Vamos a la playa!

Well, I thought I'd be doing better at keeping up with current blog posts, but so far it looks like I'm on a once-a-week kinda thing. Which I suppose is okay because it makes my life sound much more interesting when I have a whole week to look back on! Anyway, classes started last week and so far so good. I have an amazingly light schedule compared to what I fill my days with back in VT, so it's been hard to get accustomed to killing time (I know I know, what the heck is wrong with me for complaining about a relaxing lifestyle?). I suppose that no matter where you go to school, the first few weeks are always light and full of generic information that doesn't matter much anyway. The classes themselves usually only meet once a week, though, and some of them, like my History of the Americas class, meet for 4 hours at a time. But fortunately, the professor for that course seems to be a really nice guy, and he speaks nice and slow which is really great considering my vocabulary only covers maybe 40% of what he says. My other classes consist of Spanish language and Costa Rican culture, Ethics & Philosophy, and Appreciation of Dance (which is by far already my favorite, although I was a bit intimidated by the male instructor's split last week). I don't have any class on Fridays, which is also great because it'll allow me to do more traveling. Speaking of which, I ended up making an impromptu trip to Manuel Antonio on the Pacific coast this weekend. Four of the girls in my exchange group had told me Thursday evening that they were planning the 4 hour trip to the beach, and that they were leaving the next morning at 5 am to take a taxi to San Jose, upon which they would board the bus that would take them to Quepos and finally another to Manuel Antonio. Now the catch is that they had already bought tickets for the bus from San Jose to Quepos, becuase if you don't buy them at least a day before the trip, there's a good chance there won't be space on the bus. However, myself and another friend decided that we'd take the risk of getting stranded in San Jose without the ability to contact the rest of the group if they arrived ahead of us, and we hoped for the best. So the 6 of us met in front of the University at 5 a.m. Friday morning, took the taxi to San Jose, and miracurlously all made it on the bus. Fast forward to about 9:45 and we arrived in the Quepos bus station, where everyone is rushing to get off the bus before it leaves to its next stop. So, being in the back of the bus (since we were last to get our tickets) and in a rush to get off, I quickly grabbed my one little sidebag (I packed the lightest of everyone to avoid losing things) and hopped off into a crowded parking lot of vendors selling everything from God's word to ripped off DVDs to rancid chuncks of melon in little sketchy baggies. Giving my bag a reassuring little pat to make sure all zippers are zipped, I quickly realized that my wallet which I'd had in my pocket on the bus was definitely not there. I immediately ran back towards where I'd gotten off the bus only to find that it was no longer there; no, it was in the process of pulling out of the lot and onto the main drag! So I took off like only some crazy gringa would and ran after the bus as fast as my stupid tropical flipflops would let me. By now I was darting a little through angry traffic but the bus was still picking up speed so I really had to throw some sprinting in. So I'm pacing the bus and the window's a little open and I start yelling to the driver to stop and let me on and he just glares at me and mouths some obsenity and shakes his head. But of course I'm not going to make an idiot out of myself in vain so I start banging on the window as he's driving and as I'm running and keep yelling at him to stop the bus and by some good graces he realizes that I might just latch onto the side of the bus if he doesn't open the door, so he actually opens it and slows down enough for me to jump on and run to the back of the bus. There's a big beefy guy holding it in his hand and he looks up and sees me and hands it to me and I feel it to make sure my cards are in it and then jump off the bus before the glares I was getting from everyone remaining on the bus burned a hole in my head. As I'm walking back to the parking lot I open it and realize that the guy had wiped it out of what spare change I had in there (thank God for my utilization of a bra as a money holder) but my lisence and debit card and student ID card were fine. Needless to say, I was decently freaked out and I guess it's good to learn (even if the hard way) early in this trip that it doesn't do me any good to worry about other people stealing my stuff when I'm forgetting about losing my own!

But back to the trip. There were two other girls in our group that had already spent the previos night in Quepos and were meeting up with us at the bus station to take a taxi to Manuel Antonio, where we crossed our fingers in hopes of finding a cheap place with vacancy for the eight of us. Fortunately, we stopped at a quaint little setup of cabinas and got a single room equipped with 2 bunk beds, a "matrimony bed" -as the owner said- and another pull out double bed for $10/night, including AC, cable t.v. and our own bathroom/shower w/hot water (a big commodity here). Best yet, when we asked the guy how far it was to the beach, he simply took us a couple hundred of feet into the trees and voila! Our own paradise in our backyard. We even got courtesy fresh fruit and coffee in the mornings. The rest of the afternoon was spent swimming in the ridiculously warm and clear water and lounging on the beach. We decided to go to Manuel Antonio National Park in the morning, which also hosts several beautiful beaches, including Playa Manuel Antonio itself, and abundant hiking trails. Saturday morning, several of us got up at 5 a.m. and headed to the beach in hopes of seeing and/or swimming in the sunrise, only to realize that we'd just watched the sun set over the ocean the previous night, so of course there would be no sunrise in its place (embarrassing moment, I know). But I'd already had my bathing suit on and so I hopped in, and it felt good to be the first on in the water on the beach. We headed over to the National Park which was a five minute walk down the road, but not before stopping at Musi Anne, a panaria chain that sells bread everywhere. The food in Manuel Antonio is really pricey since it basically caters to rich retired tourists year-round, so our daily intake of cheap bread increased exponentially this weekend. We paid our $10 entry fee and set out after successfully avoiding the dozens of independent "trained guides" offering their services as "the ONLY way to see the wildlife" in the forest. Basically, there were amazing views and beautiful beachs, equipped with sloths, various kinds of monkeys, numerous large iguanas, and an infinite amount of hermit crabs. On one of the beaches we were sitting on a log by the edge of the beach and forest when all of a sudden we heard a rustling of the trees and the next thing we knew, there was a little white-faced monkey standing behind us!! Until then we'd only seen the monkeys way up in the trees so you could say it was quite a surprise that this little guy found us and approached us with no little as a second thought. He promptly picked up one of our discarded banana peels, sniffed it, threw it in his mouth and then walked over to our backpacks with a mischevious aura about him. It wasn't until he started touching them that our friend Katie went to try and shoo him away - which was also when he noticed the cookies she held in her hand and promptly stood up on his hind legs and started following her, clearly reaching up towards her food. At this point he must have notified his monkey friends because about 4 or 5 others appeared around us, including one with a little baby clinging to its back. By this time various other tourists on the beach had come over and realizing he was outnumbered, our little friend took off towards another man's stuff that was resting on the log he was snoozing against. The little thief hopped up, picked up a grocery bag and promptly started running down the log and had hopped onto a nearby branch by the time we could get the man's attention. The guy quickly hopped up and started yelling and clapping his hands and when other tourists went over the monkey got a little overwhelmed, and after shouting his monkey obcenities and darting around a little, dropped the bag and ran off looking quite guilty, if I do say so myself. Needless to say, this was definitely the highlight of the day. We returned to our cabin later the evening for another beautiful sunset and photo op, with more swimming Sunday morning before our return to Heredia. Well, that's it for now. Hope all's well in the States (and elsewhere if you are Kim or Ryan!)