are all working for this company, and only pretend to compete with each other for tourist occupancy in their cars.) Anyway, we had to get gasoline for the taxi but the electricity was out in the port-town of Moyogalpa; we finally found a gallon that the taxista siphoned into the tank. I'm always afraid when I suck on the straw that I'll get gasoline in my mouth. At least I don't smoke. Although a burnt mouth would be an excellent excuse for ice cream :)

              Riding down the Ometepe roads was an interesting experience: every road side had worn-in trails trod by cows, horses, mules and oxen, several of which were walking down the road sides as we drove.  We even saw some horses and cows on the soccer field, with a beautiful Volcán Concepción in the background.

              After arriving at the hotel Charco Verde (I don't really recommended it) and taking a quick nappity nap, we decided to romp around on the trails the hotel staff told us existed. Well, they did not. Or rather they were covered by the unusually high lake water. Thus, we went traipsing through a swamp with our new dog friend, a cross-eyed Dalmation who I named Squishy, and who I couldn't look at without giggling. Since the trails idea failed, Jeff and I walked down the road from our hotel and I exclaimed "I wanna see monkeys, a snake, and a hippo!" On our walk up the road, we saw some magnificent volcano, sunset and mountain views, and MONKEYS in the treetops on the road side, just hanging out. Then we caught a ride to Moyogalpa to buy some rum & coke, caught a bus back to Charco Verde and walked down the driveway of our hotel in the dark. A motorcyclist pulled up behind us and (here we go with the nice Nicaraguans again,) went really slowly so we could see where we were stepping. Thank God, because I stepped over a stick that made me think "Hm, that could be a snake", then Jeff stepped on the stick that began to slither into the pasture--the picture I took shows a small snake slithering into a pasture....then the snake's body continues on the other side of a fence post and although it's about 4 feet long in the photo, you can't see its head. The men at the hotel told us it was a boa. But, no hippos. In the fields, however, there were tons of really lovely fireflies that reminded me of home in the summertime.  

               While I was in the shower, Jeff hung out in the hammock (Get it? Hammocks hang from the ceiling, he hung out, yuk yuk yuk) and told me he thought he felt something fall on him. Then he went to get some ice for our rum and cokes, and I relaxed in the hammock, only to find a MASSIVE spider on the floor between me and Jeff's shoes. I picked up the shoes so he wouldn't find a semi-unpleasant morning surprise, and took about a dozen pictures of our new friend, aptly named "Spidey" by Jeff. When there was a lull in the hammock and rum and coke conversation, we would both look around and wonder aloud "Hm, where's Spidey? He can't have gone far, oh look he's in the corner," or "Wow, he got to the window pretty quickly. Do you remember that time when he was just hangin out in the corner?" And with Spidey's travels on our minds, we slept.

            

Thus I Begin My Worldliness: Nicaragua

          I'm a bad person. Despite knowing all about having to get a student visa when I came here (because I was staying 4 months, 30 days longer than the 3 month tourist visa allows), I found out the prices of getting my documents officially translated (between $20 and $200 I was not told I would have to pay until I got here, so of course this unemployed college kid doesn't have the funds) and did not do it. I didn't get my documents translated. I didn't turn them in to get a student visa, I didn't get my passport stamped anew, and I didn't get along with the woman in charge of all this. But I did get my fingerprints taken at the San José police headquarters, which was a hoot and a half. Because I did not do the above things, I was pulled from my bed in the wee hours of the morning and shipped off to Nicaragua with new friend Chuck (who has been living here for several years, is not a student and still has not gotten his student visa), and thus begins my tale. Luckily I had a bag packed for this specific occasion, as well as a semi-itinerary worked out with Chuck, and a brand new empty memory card-- cha-ching :) [please do not believe the previously written sentences, they were only typed to protect the affected parties]

         Chuck and I had decided to meet at 10:30 on 11/1 at the TicaBus terminal, the Costa Rican-run bus company that runs all over Central America. The buses left at 12:30 and, seeing as how I had no idea what time I would arrive there I left fairly early and ended up at the terminal at 9:45. Luckily I had my book, The Alchemist, sent to me by a dear friend [insert love]. If you haven't read it, it's all about omens, which I find rather intriguing although omens are really given meaning by our own interpretations. 

