Spring Break with Stephanie

Stephanie and I left my house on Sunday after a pleasant lunch with my host family. We had some nice discussions, one of which included South Dakota. My host sister really wants to come to the U.S. so she can practice her English. I told her she’s more than welcome to come visit me in Iowa and South Dakota, but that there’s not a whole lot to do there. However, Stephanie kept telling her how beautiful South Dakota was and how there is stuff to do. My family thought it was pretty funny that we kept arguing about it. And I do agree with Stephanie, there is stuff to do in South Dakota, and I’m definitely a big fan of it; however, I don’t know how most other people feel about it and I wouldn’t want her to be disappointed if it wasn’t like New York City or LA. I mean, I love tubing down the runoff polluted rivers of Iowa, I just don’t know how Georgina would feel about that.

Anyway, on Monday Stephanie and I went to La Fortuna and Arenal, and on Tuesday and Wednesday we spent a lot of time in Monteverde. We did a zip line tour in Monteverde, and we also went to a tree frog terrarium at night. We got to see some pretty colored frogs, and our guide was pretty good at mimicking frog calls. Oh, and in the zip line that we did, we got to do a “Tarzan swing,” which definitely scared me a little. We also went to a privately owned nature preserve to hike around. We saw some wildlife, and we even hiked down a pretty intense trail to see a waterfall. It was nothing compared to Mr. Chirripó, but intense nonetheless.

On Thursday we went to the Manuel Antonio National Park. We hiked around a little bit before plopping ourselves on a beach surrounded by jungle. Even though there were also many, many other tourist on the beach, I really enjoyed Manuel Antonio. It had some of the clearest water I’ve seen so far, and it was nice not having buildings behind you. Also, there are many white-faced monkeys that come around begging for food. Even though feeing them is prohibited, surprise, they still get fed. Sometimes, they even steal shoes and other items thinking they’re food (either that or they just think it’s fun to watch tourist try to run after them).

After a day on the beach, Stephanie and I were definitely ready to relax. Oh, and even though Stephanie’s legs “never, ever burn” (that is a direct quote, might I add), apparently the Costa Rican sun was just too much for that “winterized” South Dakota skin. (Just teasing, Steph…) Anyway, we spent the next day traveling back to San Jose, and Saturday we relaxed by the hotel pool.

Anyway, I hope everyone had a great Easter. I missed being at home for Easter for a big dinner and hanging with family. Oh, and by the way, when I get home I’m going to eat mashed potatoes and steak for a month, and I may never, ever eat white rice again.

This weekend, I had planned on “takin’ ‘er easy” and catching up on homework. However, my family is taking me to their niece’s house which has a hot tub. So we’re going to grill and stay there Saturday night. So, so much for relaxing, but at least I’ll be spending time with my family. I’ve been speaking way too much English lately.

Well, hopefully I'll stay up to date on my whereabouts and happenings from now on.

Nicaragua Trip

Alright. So I’m finally back from my travels. I’d love to write about every detail, but I would have to write a novel, and I’m more of a short story writer. Anyway, from March 17-22, I was traveling with the program that I study through. We went to Nicaragua for most of the week, but we also saw Volcano Arenal, La Fortuna waterfall, and Monteverde Cloud Forest.

Before I write about what I did in Nicaragua, let me share some information that I found in the CIA World Fact book about Nicaragua, Costa Rica, and the U.S. The GPP for each country is $3,200 (Nicaragua), $13,500 (Costa Rica), and $46,000 (U.S.). The percentage of the population that lives under the poverty line is 48% (Nicaragua), 16% (Costa Rica), and 12% (U.S.). These numbers correlate with the unemployment rates. In Nicaragua, the unemployment is 5.5% and the underemployment (not quite sure what that is…) is 46.5%. In Costa Rica it’s 5.5%, and in the U.S. 4.6%. The reason I’m sharing this information is because Costa Rica has a very large tourism industry. When I ask students here what they study, many have told me “tourism.” Anyway, my point is, Nicaragua has as many natural resources as Costa Rica, and in my opinion it is also very beautiful. However, it is so poor. And even though it could probably have what Costa Rica has, its government doesn’t care because it has other priorities like the army. The second we stepped off the tour bus in Nicaragua, there were little kids hanging on us and asking us for money. One humorous thing about these little kids and their begging is that they’re picky little beggars. I’m sorry if that sounds horrendously blunt and cruel, but it’s true. I didn’t have any Córdobas or any U.S. change, so when a little girl asked me for money I asked her if she wanted a piece of gum. She said yes, so I gave her one and then she said “two!” Well, I wanted my gum too so I told her no, but she still insisted on two, but apparently I’m heartless because I only gave her one. The next day at breakfast, a boy of about 8 was begging for food. We had some extra bread that we weren’t going to eat so we asked him if he wanted some and he said, “Yes, with butter.” There were no pleases or thank-you’s, it was definitely a command. I guess there’s not a phrase in Spanish that translates as our “beggars can’t be choosers.” Anyway, it was sad to see these children, who probably should’ve been in school, begging for money all day. Anyway, that was my tangent for the day. Now I’ll get to some of the main highlight of the Nicaraguan trip.

We stayed in Granada, which as I mentioned before is the oldest city in Central America. It was very beautiful because it was colonial. We went on carriage rides around the city and we went to watch the sunset at Lake Nicaragua (look at it on a map…it’s huge!) The next day we went on boat rides around the isletas (islands) of Lake Nicaragua. On many of these islands, homes are built, are being built, or the land is for sale, which I found sad. Our tour guide showed us some really amazing houses that are owned by the coffee plantation owners in Nicaragua. While on the boat tour, we went to an island that apparently people had put some monkeys on. To our surprise, the monkeys were quite used to tourists, and one jumped on our boat. It sat on people’s laps while trying to open our boat driver’s lunch pail that had old, crusty rice in it.

