The Circus and Lava

            This as my first weekend actually staying in San Jose and it was quite interesting.  Friday, a small group of us walked around downtown San Jose and ended up watching a street circus perform for a few hours.  It was nice to just go wherever, see whatever, and do whatever Friday.  When we walked past something that peaked out interest we stopped and looked at it.  It’s nice not having responsibilities or time commitments that constrain you.  I think that’s one thing I like about Costa Rica and my time here the most.  I like being able to just relax and do whatever.  I like being to build friendships without having to worry about the “next” item on my agenda or schedule.  I had forgotten what being a friend really meant until coming here.  It’s been nice to remember what friendship is all about – relationships.

            Saturday, a small group of 7 of us met together in the wee hours of the AM and walked to downtown San Jose again.  This time, however, we were catching a bus and just walking around.  The bus was to Poas, one of the active volcanoes here in Costa Rica.  Poas involved a plethora of walking up and down hills but it was worth it.  Plus, I love exercising.  The volcano was pretty cool.  In the middle of the crater was a lagoon.  No lava, sorry.  The lagoon was hard to see because there always seemed to be a cloud in the way.  See a volcano in Costa Rica…check.  We left the volcano at 2 and headed back to San Jose.  It was a nice day trip.  

Looking down into the volcanic crater.  The lagoon was just above that red/orange section of rock.

A close up view

            Today I went to church with Laura, Emily, and Emily’s host sister, Sofy.  It was an awesome experience.  I’ve never sung praise music in Spanish before…but today I did.  It was cool to see so many people so passionate about our Lord and Savior.  I’ve been looking up praise songs in Spanish all afternoon because I want to be able to sing them next time I go.  I was also able to meet some more ticos while I was there.  I just want to learn Spanish so bad.  I’m understanding more and improving a lot but, you know me, I always want to be the best at everything I do.  It’s a bit frustrating but there are more important things in the world to get upset about, right?  Like the 9/10 of a cent you have to pay extra per gallon of gasoline.  Doesn’t that just eat at you too? 

Notice the sign.  The water in the lagoon averages around 105 F.

The paths around Poas were very cool, green, and forest-y.

            I’m going to “get” coffee later with Emily and then watch the Saprissa futbol game on television later tonight.  Tomorrow is the start of a new week that brings more opportunities for me to practice and learn Spanish.  Hasta luego!

The "Surfer Church"

             Remember a few weeks ago when I blogged about trying to go to some “surfer” church but then we ended up getting lost and having to take the same taxi back home that we took to the church?  Well, last night, we tried to find that surfer church again.  This time though, we met one of the members of the church at a McDonalds and he drove us the rest of the way to the church, which turned out to be just someone’s house.

            The guy who picked us up at McDonalds was named Augustine (or something along that spelling).  He was very nice and spoke close to perfect English.  He’s lived in CR his whole life and has been a Christian his whole life.  He told us that he got involved with Christian Surfers (or the Pura Vida Church) after he got “lost” and a friend encouraged him to reconnect with the big JC. 

When we pulled up and entered the house I didn’t know what to expect.  Well…everyone was talking Spanish, most everyone was around our age or in their twenties, and everyone had a Bible.  There was an older couple there who were American and bilingual.  Their names where Shelly and Craig and they have lived in CR for 26 years.  They moved down here as missionaries and are now working with the Rahab Organization which helps women and young girls get out of prostitution.  Everyone there was very welcoming and accommodating.  They made all the first time comers to Christian Surfers say their name, their favorite type of wave, and their favorite and least favorite beach.  I really don’t have a favorite wave, plus I couldn’t say it in Spanish anyways, so I just said my name and my favorite and least favorite beach, Hermosa and Jaco, respectively.  When I said I didn’t like Jaco everyone clapped.  Guess I said something they liked.

