Now that my week at the beach is coming to a close, and I've "graduated" from my four weeks of language school, here's a look at a day in the life of an unemployed, vagabond (as my big brother now calls me; Hi Matt :).
Sunday, I stepped off of the bus from San Jose to the stifling, dusty heat of Samara Beach. I walked the few blocks to the school, led by a professor that I knew from the other campus. If she wasn't there, I'm not sure how I would have found the school. I would eventually have stumbled on it - Samara is a town of two streets - but it would have been a tiring way to end my trip.
My new Mama Tica met me at the school and walked me to her home, which thankfully is only a five minute walk from the school (this proved very useful when I overslept twice this week for reasons that I will explain later). She showed me my room, which I described earlier except that I left out the part about all of the little holes and gaps in the construction, which I feared would let in giant tarantulas to bite me in my sleep! I have thankfully seen no spiders here, but instead have been visited often by gheckos, one of which has made a home in the corner of the room, above the head of the bed. The gheckos, my host informed me on my first night, eat mosquitoes, so I quickly learned to love the ghecko. Besides, they're really cute and they make a little chirping sound that's... well, cute.
I sleep well at night knowing that the mosquito net over my bed prevents any interesting creatures from accosting me in my sleep. However, while nothing can get into my bed, I think there may already be little creatures living IN my bed. I have an ever-increasing number of red bumps on my legs and suspect that my mattress has a case of the bed bugs. Good thing I am only here for a few days more. I have enough freckles and don't need bed bug bites to connect the dots. Although, (and I believe I speak for all red heads here when I admit), that when I was little, I was convinced that if I accumulated enough freckles, it would eventually become a nice ubiquitous tan. Now that I am IN my 30s and am a little more experienced in life, I have been thoroughly disabused of this theory.
So, anyway, I've slept well every night until somewhere between 3-5am when the neighborhood howler monkeys begin sounding off. There is one in particular that must have a favorite branch by my bedroom window because he's there every night making a very disturbing noise that someone in the past thought sounded like a howl. I would say it sounds more like a dying cyclops.
Monday morning, I had grand plans of getting up early to walk on the beach as the sun rose. But when my alarm went off, the monkey was sitting on his favorite branch and exercising his lungs at full capacity. Me, not knwing anything about monkeys and not wanting to be pummeled by one on my first day in paradise, decided to forego my walk until I had a chance to ask my host about them. She was very amused that I would think monkeys are anything but funny. Although she did warn me that if I ever came across one on the ground, I should steer clear (file that useful factoid away...). The next day, she spotted three of them traveling through the trees behind her house and pointed them out to me. I would go into detail about them, but the gist would be that they were doing monkey things - swinging from branch to branch, etc, etc, etc. These monkeys and their early morning noises are the reason why I have overslept several days and had to scramble to class.
Language class was hard this week. In addition to a head full of vocabulary words, none of which can I remember when I need them, I also know a bunch of present tense verbs, a little bit of past tense and a tiny bit of future tense. So, it will be a while before I stop saying that "I had breakfast tomorrow."
Let's see, lots to say. The bathroom in my host's house is tiny and doesn't have walls at the top. So if I had a stool, I could look over into my host's bedroom. We're all cozy here in Samara. I've come to appreciate the total physical shock of the cold shower. There is no hot water here (unless perhaps you are one of the many American retirees who have built their dream house along the coast and specially outfitted the electrical wiring to the nozzle to heat the water before it hits you).
My attempt to go out salsa dancing one more time was a bust. The bar played two songs and then went back to playing the usual reggae, club music that pervades the bars here. Oh well, will have to save my dancing shoes for another time.
Every morning this week I woke up to breakfast with my Tica Mom. Most mornings my Tica Brother, Alex, would join us. My Tica Mom is very quiet. So my attempts to practice my Spanish at "home" were not very successful, particularly over dinner when it is just me and Mom. Alex was a little more talkative. I managed to learn that he works 15 hour days/ 6 days a week in a restaurant in town. Alex who is 25 has asthma, which seems to be common in younger people in Costa Rica. It might have something to do with the fact that a lot of people here burn their garbage. Many evenings walking home from school I've found the mix of stifling heat and smoky air hard to bear - a good reason to stay at the beach longer, where the air is always fresher.
Now you have a sense of the day-to-day of life in Samara. This weekend has been jam-packed as I try to squeeze in a few final activities before I hit the road tomorrow. Last night, I joined a group of students from the school for a drive to a remote, white-sand beach to eat dinner by a campfire and watch the sunset. There were 10 of us and we had the beach to ourselves all evening. The tour coordinator was a Texan man who came here five years ago with the peace corps and stayed on. He cooked mahi-mahi, mixed vegetables, mashed potatoes over they fire. We ate the main part of dinner just after the sun set, but then had chocolate covered fruit and popcorn for dessert while we watched an almost full moon rise over the cliffs along the shore. Before leaving, we took a walk through the surf along the beach, no flashlights or lanterns necessary, as the moon provided plenty of light. Half way down the beach we came across hundreds of small hermit crabs that, as we got closer, all got up en masse and scrambled away from us. When we got with a foot from them they would plop onto the sand and disappear into their shells and then a second later, we would see them peak out at us to see if we were still there.
For one last thrill, I got up early this morning (Saturday) and went sea kayaking with three classmates. Our guide took us to a large island off the coast of Samara where we pulled onto a beach, donned snorkeling gear and checked out the undersea wildlife. I saw a few purple and blue fish, but the real excitement came when we lost track of one of our group. The guide, who was standing on the shore, and way out of earshot, frantically tried to spot her. When he couldn't, he jumped into his kayak and paddled around looking for her while myself and another swam back to shore and jumped in another kayak to look for her. It turned out that she was perfectly fine, and very happy off on her own looking for sea turtles. The guide, after recovering from his near heart attack laid on a long and heartfelt guilt trip. I guess it's not a true adventure if there isn't an obstacle to overcome.
There is an iguana running around the school's outside patio as I write this. They are funny animals. They're very skittish, and hide at the first sign of a person, but they are noisy and not very stealthy so there isn't much point in their hiding.
I have great photos of the sunset tour. Will post them when next I find an internet connection (probably not til I get to Panama in a few days). Hope all is well with you. Thanks for following along on my little adventure.
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