kid at heart.....

i returned from jaco early this morning. friday night, i stayed at vista serena in manuel antonio again.... and without fail, i was overwhelmed with the amazing people, atmosphere, and energy.



with the help of some fellow montanans, i made two huge batches of lasagna.....spicy chorizo, mushrooms, all types of local tomato sauces, pastes, and fresh herbs.
the following day was spent at the beach in manuel, working on my spanish with the local surfers...one memorable conversation that i had was with a tico. i asked him why the ticos are so intense when it comes to women.... and he responded with, 'the reason that you think we are so intense is because you are used to your cold american men'.... OUCH!

a group of us headed out saturday night to jaco, a 45 minute drive north of manuel antonio. ROAD TRIP!!!



i had been getting mixed reviews about jaco so i wanted to check it out for myself....
relatively speaking, it is not my favorite place. a little criminal for me.
i did, however enjoy the ocean thoroughly and played in it for hours on end...like kids in a candy shop. tapping into the kid in me is necessary. especially when you have another light hearted kid to play with....

jaco bound

i am pacific bound this weekend. checking out jaco, just north of manuel. will return with tall tales....

rose

spotted this rose the first day i arrived here....

cahuita national park

let me introduce you to the montana group...



oh yeah, and the wee ones



now that we are acquainted....
we board the baby blue bus and weave our way north to cahuita national park. the rest of the day was a sweet cultured concoction of snorkeling, sightseeing, storytelling, sandcastles, seashells, sunbathing, and playing in the warm caribbean.
follow me....





white throated capuchin.... these skillful rascals usually hang around in groups. they have been known to fool tourists by distracting them with their baby monkey....while the people´s attention is diverted, the rest of the monkeys rob you. food, trinkets, shiny objects....



don´t step on the leaf cutter ants...



one bite from this female eyelash palm pitviper, and you have 15-60 minutes to live...



blue crab...this guys cute



northern raccoon



another white throated monkey....oh wait, thats lil matteo



the beach........



sandcastle numero uno. check.



sandcastle numero dos. check





ciao!

puerto viejo

after settling in friday night, a few of us decided to amble about. we felt confident that we could find our way home, seeings how there were only two streets.



and



we followed our ears to the sounds of reggae and found ourselves in front of a 3 man band called new dimension. with the rhythm of the ocean waves kissing the shoreline, teaming up with the positive energy of the music, we all turned into puddy. we were able to unconciously release any tension or oppression that we may have been shackled to. i slipped away into the comfortable holds of the night and slept like a baby. the next morning, i woke up to this....



the day had great things in store....

in route to the caribbean

hola amigos!

i hope everyone is enjoying their summer so far. i was fortunate enough to get the opportunity to travel to the east coast this past weekend. it took us 5 hours to travel 130 miles. small roads snaking through thick jungle... but at least we were riding in style....



we passed coffee fields, hectors of banana plants, imperial breweries, and hundreds upon hundreds of acres of dense jungle. within the jungles roam pumas, jaguars, iguanas, snakes, and monkeys. we saw a beautiful blue morpho butterfly just outside our bus... able to keep pace with our sloth like speeds. the blue morpho is among the largest butterflies in the world and sports brilliant blue wings spanning 5 to 8 inches across.

puerto viejo is much different from the pacific coasts. visitors realize shortly that the pace of life here is even slower than the pace of life in san jose or the pacific. sitting on the shore, sunbathing, enjoying the reggae beats in the background... oh yeah, and a cerveza for good measure. hmm....make that two.



there is an ecclectic mix of afro-american, spanish, and indigenous cultures here that when blended with the customs, produce a magical alice in wonderland experience.

mi familia

i am fortunate to have such an amazing tico family here. they are really some of the most upbeat, high energy, gracious people i have ever met. however, not one of them speak a lick of english.

ana larena, the mama, is a cooking goddess. from 6 a.m. to 10 p.m., the table is full of different varieties of costa rican food. pineapple, papaya, bananas, vegetable trays, rice and beans, pasta, chicken breasts, garlic sea bass, fresh avocados.... it doesn´t matter what time i come home, i am greeted by ana with a smile and several different food items to choose from. i can´t keep up with the amount of food the locals eat and i just nibble here and there. it has turned into a running joke in the household. they don´t understand why i don´t want to eat alllll daaayyyyy loooong. ana just laughs at me when i tell her i am full, like there is something wrong with me.... all in good fun of course.

franz, the papa, is the comic relief of the family. he is of common height, about 5 foot 7. he, along with the rest of the family, is constantly smiling. franz works all day and comes home as jolly as when he left. very refreshing. i would to if i had a house full of delicious food, and eager family awaiting. he has a big old belly and the children make da dum da dum noises as he waddles into the kitchen to eat. it is pretty hysterical. he is very animated and is very willing to speak slowly to me in spanish so that i can pick up what he is putting down.

the oldest, diana, is a ball of energy. what i love about diana is that she is completely attentive to everything i say, full of questions, and possesses genuine care for me and my well being here.

franz, 24, is a sweetheart. he is finishing his degree in chemical engineering and knows a few words in english. he wakes at 530 a.m. and works til 4. from 4, he goes to night school and is home for dinner by 8ish. this schedule is monday through saturday.

johan, 16, is in highschool at the colegio del rosario just across the street. he is adorable and is super respectful.

the baby, bernardo, is 12. he is the cutest thing i have ever seen. total mhe seems very polite and respectful for his age as well. still a mamas boy.

