Nicaragua: San Juan del Sur

Having to flee Costa Rica due to immigration issues, I traveled to Nicaragua last weekend. Early Thursday morning Gabrielle, Frank and I set out on an awesome adventure full of border crossings, beaches, and good times. 

Sitting in a charter bus for seven hours really isn't that bad. The guy on the bus selling empanadas out of a cooler made it worth while. He saved me from starving to death. 

Crossing the border was an experience I'll try to describe but I think it might be a "you had to be there" moment... The bus pulled up to Costa Rica immigration at the border. Every one gets out, waits in line, gets their passport stamped and then files back in line to get on the bus. During the period of time spent between the bus and the immigration building, we were bombarded by hoards of people wanting to exchange money for us. Back on the bus we filled out a form and waited to arrive at Nicaraguan immigration. It didn't take long to get there. We handed our passports over to the bus employees so they could take them to be stamped while we headed outside to have out bags checked. The concrete platform in the middle of a parking lot was crowed with vendors, money exchangers, and people asking for monedas (coins). An immigration official checked our bags. I unzipped the top zipper of my backpack. After that the process went like this:  

The immigration guy looked at my bag...

"Ropa?" (Clothes?)

"Sí." (Yes.)

"Bueno." (Ok.)

And that was the end of that.

Good thing I'm not a drug smuggling cartel member... 

After about an hour of waiting outside in the hot sun we got back on the bus. Frank, Gabrielle and I got off the bus in a town called Rivas and took a taxi to San Juan del Sur.

We went to three different beaches during our trip...

The first beach

This picture was taken from our hostel.

Playa Ramones 

This beach is great, minus the jellyfish... Gabrielle and I both were stung multiple times. Our blistered jelly stings definitely gave us some beach cred. 

Gabrielle and I took a surfing lesson at Playa Ramones. It was so much fun! I spent a fair amount of time falling every direction into the water, but by the end of the day I could successfully stand up on the board! I'm practically a pro now. 

Playa Hermosa 

We visited Playa Hermosa on our last day in Nicaragua. This beach definitely lives up to it's name (hermosa means beautiful)! The water, sand, sky, everything was picture perfect. We spent the entire day hanging out on the beach and playing in the waves (we had to watch out for stingrays though...). The show Survivor was filmed on this beach a couple years ago. 

Sand Dollars! 

A street in town

Córdobas 

(Exchange rate 23 córdobas to 1 dollar)

Sunday morning we had to get back on a bus to reality. The bus had been over booked... somehow Gabrielle and I ended up having to be the people who had to sit on the floor at the back of the bus. That was a longgg bus ride. The important thing is that we made it back to Costa Rica safely and had a great time in Nicaragua. 

Feliz Cumpleaños A Mí!

Hoy cumplí 20 años en Costa Rica! 

(Today is my 20th birthday!)

I am a firm believer in indulging in multiple pieces of cake on your birthday, so that's exactly what I did. I had cake after breakfast and two pieces of cake for lunch. The group and I celebrated my birthday in the grupo office with cake, Coke, and the happy birthday song. What an awesome way to spend my day! 

Me in my new shirt that Sara and Soli gave me for my birthday! It has monkeys on it and says "Costa Rica Party". Its awesome! 

Shaking up Costa Rica: My Earthquake Experience

Today was a scary day.

Halfway through my 7am class the building started to tremble. Costa Rica will get occasional tremors, but when my classmates started to become concerned I realized something probably wasn't right. The little "tremor" turned out to be a ground shaking earthquake.

This is how everything played out... (Everything seemed like it happened so fast and some details are fuzzy, but for the most part this was my experience):

The building literally started to move. My classmates repeatedly tried my professor (who didn't seem to want to stop talking) that the ground was moving. She didn't pay attention until their cries became more concerned; this is when it became obvious to me that what was happening wasn't normal. The next part happened so quickly in my mind... the ground's movements changed from a light shaking to a vigorous shake. A scary shake. All at once everyone started to head to the door. My professor screamed, grabbed her stuff and ran. It was a moment of panic. It was like my body was on autopilot. In my memory, I somehow made it from my chair on the other side of the classroom to the door in one sweeping motion. Once outside of the door everything became surreal; everyone was rushed, yet it feels like everything was happening slowly. Out of instinct, I power walked to the stairs I walk up to get to my class on the 2nd floor of the building (I remember someone yelling "Don't run! Don't run!" in the background). The lights flickered and then remained off. Walking through the sea of frightened people, my memory is vague; I remember walking toward the light from outside and passing two girls holding each other's shoulders. Wether I was conscious of this or not, I remember feeling an imminent sense of something bad... I was waiting for the ceiling above my head to crash on to me. The building was moving so forcefully, I felt like I was having trouble keeping my balance. Finally I emerged through the door of an emergency exit with a group of people clustered like cattle.
The outside lights seemed so bright. I couldn't seem to suck enough fresh air into my lungs. I didn't realized how bad my hand were shaking or how fast my heart was beating until I had made it out of the building. That was one on the scariest experiences of my life.

