La Pura Vida

La pura vida es una frasa all of the Costa Ricans know and use all the time. If they hold the door open for you and you say ¨Thanks¨they come back with ¨Pura Vida¨. Sometimetimes instead of saying goodnight, they say ¨¨pura vida¨. Everything is pura vida. They are an incredibly nice and happy group of folks, and last weekend I discovered one of the reasons why.



Costa Rica is amazing beautiful. Last weekend a group of us went to Cahuita. Now Cahuita is a small town on the Carribean side of the country. From San Jose, it´s about 4 hours. Since we wanted to make the most of our time out of the city, we took the 6 am bus and so we all arrived via taxi to the station. Now, based on my previous post, you may have learned that buses and I are not the best of friends. While I did not get lost this time. The bus was STIFLING hot. Emma and I could not for the life of us figure out how to open the windows. I believe it was the windows fault, not our lack of strength. AND this was my first time on the crazy roads of Costa Rica on a bus. I have now learned the invaluableness of Dramamine. Luckily, after 3 hours we stopped for a bhathroom break, and changed buses to one with functioning windows. unfortunately, one of the women on the bus lost a bag. Not sure if it was stolen or not. I have learned to always keep my bag with me.



Ok, a little about Cahuita. It´s population is mostly made up from descendents of slaves brought from the islands to work in Costa Rica. It has a very reggea feel. Cahuita, however, did go through a perdiod of violence, and hence became a bit of a ghost town. During that time Puerto Viajo, the neighboring town, build up its tourist base. Now Cauhita is fine, and hence from the head start of Puerto Viejo, has a different touristy feel. Yes there are shops and tourists, but it all feels like a community, and we´re were all family. There was a carinival in celebration of the people of Cahuita, and locals mixed with tourists, and you didn´t know where one ended and the other began. There were a ton of places to stay, but often they were wedged between houses. Our ¨hotel¨bordered the water, and was something our of a movie (pictures to come). Hammocks were everywhere, and the point was to relax.



And relax we did. First, at Playa Negra, where the sand is black. I have learned that black sand is not my favorite. At lunch, when a woman (American, who came to visit and stayed and currently has a cute daughter) told us that the better beach was on the other side. And she was correct. The beach bordered National Park, and the juxtaposition of beach and jungle was breathtaking. The water was goregous and warm. Oh and sometimes quite rough. It´s been a bit since a wave has caused me to somersault. But that I did. I still may have sand in places one definately does not want sand. There was also a trail in the jungle that followed the beach. I saw loads of animals. Howler monkeys scared the daylights out of me. White faced monkeys jumped from tree to tree. And after walking for a bit, found secluded areas reminicent of Pirates of the Carribean. For a town the size of Cahuita (2 paved roads....) I didn´t find the time to do the whole trail. But what I saw was amazing. (OK just realized that I don´t know how to check the spelling of this in English. Please forgive anything spelled incorrectly.)

Other highlights included a canopy tour, where we ziplined from platform to platofrm above the jungle. It was pretty tame and I´m looking forward to Sandra coming to visit so we can do one a bit more adventurous. Alice and I also went on a choloate tour. More on that later...


That´s all for now! Pura Vida

Historias del autobus

So I pride myself in having a pretty good sense of direction. I hardly ever got lost in Venice, and I can remember how to get to places even if years have passed. But for the life of me, I cannot not get lost in Costa Rica. On the first day, my madre tica took me on the bus to and from la escuela. I told her I would be fine on my own. Y en el proximo dia, fui solo. I was not, however, prepared for all of the distractions on the bus. I kept looking out the window. The height of distraction was an advert on the back of the bus in front of me. It was for milk talking about how it was good for your bones. But it had a gingerbread cookie and you could see his skeleton and he was being dunked in a glass of milk. I thought it was hilarious. But it took me awhile to translate the Spanish, and the next thing I knew I was somewhere I had never been before. I asked the woman sitting next to me where I was and where that was in relation to where I wanted to be, and she gave me the international look for "Oh honey, you're completely lost." She was very kind and told the bus driver, and I went the end of the route, and then stayed on as the bus went in the other direction. Yo tuve la oportunidad para ver toda la ciudad. He then made it un punto a decime that this was mi pradada (which happens to be at the Subaru dealership. A major point of reference in San Jose).

You would then think that after this experience I would pay attention on the route. Such was not the case on Thursday when I went home on my won. I took the bus from the mall at 7:30 pm. Theoretically, the ride is 20 minutes. But there was a program on the television about a huge mural from clay. And it was a very interesting method. And cuando I looked up, I realized that I wasn't in Kansas anymore. So I went up to the bus driver (whose name I later found out was Roy) and he and another person kind of laughed because I had missed mi parada by A LOT. So again, I was to go with the bus until the end of the line, and then get my stop on the way back. So I
did, and at the end of the line un muchacho, Alberto, came on as well (He runs the hostel cerca de la escuala). And then the bus broke down. It had a gas leak. So Roy pulled over, and the three of us waited on the side of the road, in the dark, next to a bar, for a bus to pass us to pick us up. The first one completely ignored us. But the next one stopped. Yo dije adios a Roy (he had to stay with the broken down bus) and Alberto y yo fuimos en el otro autobus. Alberto stayed with me and told me when to get off *which I would have missed without him). I then managed to walk to the house on my own, and arrived past 9 pm. So a 20minute bus ride, in total, took 1.5 hours.

Oh well.... From the morning and the evening adventures, I have now seen la ruta de San Ramon in total.

Testing this out!

Ok. So this Blog is dedicated to Janet!! I'm not sure how this all works, or how incredibly boring I'm going to be but oh well. I'll try to post photos up here as well.