Ah, the sweet smells of Costa Rica...

Trash, fire, and my favorite... trash fire. What a beautiful place!

I have been all over the country since I´ve been able to update this. After the Rodeo, I bought a surfboard in Jacó, a two-hour bus ride away, have surfed on it in Playa Caldera, a half-hour bus ride away, and so much more. Jacó is an American tourist mecca, with its Pizza Hut, Mexican Joe´s internet café, Subway, Quiznos, KFC, and signs everywhere advertising in English and giving dollar amounts. The beach there is beautiful, though, and it´s the best place around for buying surfboards. Mine is a 6´6´´ egg-shape board, a sunny yellow with blue around the edges. It´ll be perfect to use while I´m here, and by the time I leave, I´ll be happy to get some money back by selling it.

Playa Caldera, the closest surfing beach, is incredible. Once you get off the bus at a gate to a canning factory, you hike all the way past the factory, over some rocks, and down a long beach to the point, where the waves break perpendicular to the rocky point towards the beach. Most people (or most tourists) aren´t up for the 45-minute walk, so it´s usually a private beach.

Bus rides here vary greatly in their duration. If you´re lucky, you get on a direct bus, and if you´re my friends and me most of the time, you get on a bus that takes you through every back-road neighborhood, most of which have unpaved roads. The experience is made all the better by the fact that the 1950s school buses generally have no shocks left... Not to complain, though, I´ll pay less than a dollar to go on a trip, no matter how uncomfortable the ride!

Attempting to go to a Reggae Festival one Saturday night in Montezuma, south on the Nicoya Peninsula, my friends Colleen, Codi, Kyle and I learned that it was actually taking place the following night. Since we couldn´t go to the fabled reggae festival, we ended up at a hostel in Santa Teresa, near Malpaís, where we had an incredible time. A full moon, a clear night, a low tide, and about 50 really fun people made for a great party on the beach. We all went back just a week later, happy to find the same group of surfers there to greet us. The waves there are pretty big, and I made it out!

This weekend, after getting back from Santa Teresa on Friday, about half the students here went to Jacó for a Daddy Yankee concert. He´s a reggaeton artist, I didn´t know him before, but after this concert I still think he only has about one song!

The superbowl didn´t really interest me- down here we don´t get the commercials, and since I don´t really have a preference for either team, it wasn´t a big deal. I´m taking it easy the next few days... Carnival´s in a week and a half!

Tortuga Island, Curú, Santa Cruz, y Jacó

Here´s my beach cruiser. My bike and I go everywhere together!

Here is the sunset from a few nights ago. The mountains in the background are the Nicoya Peninsula. The sunsets in Puntarenas are different every night.

I´m up on my tetanus, though, so everything´s great!

Sitting in the sand as the tide came in a few nights ago, I was lucky enough to be inches away from a board with 10 rusty nails stuck in it, which washed up right next to me. One of many questionable things that has washed up on the beach here in Puntarenas.

In the past few days I´ve visited Tortuga Island and Curú, where we hiked through a wildlife reserve and snorkeled, and relaxed on the beach. More slacklining, soccer ball juggling, frisbee throwing, and chilling out.

Santa Cruz gave me the chance to see my first rodeo. Thousands of people packed into a shantily-made stadium. Hundreds of drunk Ticos in the center. 18 angry bulls, with five minutes each to charge at the drunk Ticos, try to buck the Tico from his back, and otherwise wreck havoc. I bought an ice cream cone from one of the vendors, and took many pictures. Tico men, when they´re excited, make a scream that resembles a dolphin´s cry. The rodeo sort of sounded like Sea World at dolphin feeding time! Nonetheless, it was a great experience and I loved it.

My bag FINALLY arrived Sunday night, however it is missing about half its orininal contents. I´m grateful to have the bag, but disappointed at the state in which it arrived.

Today I went to Jacó and bought a surfboard. Having this 6´6´´ yellow fiberglass darling opens up many opportunities for me, and I´m looking forward to breaking it in on Thursday, when I´ll go to Calderas, the nearest beach with surfable waves.

Loving it more and more here each day!

PUNTARENAS

This is it! The pool´s a swamp now, though.

Spanish-Speaking Parrots and Beach Cruisers

Tere, Cecilia´s Parrot, speaks Spanish. ``¿Quieres cafe¿ ¡hola!´´

Cecilia, my host mom, has one of the most unusual collection of pets i´ve encountered. There´s Tere (te-de), a little fluff toy poodle named Princess, and today I found her iguana. She´s a petite woman who always wants her friends and family to have a `panza llena, corazon contente.´ (full stomach, content heart).

Today was the best so far for several reasons:

I got a beach cruiser. Not just a beach cruiser, but a purple and white one that Proxedes (Cecilia´s sister) picked out for me. ¡Que bueno! Lesson learned already, though: don´t ride through glass. Tires WILL go flat.

I got to watch the sunset with my amazing friends. Not only did we watch the sunset, though, but we set up a slackline, were juggling a soccer ball (like you would with a hacky sack), did handstands in the sand, and met more Ticos, or locals. It got dark too quickly, but we´re BBQing tonight, so the night´s not over yet.

___

My house with Cecilia is, literally, one street in from the beach. The school´s about four blocks down, which is perfect for walking and even better for cruising. Almost everyone has bikes at this point, which makes getting anywhere easier. Puntarenas is a little peninsula, five blocks wide and a ten-minute walk from the run-down marine animal park to the punta, or point.

I absolutely love it here. Thanks to all of you for your thoughts and support... Next time I´ll figure out how to post some pictures!

In Puntarenas

The blog instructions are all in Spanish, so i hope this works!

I got to Puntarenas last night on the bus with my group. The kids all seem really cool, so I´m excited for everything to get started. My family consists of Cecilia, mi mama de Puntarenas, her sister, her niece Melissa, and her two kids. Melissa lives in San Jose with her kids, and her sister lives in Poway, not more than 15 minutes from my home in San Diego. Small world!!

Last night we all went walking on the beach boardwalk. There are soda stands and craft stands selling coconut earrings and floaties for kids. It´s cute and laid-back, and I like it. We sat and got a `Churchill Colassal,´ a mix of a strawberry icee, ice cream, and sweetened condensed milk. Different from anything I´ve had!

It´s VERY HOT here... which is nice. I´m on my way to buy a swimsuit (since mine are all still in the depths of Spirit Airlines´ lost luggage) so I can go swimming.

muchos besos!!