We started off with some Christian songs in Spanish to set the mood and then someone led a Bible study.  It was all in Spanish so I didn’t grasp as much as I would have liked to but basically it was about going out and spreading the Word.  He said we shouldn’t be hiding our light but instead putting it out as a beacon for all others to see.  When we’re surfing, we should be sharing the Word with others, inviting them and encouraging them to come to Christian Surfers.  God should be first in our life and then followed by waves, waves, waves.  Not the other way around.  When he said that, I found it to be quite funny.  It was cool to see so many young Christian adults in another country, that is primarily Catholic, love Jesus so much.  It was also cool to see how much they loved surfing and how they connected through that fact.

The older couple was nice enough to take us home since cabs are kind of expensive.  They also offered to pick us up from Veritas next Wednesday and give us a ride to the group.  They gave us their email address and direct phone number so we can contact them.  They, again, are very loving and Christian people.  It was a great experience and I like the fact that it will help me connect with more ticos and help me improve Spanish.  The Christian Surfers group is going to go to a beach in North CR close to Nicaragua this weekend and invited us to come.  However, I do not think I am going to.  Mostly for the fact that Gleys and Juan Carlos might need my help this weekend with Gleys kind of out of commission.  Either way, one day I will go surfing with them and hopefully make some new friends along the way.  By the way, the goal for me this weekend is to buy a side-by-side English/Spanish Bible and start reading.

Husband & Wife

           A couple of years ago there was a commercial of an old couple holding hands and walking in a park.  A younger couple was also walking in the same park and holding hands.  The younger couple had to stop holding hands for a few seconds in order to walk past the slower moving older couple.  The younger couple rejoined hands after they passed the older couple and the woman of the younger couple looked back at the older couple and smiled.  The older couple smiled in return, as if almost saying, “Love is worth all the problems that sometimes accompany it.  Love each other and care for each other; we did and we couldn’t be happier.”  Just by itself, old people holding hands should make anybody feel all warm and tingly inside.  Well, last night, I kind of experienced something similar with my host family here in Costa Rica.

            Our host mother, Gleys, has been getting some blood tests done recently because she’s been fainting and not feeling very good the past few weeks.  She explained to me Monday night, after her and Juan Carlos, her husband, returned from the doctor’s office, that her red blood cell count is low.  A normal person’s red blood cell count, according to the paper she showed me, should be between 12.5 and 14.5.  Hers, however, is at 6.3.  It was at 7.8 in December.  Needless to say, her red blood cell count is dropping and it shouldn’t be.  They went to the hospital yesterday so she could get a blood transfusion or donation or whatever.  What I’m trying to say is that they needed to inject her with more blood in order to up her red blood cell count.  She talked to us like it was no big deal but you could tell by just looking at Juan Carlos that he was worried about his wife.

            When Josh and I got home yesterday from class at 5 and found that no one was home we didn’t think much about it since it happens often.  However, when only Juan Carlos came home at 7pm something seemed a little off.   He told us that during the blood transfusion, Gleys started to faint and get sick.  She was then rushed to the ER so they could figure out what was wrong.  It turns out that nothing was seriously wrong but it did cause quite a scare.  They moved her to a room in the hospital and started the blood flow again.  Juan Carlos said that Gleys kept telling him to go home and make dinner for Josh and me.  Haha what a good host mother.  Even when she’s lying in a hospital bed she still wants to worry over her “kids”.  Juan Carlos ordered dinner for us from a restaurant.  He then asked us if we wanted to go with him to visit Gleys in the hospital.

            Of course we wanted to so we all took a cab.  At the hospital we sat in the room with Jose, our host brother, Gleys’ mother, and Juan Carlos.  We all tried to lighten the mood by making jokes and laughing at our inability to speak Spanish.  They brought food in for Gleys and that’s when I had my “awww” moment.  Juan Carlos was cutting the food for Gleys and feeding it to her even though she was quite capable of doing it on her own.  And she was letting him do it even though she could have done it better and faster herself.  I knew at that moment that they were going to love each other for eternity.  I witnessed the kind of love that nothing could shatter, that nothing could tear apart.

