Week 2 -- Notes from the road less traveled

Hello, everyone! This time it's my turn to write the update. I only hope I can be as informative and as my husband.

In Costa Rica, all roads lead to San Jose. Well, not really. I just wanted to say that. After visiting Arenal we headed back to San Jose for one night before getting on a bus to our primary destination, Jaco. In San Jose we ate at another fabulous veggie-friendly restaurant called Tin Jo. It was a sort of pan-Asian establishment with lots of great and yummy vegetarian options. See people, being a vegetarian isn't as hard as you think it'll be!!

Anyhoo, the next day we were off to Jaco, a surf town on the central Pacific coast of Costa Rica. The bus to Jaco left from the Coca Cola bus station, so named because it stands on the site of the former Coca Cola bottling plant. We had been warned that this station would be pretty sketchy and that we should watch out. Nancy, it wasn't nearly as bad as all that. :-) Sure, there were a few vagrants and various stray dogs begging, but we've definitely experienced worse (anyone been to Caracas?).

Jaco will be home for the next three weeks. It's a fairly touristy town with no shortage of surfers. There are only two paved streets, one of which runs parallel to the beach and another that connects that street to the main highway. There are lots of surf shops, restaurants, internet cafes, and bars...and not much else. The beach itself is very nice. It's crescent shaped and is surrounded by cliffs and rocky outcrops at either end. The sand is dark brown from all of the volcanic rock in this area. In fact, there are only two white sand beaches in Costa Rica. By next weekend we will have been to both!

July is our school's busiest time of year, and so about half of the students have to reside at Villa Creole, the school's "overflow" housing. When I heard we were being shipped off somewhere else, I was worried. However, it turns out that we got the better deal. Villa Creole is a cute little hotel about two blocks from the school's "campus". It's run by an expat Belgian couple, their dog Rex (a huge German Shepard) and cat Maya, and two iguanas. All the units (1 bedroom w/ AC, thank God, a kitchenette, and a bathroom) surround a central courtyard with a pool and a thatched hut bar/restaurant. Think Melrose Place, tropical style. The place is filled with students from the school, so we pretty much have the run of the place. When the owners found out that several of us were interested in the happenings of the Tour de France, they kindly gave us updates after our morning surf sessions.

My one worry about coming to the School of the World was that Chris and I would be the only students over the age of 22. Well, I've been pleasantly surprised. Granted, the majority of the students are still in college, but there are Larry and Melissa (another married couple in their early 30s) and George (a 43-year-old science teacher from Portland, OR) to help round out the crowd.

Learning to surf is serious business. If you are "surf only", meaning you are only here to take surfing, you surf twice a day. Most students are taking Spanish and surfing, and so they are on the surf-once-a-day plan. I am "surf only" and so I am in the ocean getting pounded by waves twice daily.  It really wears a girl out. Whew. Try getting a 9 1/2 foot long board "outside" and you'll be napping all afternoon as well. (Rhett, did you enjoy my use of surfing lingo in that last sentence?). I think things are going well. I actually stood up last week (3rd day) and rode the board all the way into the beach. It's quite a rush...I can see why people get hooked.

"The sea was angry that day, my friends --- like an old man trying to return soup at a deli." (George Costanza, Seinfeld). I need to interject with a short update to the preceding paragraph. It's now the next day. During yesterday's afternoon surf session, the sea had its way with my and showed me who is boss. Holy mackerel. I was trying to catch a wave that was just WAY to big for a beginner and I got tossed around like a rag doll. I went down under that wave and got tossed around and around so many times I literally did not know which way was up. I was scared for a moment but then my feet finally touched bottom and I pushed my way to the top. I think I'll be riding white wash for a few days until I REALLY learn to stand up.

Chris's Spanish classes are less life-threatening. The classes are small (4-5 people) and his instructor, Diego, seems pretty good. Chris says that Diego makes him more nervous than any of his BC law professors ever did. :-) He has class 1 1/2 to 2 hours a day and then they have evening lab sessions where they go out to dinner, to the grocery store, or play games in Spanish. He seems to be picking it up relatively quickly...he just needs more "real life" practice.

Chris ended up buying an 8-foot surfboard and will sell it back at the end of our time here in Jaco. He surfs once a day in between classes and seems to be enjoying things.

Our school organizes field trips for us each Wednesday. Last Wednesday we went kayaking and snorkeling at Playa Blanca, one of the two white sand beaches in Costa Rica. We beached the kayaks at a little cove, climbed over some rocks, and right there was a beautiful, perfect beach. They lugged the snorkeling gear and then pointed out various types of fish and sea creatures to us. When we got back to the kayaks, the other guides had prepared a fresh fruit buffet for us to snack on before the rigorous journey home. Not too bad.

All of our weekends are free for traveling. Jaco is centrally located, so it's a great starting point for short trips. This past weekend we decided to head to Montezuma, a small town on the Nicoya peninsula. We took a 6 am bus to Puntarenas and then boarded a ferry to cross the Gulf of Nicoya. From the ferry terminal we took another bus to Montezuma. Montezuma is a great little town. There are no paved roads and you can walk from one end of town to another in about 5 minutes. It was founded by hippies about 25 years ago and still holds on to some of that charm. The beaches are beautiful. We were delighted to find quite a few vegetarian restaurants. One restaurant in town had nightly movies in English, and if you purchased 2000 colones (about $5) worth of food and/or drinks, the movie was free. On Saturday night we saw City of God, the Brazilian movie about life in the slums of Rio de Janeiro. It was intense, but really great. (Mike Jacobs, if you haven't seen this, you should....photography plays quite a role in the film.) The second night the movie was quite a bit lighter....Along Came Polly. I had pretty low expectations, but it ended up being a lot funnier than I had anticipated.

We stayed at a place called Amor de Mar. It was a great little hotel right on the beach. They had plenty of hammocks and lounge chairs and so we spent most of Sunday morning (after a lovely brunch of homemade bread and jam, eggs, granola, and yogurt) just relaxing and reading. At brunch we met a woman named Sarah who, as it turns out, is a writer for Let's Go. She was traveling the country writing updates for the next edition of the book, due out in January (what kind of production schedule are THEY on???). The folks at HMCo will be happy to know that no matter how hard I try, I just can't get away from publishing!! Anyway, we gave Sarah our list of things that needed updating (we're using the previous ed. of Let's Go Costa Rica) and so, yes, I am still contributing to the world of publishing.

We decided to splurge and take the water taxi back to Jaco from Montezuma. That allowed us to stay in Montezuma a second night and head back early Monday morning. We left the beach in Montezuma at about 6:45 am and were on the beach in Jaco by 8am. Much better than the 5 1/2 hour bus-ferry-bus experience.

And so began week #2 here in Jaco. We'll be back soon with more updates. We miss you all. We promise to figure out how to post photos to this blog as soon as we can. We're still figuring out the new camera....so it might be a while. Be sure to write....we love emails.

Pura vida,
Amy & Chris