Viva la Vida

“No, no, no, no, no. The foot first goes back!” “Bien, bien!” our dance teacher instructed us as we experienced our first dance class in Costa Rica. We began with the simple one, two, cha, cha, cha step, a dance similar to the basic salsa step, but with an added pep in the step in the middle. Our method was to first learn the step individually, and then combine into partners to try and put the male and female parts together.

Before long, we moved on to what I believe was called the Rumba, and later the Meringue. During the Meringue dance, we all got to feel a little bit like ducks as we essentially waddled around the dance floor in order to swing our hips the right way. Regardless, this seemed to be a favorite among us. All of us picked it up pretty quickly and had fun practicing it. Once we got the hang of it, our teacher even showed us some new moves to add on the dance we learned.

Even once we got to school, my classmates seemed to still have their heads in the dance class, as they took time out to demonstrate for the teacher what they learned. Though we didn't spend a lot of time in the class, I'm sure we'll remember some dance steps to bring back to the United States with us.

Our morning's activity today was a visit to the Museo de Cultura Popular, the Museum of Popular Culture. We started the day off by cooking these delicious coconut cookies, that I'm sure would make my (real) dad's mouth water, and then proceeded onto to explore the museum. Though I don't know if I'd really call it a museum. I have a feeling that this mostly happened simply because we didn't have a great guide, but I'm not really sure what the museum was about.

Our guide began by explaining to us that this was not a museum of tangible objects, but rather a museum of smells, touches, experiences, etc., which seemed to make sense at first when you looked back at our experience of cooking the coconut cookies. All too soon however, I lost him. There were some pretty cool things that he showed us, but it seemed to be a random hodge podge as we walked around a field with a building in the middle of it.

One of the first things he showed us was this plant that grew these fruit-like bulbs, that looked a little like mamones chinos, that if you broke open, you would find small berries that had a red dye in them that people used for clothing and as make-up. Well, that cleared up the question of whether or not there was blood on his pants, we figured it was just the red dye. He also showed us how to know when a coffee bean is ripe for picking.

Next, he set us loose into a house with all of it's doors and windows closed and told us to open all of them. All of them were barred with a bar that came up and off of two supports on either side of the opening, which meant that when I tried to open a door in pitch black, the bar obviously fell and crashed to the ground. In response, the guide himself came crashing through the door I somehow managed to open to make sure everything was alright.

The house was a bit random as well, but some artifacts he brought out were cool. One was a ceramic doll with the number 13 and a horseshoe on the side. In American culture, this would be considered unlucky, but in Costa Rican culture, the number 13 is lucky, and the horseshoe as well. The moral of the story was that it all depends on perspective. This was followed by a can that was similar to a watering can, but the spout went downwards instead of up. We learned that this was to help bathe babies and pregnant women in the olden days. The last artifact was a wooden egg, which is apparently used for darning socks and by putting it in their nests, making chickens think they already laid an egg and responding to this by laying more.

Then, quite abruptly, the tour ended. It was interesting, but the concept of the museum, as the museum claims to be itself, was just a little too intangible for me.

Yesterday, the LPI group headed on over to the pool, which is located in something called El Palacio de Los Deportes. We spent our time swimming and just laying around, since the water was absolutely freezing cold. We're working on a scavenger hunt during our stay here, and my group agreed that I would make matching friendship bracelets for everyone, so I worked on the bracelets (I finished the last one today, now the question is if I should make one for myself...). We missed all the global impact students as well as the two-weekers, but there was nothing to be done.

Later yesterday, I tested my luck with my phone. While I was at the beach this weekend, we at some point put our things too close to the water, and as the tide got higher, our stuff got washed up and soaked in seawater (which is most of the reason why everything was soaking wet after our trip, and the fact that it started pouring after our trip to the beach). My camera somehow made it through barely wet, without being in a ziplock bag or anything. My phone, however, was not so lucky. Drenched with sea water, after I disassembled the phone some and dried off the surface, the inside of the screen started to fog up with water vapor after I took a hair dryer to it at the hotel. I kept drying the phone until the screen stopped fogging up. However, I was still not convinced. I didn't want to try running a current through the phone while there was salt water hidden inside, so I left the phone without a battery until I got home. I asked my host father to let me borrow a few handfuls of rice, and he helped me bury my phone within the dry rice, so any remaining moisture would be absorbed. I left the phone like this for a couple days, as I worried about the salt water. It'd be one thing if it was freshwater that had flooded my phone, but the salt from the water had the potential to be much more harmful. Most people say if you go as far as to drench your phone in salt water, you should first wash it out with freshwater to remove all the salt. I was too nervous to do that though. When I got home that evening, however, I risked turning on my phone, and to my absolute delight, it worked. Whether or not the rice helped, or I got most of the moisture out myself is unknown, but regardless, I'm not complaining.

Our plan for when we woke up was to go to the beach, again. So, with our belongings still damp with salt water, we piled onto the bus to Manuel Antonio, a different beach from yesterday. We were hoping to do about an hour of hiking followed by about an hour of swimming, though we were leaning towards staying out of the water since yesterday's beach experience was still soaked through our swimsuits.