        Regardless, here's a side note: my mom wasn't too keen on the idea of me going to Nicaragua with a strange man she did not know. She claimed it didn't bother her that he was 30 years old, but that she knew nothing about him. I sent her our tentative itinerary and assured her he was a nice guy, the fact that he didn't make any moves on me when we had to share a hotel room should indicate his noteworthy intentions, and that she shouldn't worry. She sparked back with a curt "Mica, serial killers are nice people, too." [end side note.] [commence nail-biting.]

        So, sitting in the bus terminal reading a book about omens got me thinking: "Self, maybe this is an omen that he's not showing up. Maybe it's a sign that he is a serial killer and this is your narrow escape since you didn't listen to your mother. Maybe you'll have to go to Nicaragua by yourself and have a REAL grand time," a possibility for which I began to make plans. 

         Another side note: Chuck is always late. [end side note.]

         We had planned for whoever showed up at the terminal first to buy both tickets and get reimbursed by the other so we would be guaranteed seats next to each other; around 11:45 I decided I would go to Nicaragua by myself, and I purchased my ticket--I had already tried to buy both when I first got there, but passports for all passengers were needed, so I opted to wait. I was nearly an hour early, after all. So, after purchasing my ticket, the bus to Panama boarded at 12:00. Chuck careens in about 5 minutes later, out of breath and apologizing profusely about a long bank line. We stood outside the terminal, him smoking his who-knows-what-number cigarette of the day, me relaying to him that I thought he wasn't coming. (It wasn't until later that I remembered he was "kicked out of the country", too, and basically had to leave. No wonder he was so incredulous when I told him that. I decided not to mention any serial-killer stuff, for fear of giving him any ideas if he didn't already have them.) In this cloud of mistrust (at least on my part, I'm pretty sure he was happy and oblivious), we loaded the bus to Nicaragua.

           Five hours of Spanish crossword puzzles, "find the seven differences", and rounds and rounds of everyone's newest favorite game, "Guess who's dead" (I preferred "Guess who's alive" because--still fearing my mother's words--I didn't want to say "OK, Chuck, guess who's dead?!" and he says "Mica is!" and chokes me in the back of the bus. My imagination is too wild for me to be dealing with these situations solo) later, we arrived at the border station. With the butts of their guns in our backs, the border patrol----nah, I'm just kidding. We got our exit-stamps hassle free, then the last pee-break in Costa Rica, and re-boarded the bus to the entrance station of Nicaragua. We were in no man's land, Chuck mentioned, and I couldn't help but think "If he kills me now, what country will try him as a criminal? We're in between governing factions." Then we crossed the border, got our passports collected and stamped--although I must say I'm not a fan of my precious passport being in a plastic grocery bags with 20 other passports, but stamping collectively through the bus company did expedite the process--and boarded the bus for the remainder of our trip to Granada.

            Chuck has traveled to Granada, Nicaragua before, and likes to stay in a small hostel called the Bearded Monkey. So we weren't aimlessly roaming through the country, but I couldn't help but wonder "has he conspired with the hostel workers about killing me? did he pre-order my bed sheets to be laced with arsenic?" We got off the bus at the wrong stop (oops) and took a taxi to the hostel in Granada, which wasn't far. We had the taxista wait outside while we exchanged some money in the hostel to pay him: FYI, if you go to Nicaragua from Costa Rica, take out dollars from the ATM. Nicaraguans don't accept Costa Rican colones, I found out the hard way. This turned out to be a Chuck-pays-for-all trip, and Mica-keeps-the-tab: oops, again.

             After some dinner and a quick nap in a hammock even though I had a bed, we headed out to a bar to grab some genuine Nicaraguan Toña beer, not that fake-Toña crap they sell in Costa Rica (not my opinion, never had a Toña). On the way there I apparently got too close to the wall as I was walking down the sidewalk, and the piece of wall I got too close to just so happened to have a large metal rod sticking out of it. I got sliced in the shoulder, and named it my battle scar. Ouchie. But, since the smell of my blood didn't make Chuck go crazy I knew he wasn't a vampire. 

          We returned to the hostel and found a guy watching a movie where some weird zombies are putting other zombies into a meat grinder: Chuck and I both couldn't watch, and I was reminded that he hates scary movies. Now, would a serial killer hate scary movies or want to watch them all the time? That's what I thought, too. 

          Then we went to bed. This is a long blog and it's just Day 1, imagine what's to come! (It does not involve my death, sorry to spoil the story for you.) 

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.