Mi Primer Fin de Semana

I have now had my very first weekend in Costa Rica, in which I was free to do whatever I wanted. It started out with arriving back in the city from Parismina and having the girls at the house tell me that I was coming out with them that night. So we went out to a couple bars, and ended up having to walk around a bunch because one of the girls we were with had a bad copy of her passport as her i.d. so not a lot of bars would let her in. We ended up at this one called Xscape which was pretty fun. I had a tequila sunrise, which was super yummy and not at all strong. We danced for a little bit, but I got pretty tired since I'd been up early traveling back to the city from Parismina.

Saturday we decided that we wanted to go to Jaco for the weekend.  All five of us caught the 12:30 bus to Jaco, then Holly and I decided to find a hotel and spend the night, while Marisol, Mercedes, and Krista were going to head back to the city that same night. So Holly and I wandered around until we found a good price for a hotel. It was $46 dollars for the night, and we split it. There was even a TV with english channels. Then we wandered around again asking at all the tour places for a tour to the Isle de Tortuga for the next day. Almost all of the companies don't have any boats heading out to the island on sundays, but we did find one. It was an all day trip that included breakfast, lunch, snorkeling, and a bus back to San Jose.

So a van picked us up from the hotel at 7 in the morning and drove us to Puntalena where we had breakfast at a little restaurant place, included in the tour, then we all hopped on a boat for an hour and a half to the island. It was pretty fun, kind of like when my family went on that snorkeling tour in Aruba, with nets you could lay on over the water. Once we reached the island, we immediately got on a smaller boat to take us to the snorkeling site that was really close, so we snorkeled around for a bit. There wasn't much to see, but there were some fish, and I found a little hermit crab. About 2/3 of the way through the time allotted to snorkeling, I got stung. I assume it was a jelly fish, since I wasn't anywhere near any plants or rocks at the time. Basically it felt like my entire left leg was suddenly on fire, and I swam as fast as I could back to the boat. On the boat, the guide had some vinegar for me to put on my leg, but it didn't help much. Slowly over time, the stinging has gone down, but it's still pretty tender.

So after snorkeling, it was lunch time. We had a small dish of ceviche for an appetizer, curry chicken, rice, and veggies for the main course, and a sort of piña colada cake for dessert. It was a lot of food and I couldn't eat it all. During lunch, the local wild pig came around. I swear that pig thought it was a dog. When the kids that were on the tour ran after it, it just rolled over to be petted. After lunch, we had about 45 minutes to just relax on the beach, so I walked over to the little gift shop and bought a couple small things. I barely made it back in time for the banana boat! which was ok, and kind of short. Then we had another 20-30 minutes to hang out before the boat back to the mainland. Then on a bus back to San Jose, and a taxi ride back to the house, a late dinner, and bed.

This morning, I woke up at the customary 6:30 for breakfast at 7. A surprise was waiting at breakfast. The night before, two guys had moved into the house. Their names are Eric, and some Indian name I don't remember. Breakfast was the usual egg, rice, and beans, then off to Maximo to get placed into my new project.

Now, I'm working at a day care center. It's called Rayito la Luz. It takes three buses to get there. First, there's the cedros bus that brings me down by the Maximo office and one of the main bus stops which costs me 215 colones. Then, I take the L2 bus which costs 280 colones down to the GreenMart. Then I walk two blocks to the next bus station and take the last one which costs 230 colones. The way back is basically the reverse. So in total, it costs be 725 colones one way, which is about a dollar and a half, so it is going to cost be almost 3 dollars to get to and from my project every day. At the project, the kids are really nice though. There are 6 volunteers there, and about 20-25 kids that we basically just babysit. My hours are from 9-12. As soon as I walked in, the kids were just jumping all over me. They're really energetic, and I'm going to need coffee from now on to keep up with them.

The women who runs the day care has a really interesting story. She doesn't speak any english but I was told the story by the woman from Maximo who took me down there. The woman who owns and runs the day care originally started it in her house, and kept taking more and more kids. Eventually, her husband got so fed up with there being so many kids running around that he gave her an ultimatum; either he goes, or the kids do. She chose the kids, so her husband left, and she still runs the daycare. No longer out of her own home though. Now, there is a really nice facility with a kitchen and a small yard for the kids to play around in.