Juan Carlos & Gleys

            After sitting around a bit, Jose, Josh, Grandma, and myself all went down to the hospital cafeteria to get Jose and Grandma some food.  We listened to Grandma talk about where she used to work as a switchboard operator for a telephone company and about her mother who is 97 years old.  She talks very fast so I only got parts of the story.  She asked me if I understood at the end and I said, “mas or menos” which means, “more or less.”  She then proceeded to laugh at me and I joined in and laughed at myself with her.  It was good bonding time.  She’s a cool old lady who desperately loves her daughter.  She ended up spending the night at the hospital with Gleys last night, by the way.

            We went back up to the room and said our goodbyes.  I told Gleys that I was praying for her and their family and that if I could help out around the house I would.  Whatever they needed I said I would help with.  On the way down in the elevator I asked Juan Carlos how he was doing with this whole situation.  He said he was fine but then proceeded to tell us that he cried when we all left the room.  Poor guy.  The love of his life is sick and all he wants to do is make her better.  Even with his wife sick in the hospital, Juan Carlos is a great host dad to us and an amazing and caring father to his son.  On top of that, he runs his company, takes care of their dog, Brownie, keeps the house clean, and does all this with a God-oriented attitude.  I don’t think you could find a better man in Costa Rica and I’m proud to know him.  Gracias a Dios por Juan Carlos.  Amén.

Monkeys, Hostels, and the Beach!

The Friday of last week was my final day of Spanish class.  It turns out that I wasn’t allowed to take another Spanish course without paying $750 extra.  After thinking about it for a day, I decided not to pay for the extra class and to just not have another Spanish course.  It kind of stinks because I relay liked my profesora and the class was great.  Still, I can learn just as well without it.  I just need to speak speak speak.  My friend Laura (who is basically fluent) and I are going to meet regularly and practice together in the morning.  Now my mornings are free to run, converse with my host family, sleep in a bit if I can, etc.

Some weather humor at the hostel.

As I think I mentioned in my last post, our group of friends (10 of us) went to Manuel Antonio this weekend.  If you know nothing of Manuel Antonio, it’s basically a large national park with hiking trails, beaches you can swim in and lay on within the park, lots of wildlife, etc.  We took the bus to Quepos from San Jose Friday afternoon.  The trip only took about 3 hours or so which wasn’t too bad.  I sat with Laura and we had a great conversation about morals, ethics, and the role God played in forming our little group of friends.  Another group of students that also studies at Veritas was on the same bus as we were.  It was nice to have more people to talk to.

A view of one of the "hallways" at the hostel.

            Quepos is the town that we ended up staying at while we were on the Pacific Coast.  It was only about a 15 minute bus ride to Manuel Antonio from Quepos.   We decided on Quepos over Manuel Antonio because there are more stores to buy food at, more restaurants to eat at, more hostels to stay at, and everything’s cheaper in Quepos.  The hostel we decided to stay at was called the Wide Mouth Frog.  Let’s just say that the hostel was amazing.  The people were great, the hostel was safe and cheap ($12 a night), they had a pool, free breakfast, a lounge area with a TV, hammocks everywhere, and lots of pet dogs.  I would recommend it to anyone staying near Manuel Antonio.  Here’s a link to it if you want to find out more about it or just look at the pictures. http://www.widemouthfrog.org/

The kitchen/dining area at the hostel.  It was a great place to hang out and talk with other travelers.

This is what the $12 a night room looks like.  It has 11 beds and it's communal.  Everyone in one room.  However, our group had two rooms since they didn't have enough space in these big ones.  We got one private room for 4 but at the same low price.

