El Gigante

First of all, let me say that my thoughts are with Eve Carson, her family, friends and everyone back at UNC and Chapel Hill. One of the scariest things I’ve seen in a while was something I just saw on the USATODAY website. In the tabs of stories titled things like world news, national, politics, sports, etc., there’s a column for “student killings”. It’s so difficult to comprehend why things like this happen. I can’t think of anything that I want to do more now than give a big hug to everyone in Chapel Hill. (On a side note, I know the saying that guns don’t kill people—people kill people—but guns sure make it a lot easier.)

So, it’s been a while since I wrote anything and I feel like a lot has happened since. Last weekend I went to Arenal with a bunch of students from the program. I went partly to scope it out in hopes of bringing Mom and Claire there problem-free. The station, Terminal Norte, was sketchier than the Coca-Cola (the bus stop where tons of buses leave) according to my host mom, but a ticket for a 5-ish hour drive cost less than $4. Fine with me. As much as I don’t love the city of San Jose itself, it is super duper convenient to be able to hop on a bus to almost anywhere in the country.

Arenal lived up to its #1 Tourist destination in Costa Rica as right after we hopped off the bus, we were surrounded by people asking us if we wanted taxis, tours, places to stay, or if we’d like for them to follow us around thrusting brochures at us and promising the best deal in town. After looking for a hostel to stay in for entirely too long, we finally ended up at cabinas with a decent view (minus the power lines) of the volcano. We booked a tour with a woman who had been following us around since we got off the bus (sketchy) but it only cost $20, compared to the other option of $35, so why not, right? The tour started in the evening, so we had a little bit of time to kill. Being poor college students, we went to the grocery store, and had an awesome little picnic in the central park of the town, La Fortuna. (7 bananas for about 18 cents? Deaaaal!) I had brought soggy jam and butter sandwiches from home, but a few others shared the tab to make ground bean, avocado, cheese and hot sauce sandwiches. Yuuum (no sarcasm here).

Come evening time, we were picked up for our tour. Still a little sketched out, we were relieved when the van finally came, around 5:30ish. It was already getting dark by the time we arrived at the entrance to the volcano, and everyone on the tour had to bring a flashlight. We passed where most of the tourist buses were stopped and from a trail began walkin’ in the dark. After crossing a way-too-rickety-for-comfort bridge made of rope and rickety stuff, one of the first things we saw was a sign. High Volcanic Risk. Enter at Your Own Risk. (Hmm…good choice, Erin!) One of the guides told me to be careful because the snakes like to come out at night, then told me he stepped on a poisonous snake’s head the night before. Then, he proceeded to tell me about the people who have died on the volcano in the past few decades.

One of the most amazing things was listening to the volcano. We were so close, that we could actually hear the lava. It sounded like subdued thunder, almost guttural and foreboding, but at the same time, calm and peaceful. We hiked to a bunch of rocks and a clearing to watch the lava spew. The sky was really clear so we just stayed there for about an hour watching the lava trickle down the sides of the volcano every once in a while. It was so cool to see, but the experience was either made more or less enjoyable (depending on your point of view) because of the fact that I was 700 meters away from one of the 10 most active volcanoes in the world. I think the guide said the lava travels hundreds of meters each second. When someone asked him if anyone monitors the volcano’s activity? His reply: “No, not really.” I still can’t figure out if that’s the truth or a joke.

After watching the lava for a while and unsuccessfully trying to capture it on film (it was one of those, “you have the memories—so the photo isn’t as important” sort of things), we went back down the path to drive to the hot springs. Down a little path, enter: hot springs. It was a creek, not too wide, but the water was incredible. It was like bath water except with a really strong current. After lounging about relaxing in there (or being swept downstream by the current while trying to relax), and generally slipping/sliding around the hot springs for a while, the tour finished, and the night wound down.

Saturday, we came back to Heredia. Getting back took forever and the bus we rode on was particularly sucky. We were in transit from about 12:45 to 7:30ish. Long day. When I got home, I sat down on my bed just to sit for a sec and fell asleep until the next morning. Sunday wasn’t too eventful. So much so that I don’t actually remember what I did. I think I just did my h-dubs, and made a reservation for a tour for Mom and Claire’s arrival! At night, my host parents showed me their hotel so I would know how to get there the next morn, and my host mama bought me some ice cream at Mas X Menos. Yum.