That same day we went to Managua, which has very large markets with very cheap stuff in it. When we got back to Granada, my friend Liza wanted me to go with her to the little park by our hotel because there were vendors set up there. I told her I would go there with her, but I couldn’t go near the stands because I didn’t want to spend anymore money. Well, apparently I have “sucker” written all over me because a man came up with some hammocks and asked me if I wanted to buy one. Since I was in the “no buying” mindset I firmly said no, but when he told me $5….well, who can resist a $5 hammock, even if you don’t have a place to hang it? Oh, and that same day I also purchased a $3 Cuban cigar with Liza, which we proceeded to smoke that night. I can definitely cross that off of my list of things to do before I die, and I definitely don’t need to repeat it.

The next day we went to San Juan del Sur. We took a boat ride to a beach that afternoon, and on the way back we saw “whale spouts.” I don’t know what they’re technically called, but we saw the water that shoots up when the whale breathes or whatever. Anyway, our boat driver was such a nice man that he drove us towards the whales. We actually got close enough to see their bodies and their tales come out of the water. Don’t get me wrong, I’m definitely glad I got to see whales in the wild, but at the same time, our boat was pretty small, so I’m glad we didn’t get any closer. (Side note: the following week I talked to some girls from Canada, and they told me about a troublesome whale near British Columbia that capsized boats full of tourist for fun…).

Anyway, once we got back to Costa Rica, we went to Monteverde and did the zip line tour. A zip line tour, or canopy tour is where they strap some gear on you, connect you to some cables, and let you “zip” through the air over the canopy or through it. It was fun, but I was hoping for something a little scarier.

Anyway, on Saturday we headed back to Heredia, and I was quite anxious to get back because my friend Stephanie had flown all the way from South Dakota to come see me in Costa Rica and was waiting for me with my host family. However, as we were leaving Monteverde, it started raining a little bit, and because we had a massive tour bus, we were unable to make it up one of the dirt roads. Despite our attempts to weigh down the back of the bus, we had to turn around, so I didn’t get home until 10:30 that night.

(I’m going to continue with this story in a different post because that way I can add more pictures!)

Manzanillo

The pictures are of Manzanillo, the beach, and the place we stayed.

So last weekend I went to Manzanillo on the Caribbean coast. If I could live anywhere in Costa Rica, I’ve decided I would live there. The town that we were in was small, and everyone knew everyone. The roads were dirt and the road just kinda quit once it reached Manzanillo. We stayed in a cute “cabin” type thing with Dan’s host aunt, so we got a good deal on it. We thought the mosquito netting was pretty neat. We had a nice balcony that had a hammock. We could also hear howler monkeys from the room.

We spent all day Saturday on the beach, so that was fun. The water is pretty clear on the Caribbean side, so we rented snorkeling gear. There is a barrier reef around Manzanillo, and it’s one of the two living reefs of Costa Rica. I saw lots of colorful fish and different types of coral. I can’t wait till I take my scuba diving lessons!

So it was just another relaxing, uneventful weekend on the beach. The following two weeks I’m going to be quite busy traveling. The 10^th through the 15^th I will be traveling with my study abroad program. We are going to be going to La Fortuna Waterfall, Monteverde Cloud Forest, and Nicaragua. I’m excited to go to Nicaragua and see the difference between Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Nicaragua is a much poorer country, so I think it’s going to be shocking to see some of the poverty there. An interesting fact; however, is that we will be staying in Granada City in the Hotel Alhambra—I lived in Granada in Spain and I’ve been to the real Alhambra, so we’ll see if they compare at all to the originals.

My friend Stephanie is coming to visit me over Spring break. She’ll get here on the 15^th, so my family is going to go pick her up from the airport and hang out with her until I get home. Then Stephanie and I take off on Sunday and we’ll be going to Arenal Volcano, Monteverde, and Manuel Antonio (a national park on the beach). So I’m going to be busy traveling (poor me, I know…).

I guess besides traveling, the only other thing I swear I do is eat. Let me tell you a story about why I’m going to be 10 times my original size when I get home. Yesterday I didn’t eat the lunch that my mom had prepared for me because I didn’t go home after class because I was with my friends at the university, getting their pictures on my computer. Then we went to the mall to get some things. While at the mall, I became a little bit hungry, so I just grabbed a cheeseburger and small fries from the ¢500 menu ($1 menu) at McDonald’s. I know, good choice. Well anyway, when I got home, my host mom noticed I hadn’t eaten lunch, and I didn’t want to hurt her feelings so I just told her I didn’t eat lunch. What I meant was, I didn’t eat lunch at home, and I just excluded the McDonald’s part. That came back to bite me in the bum. She served me a ridiculous amount of food for dinner. I had like a pound of rice, beans, 2 yucca (sort of like a potato) patties, lettuce salad, a salad type thing made out of a type of flower, fried plantains, and a steak (not like Iowa’s, but a steak none the less). My question is, who eats that many different types of food at one meal anyway? When I got done, I seriously thought about going to the bathroom and throwing up just so I would feel better. Anyway, about 20 minutes later my host mom came in and offered me some cookies. I turned away the cookies! That’s how full I was. As I’ve been told before, Costa Rican moms sometimes show affection with food. Needless to say, I will not be coming home lighter than when I left. My host family keeps telling me no one is going to recognize me when I go back because I’ll be black (from getting tan) and fat… Thanks host family, thanks.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy the pictures of Manzanillo and of Montezuma! I hope when I come back I’ll have some good stories to share, but nothing too good if you know what I mean!