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!