Once we got there, after a long walk through the forest, we reached the beach, which was absolutely gorgeous and pristine. There was no way we were going to miss out on the opportunity to swim on this beach. The waves were calm, and the point at which they tended to break was close to shore, allowing us to essentially play in completely calm waters.

Too little time passed before our group was called together to start heading back. We only had an hour or so there, which was a shame. The group that went on a hike told us we should have gone on the hike, though we adamantly told them they should have gone swimming.

Just as we were about to leave, a pack of wild monkeys and a couple raccoons came out of the forest and started to steal beach dwellers' food and belongings. They were really close to us to the point where if we wanted to we could touch them. A guide popped up and started telling us a little bit about some of them. One that we found was sick, probably from cancer. This occurred because he was exposed to too much flashes from cameras, which make the monkey go blind. The experience was very surreal and cool. The monkeys acted very human-like, and it was interesting to see them in their natural habitat – in a way it actually made them more real.

After another shower and lunch, we were off to return to Heredia.

From the dolphin tour yesterday, we were dropped off at the beach. The waves were high because of the recent storm, and the beach was extremely rocky. Regardless, Emily, Greg and I braved the rocks to find a sandbar that was out a little deeper into the ocean. Emily, who had water shoes at some point even gave me a piggy-back ride to avoid the stinging of the rocks. We spent a majority of our time jumping the waves.

After going home and washing off, and washing off all of our stuff as everything was soaking wet, we went to have dinner at El Avión, a restaurant in a plane. The plane they used was a WWII cargo plane that got shot down in Nicaragua, and in the year 2000, the restaurant bought the remnants for $3000 to remodel into the restaurant. It was hard to imagine when I first heard of it, but indeed, it was an army green plane sitting on the side of the mountain. Under the wings is a further extension of the restaurant, which is where we ate our meal for the evening.

The early riser catches a glimpse of a dolphin, or so we hoped as we grouped by the buses waiting to take us to the port to sail off in search of dolphins. As we drove alongside the port, we spotted a boat with a slide coming off of it. Cries arose from our group of, “A slide? Please, please, please let that be our boat!” And as we were directed onto our home for the next few hours, indeed, the boat with the slide was to be ours.

The boat was great. We were served lunch and snacks on it and it had a great front. This front had these mesh nets stretched over the water in front of the boat so that you could lay down. I spent most of my time on the boat in these nets on my stomach with my head towards the oncoming wind, mesmerized by the water.

Soon, we stopped for snorkeling in a little inset on the coast of an island. As we donned the provided goggles and fins, we excitedly jumped into the water with saltines in our hands to feed the fishes. Unfortunately, we weren't on any sort of coral reef or anything and were just in the middle of water. There were no fishes to be seen until we released our precious crackers, at which point blue and yellow striped fishes began to whirl around us. At some point, I swam away from the group a little bit so that I wasn't bumping against my peers and released my saltines. The fishes were right in front of my face and it was quite entertaining. If I stuck my finger out, they would think it was food and bite it.

Once we got back to the boat, we finally got to play with the slide. You lay down on it with your feet first and there's a sharp drop that sends you flying over the ocean some feet behind the boat. Afterwards, people started experimenting with how they went down. Everyone swore by the method that involved laying on your back and going into the water head first, and once I tried it, I swore by it too. Going in this way allowed your face to avoid the water, though more often than not, your swim suit bottoms tried to avoid their rightful place around your waist.

Once we got back on the boat, we rode around for a little bit, but the weather wasn't conducive to sailing, which was necessary to find dolphins since this way the motor doesn't scare them away. As a result, we didn't have the opportunity to view the animals we came for, though usually this company is known for finding dolphins. Overall, the boat itself and its luxuries were perfect, but the activities that we did could be improved.

After our long bus ride into Manuel Antonio yesterday, we finally arrived at the five star hotel Olivia had been endlessly telling us about. It was rainy and foggy, so we couldn't really get a good feel for the general positive atmosphere for the place, but still we were a little bit disappointed. The rooms were less impressive than the ones at Monteverde. Furthermore, though my room looks out onto a general area of the hotel, most of our peer's rooms look at the porch of a room across from them.

We've mostly attributed this to the different atmosphere of the hotel. Monteverde had a much more serene feel to it, while El Parador, the hotel we're staying at, is much more of a tropical atmosphere. You can see the ocean from some parts of the hotel which is nice. There are also lots of statues and fountains around the hotel, and their pools look nice. Of course, I understand how lucky I am to be staying at a hotel of this quality, but we've been told that this hotel was supposed to be so much better than the last one we stayed at, which was amazing. So its simply a result of high expectations.

We also went ahead and ate dinner at the hotel yesterday, which was of acceptable quality. Again, nothing stupendous for a five star hotel, but not bad. Afterwards, Emily, Brandon, and Greg congregated in our room for some card games. We passed the night with Euchre, President, and Durak, and before long it was time for bed, and though Julia and I couldn't figure out how to turn of one of the lights in our room for a while, we finally did get to sleep.