Heavy rain and the beach!

Sunday, February 13, 2011

                It’s been almost a week since I posted last and so much has happened!  This post has a lot of pictures from the last week or so.  I’m not really sure where to begin.  First of all, I took some pictures around the Whitworth campus to give everyone more of an idea of what it looks like.

The front entry way

The rotunda where we study

 Another study area

The comedor (cafeteria)

One of the meals Juan made for us last week for lunch

One of the ponds in the backyard.  The white Egrets love it back there

We ran into a group of cows on our way up the hill

 Walking down the hill on a nice day

                Classes are going well, though I am busy all day actually being in class, then I come home, eat dinner, and do homework until I go to bed.  My days are very full!  This last Tuesday was my first day going to class from my new home in San Rafa.  Getting to the bus stop was easy.  The trip home after classes was a little different.  Every day after class I have the pleasure of walking down the hill from campus to the bus stop, and then I take the 5:00 bus home in San Rafa.  The bus takes about 45 minutes to get to my stop, so by then it’s beginning to get a little dark.  On Tuesday I got off the bus and headed toward the house.  I got a little confused since it was getting dark outside, so I walked around a few different blocks until I figured out where I was.  I’m not going to lie, it was a little freaky walking around while the sun was setting, but at least now I know exactly where I’m going.  In fact, the next day I stopped by the panaderia (bread shop) on my way home from the bus and enjoyed some bread on my walk home. 

 The sala (living room) at my host home

My room

The view out my bedroom window into the kitchen area

The indoor garden and rock wall across from the kitchen.  My room is to the left

The kitchen

The kitchen again

My bathroom

                Thursday morning was beautiful, so I decided to wear a long brown skirt to class with my Chaco sandals.  If you don’t know what Chacos are, google them.  They are the most comfortable, supportive, and durable all weather (except snow) shoe I’ve ever worn.  So after arriving at campus, the clouds started to roll in, and they just kept coming and coming.  Around 3:00 they burst open and showered rain over the Whitworth campus.  My glass ends at 4:45, and by then the rain was only coming down harder.  My classmates and I decided to head for the bus despite the mini flash flood that was occurring outside.  This was a BAD IDEA, especially since I was wearing a skirt and had conveniently left my umbrella in my closet back at home.  My only defense against Mother Nature was my rain jacket, so of course by the time we reached the bottom of the hill (waterfall at this point), my skirt was completely drenched, and the streets were flooded.  Note to self: ALWAYS carry an umbrella in Costa Rica.  Always.

Walking down the hill in the rain

A video of the rain water rushing over a hill by the road

Me, Danica and Rachel in the rain in San Rafa

Sooooo soaked

                   On Saturday, a group of students decided to take a day trip to the beach!  Jaco (ha-ko) is a small tourist town about 2 ½ hours from San Jose, so we decided that Saturday would be the perfect day to make the trip.  I woke up at 4:30 and packed my things for the day.  At 5:15, I met my friends Bree and Danica at the bus stop.  Orella didn’t want me walking in the dark to the bus stop, so she woke up early and drove me.  From there we took a bus to Heredia where we met up with our friends Hollie and Kaitlyn.  Nick, Heather, Amy, and Amy met us there shortly after, and then we got on a bus to San Jose.  We arrived in San Jose at around 6:15 in the morning, and let me tell you, it might as well have been noon because there were people everywhere!  What in the world were people doing up and about at 6:15 on a Saturday morning?  We stopped in a bread shop for breakfast, then made our way to the bus station.  A one way ticket to Jaco costs about 2,000 Colones, roughly $4.  We caught the 8:00 bus and were on our way! 

Danica, Hollie, Bree, Kaitlyn and me after we met up in Heredia at 5:45 in the morning

 

El Parque Central in Heredia 

                I sat across the aisle from two little kids around the age of 7.  The little girl kept making comments about the gringa (that’s what they call Americans here), meaning me, who was sitting near them.  It’s funny when people talk about me here and they think that I don’t understand them.  So I decided to let the kids know that I understood everything they were saying, so I turned to them and asked in Spanish, “Did school start for you this week?”  The looks on their faces were priceless.  They were shocked to say the least.    

                When we arrived in Jaco around 10:00, I was surprised at how many Americans were there.  Jaco is a very touristy place with lots of gift shops and resorts.  There were also several homeless people walking around the streets.  One man was sitting on the ground going through a garbage bad to find food for himself and his dog.  The stark contrast between the rich Americans vacationing there and the poor who live in Jaco was unexpected and sad to me.

                Jaco is much more humid than San Rafa or Heredia or San Jose.  I was actually expecting all of Costa Rica to be very humid, but I’m glad that it’s not.  I could feel my curls getting tighter as the bus cot closer to the beach.

                Some people in our group needed to use the restroom, so we stopped at what we thought was a public restroom.  I waited outside with Hollie, and a woman came up to us and said that the bathrooms cost 500 colones to use, roughly $1.  I guess nothing is free in Costa Rica.  We set up camp under some palm trees on the beach, put on another layer of sunscreen and ran to the ocean.  The water was so warm!  We spent the day in the ocean, laying on the beach, and walking around Jaco.  At one point while Bree and I were in the ocean, we looked around and said, “Can you believe we are here at the beach in Costa Rica, and our friends in Spokane are ‘enjoying’ the snow they just got a few days ago??”  For lunch, Hollie, Danica, Heather and I went to a Soda (that’s what they call outside restaurants) and got some food.  Then we walked around Jaco for a little bit, and I bought a hat in a store because I forgot mine at home.  

 The beach in Jaco

I didn't get a sunburn!

 Where we set up our stuff for the day

The sidewalk outside of the place where I bought my hat

 An orange lime?  We had no idea what this fruit was

Danica and her Ceviche 

Yumm

                We stayed at the beach until around 2:15, and then made our way to the bus stop to head back to San Jose.  The ride home took a little longer than the ride to the beach, so I started reading 90 Minutes in Heaven.  I’m about 70 pages into it, and it’s really good so far!  We got into San Jose around 5:30, just as it was starting to get dark.  I thought San Jose was busy at 6:15 in the morning.. but this time around it was ridiculous.  People were literally everywhere.  They were selling things on the streets, walking around, asking if anyone needed a ride in a taxi, and more.  It was very overwhelming, but we all stuck together in a group and didn’t have any problems.  We took a bus from San Jose into Heredia where some of us bought ice cream, then headed back to San Rafa.  I got home a little after 7:30, ate dinner, took a shower and fell into bed.  It was such an exhausting day, but it was great to know that we were able to take a trip to the beach, a place none of us had ever been before, and make it back all in one piece.  

On the bus before we left to go back to San Jose