Finally safe I could try to evaluate what had just happened. Everyone around me was for lack of a better term, freaking out. My recount of the story doesn't do the situation justice, but I thought I'd share it anyway.
They shut the building down for the rest of the day to be evaluated for structural damage.
I later found out that I had survived a 7.6 on the Richter scale, 12.4 mile long earthquake. I'd say that's good enough for one day... classes were canceled for the rest of the day.

Here are some links about the earthquake:
Map
Earthquake Information
Powerful Earthquake Reported in Costa Rica

$ Money $

Recently, actually two days ago, Costa Rica issued three updated bills to their currency (called colones). I really like the money here; the bills are colorful and have animals and plants that are native to Costa Rica. Could that get any better?
The exchange rate is roughly 500 colones to 1 dollar.

This is the smallest denomination. 

Value: $2

This is my favorite bill! I love the shark and starfish!

Value: $4

This is one of the newly issued bills. This is my second favorite. 

Value: $10

Another newly issued bill. Sloth!

Value: $20

Value: $40

The last of the new bills. I love the purple and the butterfly!

Value: $100

There was quite a bit of controversy regarding the 50 mil bill. Prior to it's release, the largest bill was 20 mil. The general public didn't see the need for a bill with a higher denomination because it wouldn't be practical for everyday interactions. The 50 mil bill is not dispensed from ATMs (they are available at the bank) and will mainly be used in larger business transactions.

I have a feeling that when I return to the U.S. I'm going to miss these bright, fun bills...

In addition to bills, there are also coins. 

(There is also a 500 colones coin)

Puerto Viejo de Talamanca

At 4:15 last Thursday morning I rolled out of bed to catch a bus with Tor and Gabrielle to Puerto Viejo in Limon. After 4 hours on the bus we arrived in paradise. The other people in our group met up with us Friday morning. There were nine of us total.

Puerto Viejo is by far the chillest place I have been to in Costa Rica. I mean, between the Rastafarian/ Caribe vibe, the friendly people, and the relaxed lifestyle how could it not be the most tranquilo (relaxed, calm, chill) place? 

We stayed at Rocking J's, a super cool hostel. Every thing from the ceiling to the floor was covered in funky/ artsy mosaic. The people there were fun to hang out with and it was also right on the beach. 

The front desk at Rocking J's

The beaches in Puerto Viejo are beautiful! We went to three different beaches during our stay. To get to Playa Manzanillo we rented town bikes for $3 and embarked on a mini Tour de France. The ten mile bike ride to the beach was fun, but I'll admit the ride back was a little tougher. It was well worth it though; the beach (similar to the others) had calm, clear, cool water and soft white sand. The weather was perfect and the beach breeze only added to that. Honestly, I think I've found my new favorite place in Costa Rica. 

One of the beautiful beaches

CRAB RACE! Rocking J's organized a crab race. For a dollar you could bet on the crab you thought would be victorious. Gabrielle and I were ready with our dollars in hand. Crab #5 was the underdog; he was missing a claw, but he was by far the biggest crab in the bunch. I knew he had potential. I put a dollar down on The Beast and Gabrielle randomly bet on #1. We agreed to spilt our winnings.
To win the race a crab has to cross the finish line three times. With little competition #5 stole the race! I collected the money we had won: a whooping three dollars each (the pot was split between us and another better). It was a lot of fun cheering on the crabs... winning wasn't bad either.

The Champion (and competitors)

You may have noticed that #2 is missing. He fell off the table and was half way eaten by the hostel dog. Sad day for crab #2.

BBQ at Zaida's!

Zaida, our group coordinator, invited the entire group and students from the English as a second language class she teaches over to her house for a barbecue on Saturday. 

I took on the challenge of grilling chicken and beef for around 25 people because no one else knew how. It was good grilling practice and I think I did a pretty good job (given the fact that everyone liked their meat). 

After everyone ate we chatted with the other students, danced around the living room, and played our own version of bilingual scrabble. It was a great time. 

Talking with the students who were learning English was really cool. The conversations would intermittently switch between Spanish and English. If a native English speaker was carrying on a conversation in Spanish and didn't know a word, somehow by mixing the two languages the word's meaning was figured out and everyone understood (and vice versa). The way the conversations unfolded was really interesting. Practicing Spanish and helping other people with their English was a neat experience and I walked away feeling like I had learned something new. 

Me and Margo manning the grill

Me and Gabrielle

Class #2: FL 2160

Every Tuesday at 1 pm I have my first class of the day: Gramática Española de Lenguas Modernas (Spanish Grammar of Modern Languages/ Fl 2160).
My professor is awesome. Marta is cool and in-touch with her students. On the first day she jokingly inquired about every one's beer consumption. I especially like how she makes the extra effort to check with the foreigners after class to make sure we understood everything (there are two other KU students in the class). She has spent many years teaching English as a second language, so I'm confident in her patience and teaching abilities.
This course is all about syntax and sentence structure: a lot of memorization. Sounds pretty boring, right? Fortunately my professor is a great lecturer: engaging and easy to understand. I sat attentively through her three hour long lecture... that says something. Oh, and the blister on my thumb from taking pages and pages of notes? That says something, too.
So far this is my favorite class.

Here's a picture of a butterfly that I took earlier this trip. 

(I like this picture and I like this class, so they get to go on the same blog page)