            My friend Michelle was also staying at the Wide Mouth Frog (WMF).  She thought she heard my voice and came over to see if it was me and it was.  Kind of funny that with so many hostels in Quepos, as well as on the road to Manuel Antonio and in Manuel Antonio, she would pick the one we were staying at.  Michelle, by the way, is from Sweden and was in my Basic I Spanish class and my Basic II class (which, sadly, I am not in anymore).  Her friend from Sweden was visiting her in Costa Rica.

This was the private room we got at a discount on.  It was small and only had 4 beds.  But since you don't spend all day in the rooms it wasn't a big deal.  All you need is a place to sleep when you've exhausted yourself exploring all day.

            That Friday night we decided to eat out for dinner and found a nice little restaurant on the second floor of some shops.  We ate, laughed, practiced our Spanish a little, and conversed.  It was a good night.  Afterwards we went back to the hostel and just relaxed the rest of the night.  Some people went swimming, some watched a movie, and others socialized with some guests at the WMF.  The other travelers at the hostel were so easy to talk to.  So many of them have very interesting stories of why they are there and what they do in life. 

The next morning we had gallo pinto, watermelon, pineapple, toast, and oatmeal for breakfast.  It was free so it was delicious.  We at around 7am and then went to find the bus to take us to Manuel Antonio for the day.  The buses run every 30 minutes between the two places and it only costs 240 colones which is roughly $0.50.  The park cost $10 to get into it for the day.  It was at this moment that I realized I had not budgeted for the park when I packed my cash.  Since I was around friends, they were more than willing to help out with my lack of planning and cover for me.  Thanks Quincy!

Senor Iguana

After we were about 20 feet into the park we saw our first bit of wildlife, an iguana just hanging out on a tree.  About 20 feet further we saw our next creature, a sleeping monkey in a tree.  When we were close to the beach (which was about a 15 minute hike from the entrance) we saw a sloth with a baby that was all up close and personal.  I heard a ranger say that it was one of the most active sloths that he had seen.  It was funny because the sloth was still moving so terribly slow.  By the way, the Spanish word for “lazy” is the same word for “sloth.”  After all the fun and picture taking with the sloth, we made it to the beach.

The sloth.  You can't really see that baby attached to her chest in this photo.  Check out my Facebook page for more pictures of this lazy creature.

A view of the first beach we swam at in the park.  This was taken while on our little hike.  Ignore the old man in the lower right hand corner. Jejeje

The water was clear, the waves were small, there weren’t too many people there, the sand was white; it was very nice and relaxing.  Most of us just laid out on the beach.  Of course we got into the water and I went exploring across some rocks along the coast, but overall it was just a great time to relax and enjoy the beautiful surroundings.  Don’t worry, I put on sunscreen this time unlike last weekend at the beach.  While we were just sitting on the beach, I saw some people point and start to get excited.  It was monkeys!!  A little group of Howler monkeys had made its way to the beach.  They were in the trees right at the start of the beach.  They were quite friendly and, of course, people were feeding them even though they were not supposed to.  I witnessed one monkey rob a lady’s backpack when she left it unattended.  Crafty little creatures but still amazing.

You could get up close to the Howlers.

Just relaxing a bit... you know.

            After spending about 4 hours at the first beach we started the hike to the next beach within the park.  A group of four of us decided to go on a hike around the trails.  I’m glad I went because we saw more monkeys, some sort of large rat thingy (I forget the name), and I held hands with a monkey!  Caroline took a picture of it.  He was eating some flowers from a tree so I plucked a flower and offered it to him.  He took it right from my hand.  It was awesome!

Whatever this large rat thingy was called.

It was almost like he was challenging me to take the picture.  Challenge accept, monkey.

            Once we got back to the beach from our little excursion it was about time to leave the park since it closes at 4pm.  We started to pack up when someone from the group said she couldn’t find her wallet with her money, debit card, home keys, and hostel keys all in it.  We frantically looked for it around where we were sitting and retraced our steps back to the other beach but didn’t have any luck.  Someone suggested that we try searching her backpack again and we ended up finding it in one of the backpack pockets.  Disaster averted. 