the family is wonderful, and i look forward to each time i come home during the day.

la cocina

i am all about diving into any and all of the cultural experiences i can get my hands on here. taking advantage of all of the amazing opportunities in costa rica is a must.

salsa lessons last night were, as expected, filled with white skinned dancing wonders from all over the country. it is fairly easy to get the hang of, but i have a dancing background so it came pretty natural to me. the chicos, on the other hand, were having issues due to swinging hips being the meat of the dance, no pun intended. the dance is super sexy and i am looking forward to bringing my skills back to montana.

they are offering cooking lessons today. seeings how i have the afternoon off, i am going to check it out and refine my cooking skills... or lack thereof.

pictures soon.

ciao

la salsa

salsa lessons tonight. not quite sure what to expect, aside from probably every white kid from the states to be there.... i hope i get paired with a tico. ciao!

polychronic land

school started early today with several brief orientations. a multilingual professor, by the name of juaquin, gave a lecture that was especially interesting to me. i have been blown away by the locals concept of time here, and he was able to expressively articulate the locals view on time....



Costa Rica is regarded as a "polychronic land", where time is not as important as other countries. certain obligations such as class and particular professions require prudency, of course, but in general, time is flippant here. he spoke of the time block theory, which is a concept that i hadn´t heard of before. people regard time in blocks. different cultures have different durations of time equivalent to one block. for example, lets say you were meeting a significant other for dinner. how long would it take for you to start getting anxious, then angry... at what point would you expect an apology... at what point would you expect an explanation.... and so on. interestingly enough, a study has shown that people from the united states have a 5 minute time block. if a date is late, it takes the average american 5 minutes to start wondering....after 10 minutes, an apology is expected, and after 15, the frustration is rising and a full explanation is expected. this of course doesn´t generalize every united states citizen, but i believe it is a good estimate. on the pacific side of costa rica, the time block is one hour. meaning, it would take a full 3 hours for an explanation to be expected if you were late.

so next time your dinner date is late, be aware of your mood and your frustrations...and just relax.

silence

manuel antonio. vista serena.

after sampling the locally made sugar cane liquor, guaro, in a plethra of different homeade fruit cups, i insist that we head to the beach.



i was hesitant at first to jump in until kylie, miss brooklyn, streaks past me and dives into the ocean. we all soon follow, shedding any doubt we once had. we play in the salty seawater completely uninhibited for what seems like an eternity. highly recommended.

we all rose with the sun in the morning, drinking fresh coffee paired with fresh mangos. no hurries. no worries. after a brief stint a la playa, and our last day together, the decision is made to prepare paella for everyone staying at the hostel. the four of us leave for the mercado and it starts. the rain pours down harder than i have ever seen. we run into fish and meat markets to find our ingredients, the rain falling so hard now that we were only hoping that kylies rental car was equipped to turn into a boat so that we could at least paddle home. we get home (or what seems like home) resembling a bowl of limp noodles. that night, as the paella wafted through the hostel, and the rain beat down on the tin roof, the lightening storm began.



all across the pacific, we saw lightening strike, followed by the loudest crackling thunder i have ever heard. after dinner, we all sat in semi silence, and without actually expressing in words, i am pretty sure we were all in awe of how raw and beautiful mother nature can be.

Cheshire cat

time travels soooo slooooow heeeere...... it is a welcomed change of pace from my bustling lifestyle in bozeman. up until now in costa rica, time has been measured by the light of day or the dark of night. this is apt to change tomarrow, seeings how i start class at the universitad de veritas bright and early.

closing my eyes and, quite literally, blindly selecting a beach to travel to on a costa rica map, i wind up in manuel antonio. at this point, i could pass for the cheshire cat, i am so bright eyed and bushy tailed. i find vista selena, a hostel on the beach, just around the corner from my drop off point. when i walk in, there is a full fiesta in swing. i was welcomed with open arms from people all over the world. vancouver, holland, israel, switzerland, and new york. the language barriers were apparent, but it only added to the excitement of the situation. mangos, pineapples, and avocados clad the open tables on the deck. hammocks to relax in, ocean breeze, music, drumming, guitars, friendly people, boundless food and drink....




and one of the most breathtaking views i have ever seen. just beyond the deck is a lush and tropical paradise, monkeys literally swinging on the trees yards from you...and then the pacific ocean, aqua blue and bath water warm all year round. this place is full of good energy and i relished in the comfort immediately.



many adventures ensued in the next few days that i can quite frankly say were some of the best times of my life to date.....i will try to deliver these experiences through words as best as I can in the following days. ciao.

san jose cafe

After a long and sleepless night in flight to Costa Rica from Bozeman, MT, i made it in this morning. Shuffling past anxious taxi drivers, i find my driver, Victor... who is awaiting me with a smile that seems unreal for 530 a.m. His countenance puts me in a good mood, and as we head to the Universidad de Veritas, we pass massive coffee fields.... alluding to my prospective cup of local cafe. Victor and I spend the next hour sitting in an openwalled coffee shop trying to decipher eachothers languages, and of course, bebemos cafe con leche.
Not even 8 a.m., city is bustling, mood is set, and Julia is caffeinated. The remainder of the day was a cocktail of cat naps, thunderstorms, mas cafe, aimlessly wandering the nameless San Jose streets, and these two realizations: Don't leave the house without an umbrella. And, although I have impressed myself with my fragmented Spanish, it still needs alot of work.