My first time trying Dos Pinos ice cream, courtesy of host mama hen.

Monday morn, I awoke quite early—bought 5:15 am, to walk over to Claire and Mom’s hotel, and to go on an 11 hour touristy tour. They arrived late Sunday night. We went on this tour that visited 5 different places through the course of a day. We took a taxi to San Jose with a one armed taxi driver (ah..), who drove his little heart out to get us there on time. The tour overall was sort of rushed, but it was cool that we got to see so much. First stop: Coffee place. Really, a bed and breakfast called Siempre Verde (Always Green) surrounded by coffee plants. We didn’t really learn too much about coffee, but we ate some breakfast and enjoyed the land and view. For breakfast, we had gallo pinto with suuuuuch good coffee, and some fruits. (My host mom’s gallo pinto is world’s better.) After breakfast, we quickly walked around the grounds, trying to enjoy as much as possible before 8:30: our guide, Al’s deadline for us to be back on the bus.

Breakfast.

Coffee plants!

Volcan Poas

Next stop: Volcan Poas. I hadn’t been there yet, but had heard a lot about it. It’s the most visited national park in Costa Rica, apparently, and is basically a gigantic crater. Luckily, it wasn’t too cloudy. After a short walk, we reached the lookout point and it was beautiful. The crater was filled with blue/celeste water/liquid/stuff. Purdy. Walked through a mini “jungle” back to the bus. (There's Mom and Claire posing next to a big leaf--I made them do it. My winning argument? "But the leaf is so big!")

Up next: San Fernando waterfall. Drove for a while to get there. Wait a minute…. This looks familiar……. Hey! I’ve been here before. Turns out the same waterfall I peeked at between puking my guts out a few weekends ago on the way to a friends house, is the same waterfall that I happily took pics of with Claire, vomit-fairy-visit-free. What a difference Dramamine can make. Mmmm. After taking pics of the waterfall on a bridge and being dangerously close to big trucks zooming by, we went to a little center for a snack, to look at the waterfall from a nice viewpoint and to see hummingbirds. For snack, we had empanadas, fried yucca and tamarind juice.

Waterfallz.

Neeeext: lunch at la Selva Verde Jungle Lodge, pretty much seemed like a resort with naturey things for their guests to do. Our guide showed us plants, we for a wee bit on an air bridge thingy, and then had lunch.

Yay for no class on Mondays! Wee!

Next again: we drove to Sarapiquí river. Our guide pointed out wild life using a compact mirror, and a weird dude on the tour took way too many pictures of “natives” --aka Costa Ricans having a picnic near the river, or kids playing with a soccer ball in the water, or guys fishing. Weird.

Iguana. Bananas.

Rio.

Pointin' out stuff with a mirror.

In da boat.

Cows.

Bird that I forget the name of.

Cayman.

Last up: Braulio Carrillo National Park. The drive back took a few hours I’d say. We drove through the national park which was beautiful and vastvastvast, and stopped to see el Rio Sucio. It’s like a river half of sulfur water half of freshwater I guess, and the two colored waters meet after a fork in the river. (Look at the pic). Getting out to the bridge to see this was scary. Mostly huge transport trucks drove on this bridge, and every time that they did, the bridge would shake. Not to mention, the space for pedestrians wasn’t ample.

Rio Sucio

Big Truck, ahhhh!

We caught the bus from San Jose back to Heredia and experienced some role reversal. I doled out colones to my mom and sister for their bus fare, and ushered them into line.

We got back to the hotel, where I met one of the flamboyantly gay hotel owners, whose favorite phrase is “Precioso!” with double hand motions included. After resting for a little bit in the hotel room and being reunited with some of my clothes from home toted by Ma and Claire (thank yeeeee!), they pulled out even more goodies. Henriette’s amazing sweet bread loaf that I don’t know the name of—soo delicious, and chocolatey goodies. Every chocolate bar that I’ve every looked at in Southern Season and thought, “Hmm, I’d better not,” was in the chocolate care package from Henriette, plus little chocolate candies that I have been snacking on incessantly (YUM).