The monkey touched me.  This picture is courtesy of Caroline.

            We finished out the day on the beach in Manuel Antonio watching the sun set on the public beach outside of the park.  Caroline, Josh, Sarah, Laura, and I threw the Frisbee around while it set.  It was a good conclusion to a great day at the beach.  We all jammed onto the bus to ride it back to Quepos.  When I say jammed, I mean that there were probably more people standing up in the aisle than there were sitting in the seats.  We, of course, were in the aisle.

Another Pacific sunset.

            Once back in Quepos we showered, or in my case, took a dip in the pool for a shower, found a cheap soda to eat at, and then came back to the hostel to sleep.  I was tired from a long day at the beach and probably a little dehydrated.  But it was all worth it.  I slept great Saturday night.  Sunday morning we all ate the free breakfast again and then Caroline and I went out searching for a place to surf.  Granted, she was more committed to finding a place to surf than I was but I did want to surf again.  Thanks for tolerating my lack of contribution in finding a place to surf, Caroline.  Turns out, after asking a soda owner, that the only place to surf nearby was at Manuel Antonio.  We had to check out of the hostel by 11am and it was already 9am so we decided to just go back to the hostel and swim/hang out.

Some parrots hanging out on the beach.

            The bus ride back to San Jose was uneventful and only 3 hours.  We got back around 3:30pm and then decided to all meet up at 5ish to go find a bar to watch the Super Bowl.  We ended up going to an Irish Pub, Stan’s Irish Pub.  It was fun to hang out with friends and talk.  It was even more fun to watch Laura get into the game because she’s from Green Bay.  Luckily Green Bay won.  Overall, one of the best weekends I’ve had since coming to CR.  The animals, the beach, hiking, the hostel, and good friends all made it memorable.  I don’t think we’re planning on going anywhere next weekend.  I think we’re just going to take it off and relax a bit in San Jose because we’ve traveled somewhere every weekend since being in CR.  If you’ve enjoyed the pictures here, check out the rest of them on my Facebook page.

Me relaxing in one of the hammocks at the hostel.

         Also, this morning, I met Laura for coffee and we talked Spanish and life together for about an hour.  We both don't have class in the mornings now.  I finally had my first cup of coffee.  I got it straight up black.  I only added a little sugar.  It wasn't that bad.  I don't know if I would get it every day but, heck, I'm in Costa Rica.  I should be open to new things, right?  Plus the company was well worth it.  Hasta luego! 

Pictures Downtown

            Yesterday Caroline and I went on a picture-taking extravaganza through San Jose.  While we didn’t get too many pictures, we did manage to find an awesome playground and a really cool park.  I did the monkey bars for the first time in years and we teeter-tottered a bit.  Last night I also went to the movies to see Tron with Quincy and Aubrey.  It had some pretty cool special effects movie and for only $2 a ticket it was definitely worth it.  Back to the pictures, here are some I took while rambling around San Jose.

The street on which I live.  If you look closely you can see my house.  It's the orange looking one on the left right past the green bars/fence.

Mi casa!

The ever-present barbed wire and metal bars that surround most houses and yards here in San Jose.  You get use to them after awhile. 

A tica girl helping her little tica sister walk down the street in San Jose

Along with the barbed-wire, there always seems to be trash everywhere.  San Jose isn't really the cleanest city.

A church steeple

A cool pillar with interesting phrases on it.  It was located next to a school.

Some Costa Rican graffiti

An American bar!

Caroline swinging

Some strange man at the park wanted mt to take a picture of him an his "woman." Hmm... He and I bumped fists afterward and exchanged "pura vidas"

I think it's some kind of crow but I'll let Norene be the judge of that.

A train for Jimbo

A cool structure at one of the parks we walked through

A view of downtown San Jose.