My dear friend Robin said the above to me the other day and I feel that there are few things more true. At this point, one month into my stay in Costa Rica, I am in a constant state of uncertainty. (I think I'm ordering this, but who the hell knows?)
In the past 2 weeks the silliest lapses in understanding Spanish have come in the form of a) Robin and I becoming very excited about free juice samples at a restaurant in Puerto Viejo, on the Caribbean, only to discover said drinks on our bill. And b) when a mystery woman showed up at Robin's house for breakfast and we had no idea why this woman was there. This event is what prompted the statement. We are still not quite sure who this woman is and why she joined us for breakfast.
So two weekends ago I went to Puerto Viejo, which is in the province Limon, on the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. It was beautiful but I was rather perturbed with how gringo-ized it was. Sure, there were Ticos that lived there, but in fact, the vast majority of waiters/waitresses and bartenders I encountered were Gringos.
We stayed at a hostel called Rockin' J's which rented hammocks instead of beds. Which was fun for about one night. To be honest, I do not know why so many people recommend this hostel so highly. It was really dirty, like really REALLY dirty. As in, I felt it would be more cleanly for me to skip showering rather than go into the showers. Also the hammocks literally felt as though they had never been washed. Robin and I opted to switch hostels on the third night, much to the dismay and confusion of our companeros. For whatever reason, everyone we were with LOVED Rockin J's. And don't get me wrong, it was a fun place to party, but not such a great place to sleep and/or shower at.
The owner of Rockin J's was an old-ish man, about 55 or so, who I am pretty sure visited Costa Rica when he was like 18 and never left. Which is cool. But he was 55 and still raged like an 18 year old, which especially weirds me out post "the incident" with Robin's crazy host mother. His right hand man, was about 30 or so and reminded me to a T of the bad guy in the movie, The Girl Next Door. He had one of those mohawks that was really just a landing strip of slightly longer hair down the center of his head. And from what I could tell, he wore exclusively t-shirts with the sleeves cut off. He was the kind of guy who seemed relatively cool at first but the more you talked to him the more you realized he was kind of a douche. On our second night in the hostel he invited us to, and this is word for word, "a rave/pool party in the jungle, it's kind of far away so you'll have to take a taxi but there will be TONS of coke and ex there." We declined his offer and felt no remorse about this. Our good feelings towards declining the jungle rave were confirmed when a bunch of people came back at 5 am, on ecstacy and woke us up to talk about the rave (and give us lots of hugs).
Puerto Viejo was beautiful AND I saw a sloth, so that life goal is achieved. But I was really upset by the fact that it seemed like in this place with a beautiful beach and so much incredible nature, the best thing Puerto Viejo claimed to offer was free drinks from 10-12 at various bars. It seemed like most of the people I went with were more concerned with getting fucked up than seeing and experiencing a new place, I doubt a lot of them even remembered much about the weekend.
This past weekend I went to Tamarindo, which is a beach on the Pacific side of Costa Rica and it was a lot of the same. The other 50 members of our study abroad group have arrived and it is definitely clear that the main prerogative of the majority is to get drunk as often as possible. In fact, we watched a movie in class on Friday and when I sat down the girl sitting next to me informed me that she had just vomited due to the night before. Lovely. AND classy.
It just seems like a lot of people in our group are looking for the United States in a place where it doesn't exist. But it generates money, so, there are a lot of bars that offer free drinks to a majority Gringo clientele. In Tamarindo we went to a restaurant whose menu almost exactly mimicked that of Red Robin. Not that I don't love Red Robin, but that is not what I'm here to see. This restaurant was extra disappointing because it also mimicked Red Robin in that the prices were oddly high for such mediocre food, and the staff was unnecessarily surly.
But no matter, it was a good weekend. Robin and I opted out of the offered extra excursions to save money and just layed on the beach. I attempted to surf with my friend's surf board, but that did not go so well. I got out into the water and then a big wave crashed on my head. I got scared and promptly returned to shore. I got rather sunburned and for the first time utilized an aloe vera plant, which worked about the same as the aloe vera in the bottle but it felt much cooler and more exotic.
I am increasingly frustrated with my Spanish skills. I am incapable of not speaking and it is so hard when I want to say something but I do not possess the vocabulary to do so. Oh well, I guess there will just come a certain point when I stop saying things like "Oh wow, that shirt is drunk" and "I'm going to ignite my friend" (I said the latter by accident when I was trying to say I was going to meet my friend. Oops.)
Until next time...pura vida.
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