Anyways, away from chocolate and back to blog. We took a taxi to my host family’s house. I think my host mom was nervous because she told me she would spend the whole day cleaning the house, and cooking a special meal. Everyone was introduced, Mom and Claire brought some presents, and Claire got to practice her Spanish while mom’s choice phrase for the night was, “What did (s)he say?” We basically gorged (no exaggeration) ourselves on my host mother’s delicious cooking (including tres leches… mmmm). It was really nice to introduce Mom and Claire to my host family. Difficulties with names was pretty funny. My host brother's name, Humbertito (little Humberto) not to be confused with Humberto Papa, proved particularly difficult for Mom. (Hum...bret..o, was usually her pronunciation of choice --hehe, sorry Mom.) While my host parents had a particularly hard time with "Claire." A fun dinner was had by all. Families are such awesome things, and now I have another one.

My host sister, really, really excited about chocolate.

Tuesday, I went to Spanish class only to find that class had been cancelled (schwing!) so I went to the fam’s hotel. We relaxed a bit in the hotel which was nice and homey. There is a little kitchen and a few tables for the guests to eat at. We strolled through Heredia’s central market—basically lots of fruits and lots of meats, and showed them some of the symbolic “monuments” of the city. We went to my favorite restaurant in Heredia, which I guess isn’t saying much because I’ve only eaten out at two restaurants in Heredia. It’s called Mama Mia, and it’s a Caribbean slice of heaven. I had class Tuesday night and all of Wednesday so on Wednesday, Mom and Claire went on a (rip off) coffee tour with cheesy people dressed up as ‘campesinos’ or country folk. Dance class on Wednesday was particularly fun but demasiado sweaty. We danced the cumbia a bit, which is so so so so fun.

On Thursday morning, we left super early to catch the 6:15 to La Fortuna, the city close to Volcan Arenal. I stayed the night at Mom and Claire’s hotel so that I wouldn’t have to walk there so early in the morning. Our alarm didn’t go off, so we woke up at 5:30 and somehow got ready, took a taxi to San Jose, and got on the 6:15 bus. Like a scene out of Home Alone: Tico Bus Stop Home Alone.

The trip was much shorter, perhaps because less people travel on the earlier bus and we arrived in La Fortuna in time for breakfast at Lava Rocks. I had gallo pinto with scrambled eggies, just because I wanted to compare it to my host mom’s. Hers is better. We headed to the hotel (my first time here not staying in a hostel, woo) called Miradas Arenal. Miradas Arenal is a super cute, beautiful piece of land that belongs to a couple that once owned a farm. They changed the front half of their farm into a hotel with little individual cabin/rooms with plenty of space and an absolutely stunning view of the volcano through gigantic, panoramic glass doors and windows. There was nothing fancy about this place, just a simple, nice place to stay. More like a bed and breakfast than a monster touristy hotel. (And no, I’m not a paid advertiser.)

Caught some lava on camera.

After some nap time, we went on a tour. The people on our tour sort of sucked. A couple of annoying, camel-toe-toting girls from Italy were obnoxious and interfered with my lava enjoyment, and some German dudes thought they were the shiza and kept critiquing the guide. (Also, one of the Italian girls made a blue steel face in every picture she took, except she wasn’t trying to be funny. Sippin’ on my haterade.) (I don’t have anything against Europeans, I promise.) Annoying tour companions aside, we hiked through woodsy, then jungly terrain (including army ants, and howler monkeys), and saw some purdy views of the volcano and Lake Arenal. After hiking, we went to a view point around evenin’ time to watch the lava. We saw some but it was really cloudy, about half or more of the volcano was covered. You could still see some lava, but the mosquitoes went to town and the lava enjoyment level was slightly decreased due to mosquito bites. After watching lava, we went to the Baldi Hot Springs, a very touristy hot springs resort-y spa type place. They could work on their ambiance. My first piece of advice would be to nix the blasting of Top 40 Pop Techno Remixes and put on some relaxing music. The tour ended sort of late, 9:30ish, so we went in search of dinner. We ate at a hotel restaurant near our hotel. Food wasn’t spectac, wasn’t terrible.

