First Day in Costa Rica
I've arrived safely in Costa Rica after a crazy red eye from LA. The flight was about 6 hrs, then another hour after connecting in Panama City. As I waited in LAX to board my flight, I saw a group of friendly, seemingly affluent white 20-somethings gathering for my same flight. At first, the sight made me scornful, knowing my friends and I would never successfully orchestrate anything this huge, but as the group grew in size, I knew there could only be one explanation. Mormons. Sure enough, one landed in between me and an old jewish guy who told dirty jokes the whole way down and implored us to skip the legal prostitution in Panama City (too many underage girls) but to hit up the casinos. The mormon fellow was very polite, in the face of the vice I'm sure he was heading south to snuff out. Good luck.
On arriving in Costa Rica and taking a cab to my host family's house all I could think was that I was living among the ewoks on the Endor moon, if the Ewoks fancied pastel colored homes. I am in the middle of a green, lush, jungly mountain, unlike any I've seen before. The house is plopped in the middle of it somewhere; I can't see the top of the mountain because it's obscured by heavy rain clouds. The town center is a 5 minute walk away down a gravel/sometimes paved path and over a pretty strong creek. There are less strays here than there were near the airport, but there's a couple weird breeds sniffing about. The cab directions to this place were "ciudad colon, 300 meter east of musmani (some kind of grocery store) and 75 meters south, house on the right." this guy's a pro, though, and he found it. I am unsure how I would get back here if I were to get lost, as I outright reject the metric system and it's tenets.
Most of the homes here are somewhere on the spectrum between shack and mcmansion. On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is the shack, this probably hits as a 4. It has very nice touches (lots of skylights letting natural light in all day) and some weird ones (some rooms have no roof intentionally, which means it rains in the house, also no hot water in the shower). It's hard to explain, but it's more than suitable and the family here has students staying with them almost year round, so they make us feel very comfortable.
The weather is humid without being overbearing, maybe because it doesn't seem to have cracked 75 yet. It's going to rain every afternoon for a few days probably, which is fitting for a rainforest. It's not just a clever name. In the back of the house, the family runs a bakery. Some guy apparently comes by every few days to buy bread for the local grocery stores, so I should have good smells in my immediate future, as well as an extra 10 pounds.
On the negative, my toiletries bag was holding a shampoo bottle which exploded en route, and I'm currently trying to figure out what can be salvaged. The damage was limited to the bag and my clothes are good, but I may have lost my malaria medication and other meds in the process. Oh well. I may have to dress like a beekeeper from here on out.
I have another student staying here as well, and he seems like a cool guy. As we were sitting around getting to know each other over lunch, he kept asking "what are we going to do tonight?" I had no real response, as I don't know what to expect of ewok nightlife. There's not much to do here, as it's pretty remote and not exactly touristy like the northern or caribbean beach towns. We may go see "live free or die hard." That's a fitting Costa Rica experience.
For now, I sleep.
On arriving in Costa Rica and taking a cab to my host family's house all I could think was that I was living among the ewoks on the Endor moon, if the Ewoks fancied pastel colored homes. I am in the middle of a green, lush, jungly mountain, unlike any I've seen before. The house is plopped in the middle of it somewhere; I can't see the top of the mountain because it's obscured by heavy rain clouds. The town center is a 5 minute walk away down a gravel/sometimes paved path and over a pretty strong creek. There are less strays here than there were near the airport, but there's a couple weird breeds sniffing about. The cab directions to this place were "ciudad colon, 300 meter east of musmani (some kind of grocery store) and 75 meters south, house on the right." this guy's a pro, though, and he found it. I am unsure how I would get back here if I were to get lost, as I outright reject the metric system and it's tenets.
Most of the homes here are somewhere on the spectrum between shack and mcmansion. On a scale of 1-10 where 1 is the shack, this probably hits as a 4. It has very nice touches (lots of skylights letting natural light in all day) and some weird ones (some rooms have no roof intentionally, which means it rains in the house, also no hot water in the shower). It's hard to explain, but it's more than suitable and the family here has students staying with them almost year round, so they make us feel very comfortable.
The weather is humid without being overbearing, maybe because it doesn't seem to have cracked 75 yet. It's going to rain every afternoon for a few days probably, which is fitting for a rainforest. It's not just a clever name. In the back of the house, the family runs a bakery. Some guy apparently comes by every few days to buy bread for the local grocery stores, so I should have good smells in my immediate future, as well as an extra 10 pounds.
On the negative, my toiletries bag was holding a shampoo bottle which exploded en route, and I'm currently trying to figure out what can be salvaged. The damage was limited to the bag and my clothes are good, but I may have lost my malaria medication and other meds in the process. Oh well. I may have to dress like a beekeeper from here on out.
I have another student staying here as well, and he seems like a cool guy. As we were sitting around getting to know each other over lunch, he kept asking "what are we going to do tonight?" I had no real response, as I don't know what to expect of ewok nightlife. There's not much to do here, as it's pretty remote and not exactly touristy like the northern or caribbean beach towns. We may go see "live free or die hard." That's a fitting Costa Rica experience.
For now, I sleep.
Labels: costa rica
This entry was posted by VJ, on
Saturday, July 14, 2007.
You can leave your response.
george, didn't your mother ever make you pack your explodables in plastic bags like mine did?
they WERE in plastic bags, so they only exploded on themselves and not on my clothes, luckily. but still, it was gross, dude.
leave a response