Gallo pinto with a view, breakfast at the hotel

Next morn, Claire and I ventured off around Arenal while Mom had a relaxed morning enjoying the view of the volcano. After some gallo pinto with a view, we went to La Fortuna waterfall. We were pressed for time, so we basically ran down the path to the waterfall (which I heard would take 30 or 40 minutes) in about 10 minutes. We were the first people there and it was pretty cool to have it to ourselves for a good 30 minutes. I won’t try to describe it in words, instead, here are some pictures. Thinking we’d be late, we booked it back up the trail (steeeeep) in about 5 minutes. We made it back to the hotel in time to get picked up for…..ziplining!

After getting all the gear on, a guide—Marvin, told me my gear was roto, broken. Being the gullible sucker that I am, my face, undoubtedly, got the 'oh crap!' expression until he started laughing. Ziplining the second time around was fun and the fear of maybe falling to my demise in the forest was no longer. (Perhaps due to the second safety cable the second time around.) We zip-lined with an Argentinean family (After talking with them a wee bit, I realized I would have had a hard time understanding Argentinean Spanish had I chosen to go abroad there), and a bunch of B-School students from Columbia. The best part of zip-lining this time was, actually, not zip-lining. They had a “tarzan” swing which I wish I could do over and over. Instead of gradually slowing down, I swung my legs in and out like I did when I was a little kid on the swings so that I wouldn’t stop. (The guides trying to pull me down to the ground prooobably didn’t appreciate that.) The view was awesome.

We met mom back in the center of town for lunch before the bus ride home. At the rest stop, I went sort of snack crazy so that Claire and Mom could try some plantain chips, ‘orejas’ (like a mix between elephant ears, crackers and cookies) and a few bananas. I walked back to the bus with an arm full of food and the Ticos must have been thinking, ‘fat Americans.’

The bus ride was much shorter than it was last time and we got back in town about 7ish, walked to Trigo Miel (a bakery/restaurant) and picked up a cake to bring to host fam extended fam for the next day. We had a balanced dinner of ‘orejas’, Dos Pinos ice cream, bananas, blackberries, and a mini microwave lasagna.

The next morning we went with my host parents to visit their farm and a few of their relatives in a rural town called San Juan Sur. It took about two hours to get there, and the scenery was gorgeous. The land that they have is from my host mom’s father. We met the family of her half brother, Orlando, and his wife Cenia served us some yummy cheesy corn tortillas (she made from scratch) with eggs and cheese. I had a cup of black coffee because I felt like I was still asleep but she also made this amazing drink of hot milk and chocolate, but it wasn’t hot chocolate. In any case, t’was very yummy. After breakfast, my host dad showed us one of their parcels of land. It was filled with tomatoes, whose harvest had already passed and some avocado trees. We also visited my host ma’s older brother, Omar.

After picking “limon dulce,” oranges, some bananas and watching Omar (who is in his 60s) climb a tree and throw down avocados to my host parents, we went back to Orlando and Cenia’s house for lunch. There, I met Anna, a peace corps volunteer in her first week in Costa Rica. She’s staying with a family during her language training and naturally, I bombarded her with questions about the application process, etc. We had three desserts for lunch: my host mom’s Jello Tico flag cake, the chocolate cake we bought from Trigo Miel the night before, and Cenia’s sister’s arroz con leche, or rice pudding. All three were quite tasty and we tried them in sequence. When we cut into the chocolate cake, the previously lively and chipper eating area became completely silent. I guess chocolate does that to people.

A little later, we left to see my host mom’s oldest sister, Nellie. Nellie’s husband, Adolfo, played the guitar and sang with his daughter for us. Their children are already grown, and Nellie and Adolfo are grandparents. When Adolfo and his daughter were singing Costa Rican songs, his grandson (maybe 8 or 9 years old) sat looking bored and played with a cell phone. Wish I had had my camera. A technological divide of sorts, I suppose.

By this time, we had spent almost all day with the extended family. We started to drive back to San Jose around 5:30 and met my host siblings and Yolandita’s boyfriend for dinner at a restaurant of their choice: a Chinese restaurant called Mil Sabores or 1,000 flavors. While we walked down the street from the parking lot, I spotted the restaurant. I thought, “If I know Chinese People, and I think I do, the restaurant with the giant neon sign is Mil Sabores.” And indeed, it was. Needless to say, Mom, Claire and I were a bit apprehensive of Costa Rican Chinese food. To me, this is like going to Mongolia to have some good ol’ Italian cooking. Plus, a friend of mine had told me that she had Chinese food here and it was served with gallo pinto (rice and beans) and tortillas. The food was like takeout, or that restaurant called Wok Express (Mom was not a fan), and it filled my craving for some “Chinker food” (as Mom likes to call it). I saw one Chinese dude working there, looked to be about 17 or 16. When we saw each other, we each got the, "What are you doing here????" looks.

So ended my loverly visit with my biological fam. After packing up my things from Arenal, looking through the pictures of our trip, and hugging goodbye, I took a taxi home.

Random tidbits that I am to lazy to incorporate into a bloggy fashion.

• The concept of home is so malleable, but stable all at once. Home can be the place where you’ve lived since birth, the house you built from the foundation. I use the word home so quickly for really any place. A hotel, whose definition is inherently, un-home, becomes a home away from home within a matter of hours. This leads to different levels of home. When Claire was feeling sick at my host fam’s farm, she said she wanted to go home. To the hotel? I asked. No, to home home, to NC home. Home Home= more home, than “home”. When I walk back to my neighborhood here and unlock the front door, I get that feeling of relief you get when you’re finally home. Or maybe it’s just because it’s always really hot outside. Also, say home 10 times fast. Ha.
• The language of beeps here. Amanda said it well the other night when she said that beeping here is used for everything. Here is an interpretation of the language of cars here.

Beep: Sup?
Beep Beep: I’m coming through an intersection—don’t go.
Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep: I was about to hit your car, but I stopped in time and now I’m going to beep for a really long time so that you feel bad and realize what a good driver I am.
Beeeeeeeeeep: Hey there’s a traffic jam, and no one can move. I know the solution!
Beepbeep: Guten tag.
BeepBeepBeepBeep: My horn makes my car sound small and puny. So I shall use it more than necessary to make up for it L Horn envy.
Beeep beep: Say hey to your mom for me.
Beep bee-beep: Cross, stupidhead (to pedestrians)
Beeep: Pura vida!

• There are lots of misconceptions about the US. One day a long time ago, my host mom asked if there are poor people in the US. I told her that some people are homeless. (I said “sin casa” or without a home because I didn’t know how to say homeless.) She responded, “Oh, so they live in apartments?” She said she had always thought that all people in the US were very rich.
• Rice and beans: One day a while ago I had a really strong craving for the rice and beans that we ate almost daily in Tanzania. Rice and beans is so simple, but there are so many different variations. That’s all.
  
• This manner of blogging, updating chronologically is sort of boring to write, and I imagine it can be boring to read. So, for bored people who have probably not made it all the way down here: sorryz. The reason I update like this is so that anyone who wants to know what’s happening, can.
  
• My host dad said Ticos are for Hillary for pres.
  
• Anyone know of any sweet public health opportunities for the summer? Holla at me if you do (no, really).
• I got my acceptance stuff finally.
• My host mom loves hens and roosters, as you may know. But, she told me she hates hen/rooster decorations with only the rooster, OR where the hen is the only one taking care of the baby chickens. She said both chicken parents need to be responsible for the baby chickens. (If not, then its machista!)
  

Abrazooos,
Erin

P.S. I don't write this stuff all at once, that would take forevaaa.
P.P.S. Happy spring break to UNC-ers!
P.P.P.S. Today is March 10, not February 28. My blog is messed up.
P.P.P.P.S. Here are some mo' pics

http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011578&l=99239&id=1392450106\
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2011576&l=afdf0&id=1392450106