This past weekend, we went to Tamarindo, a beach that's about 6 hours away, across the whole of Costa Rica, by bus. The bus ride was incredibly long. Before we left, we had our tests, which consisted of a spoken portion, a reading portion, a grammar portion, a listening portion, and a writing portion. I’m excited to see how we did- we get the tests back today as far as I know. The hotel was incredibly nice. Breakfast was an awesome buffet with all kinds of fruit, and eggs made to order. It was really funny, because I’d go tell the Costa Rican woman how I wanted my eggs (she didn’t speak English), and all these tourists would be asking me how to say “onion” and “mushroom.” Haha. Anyway, Tamarindo. Because it is the rainy season here in CR, the beach at Tamarindo looked a lot like the beach in NC, except the waves were bigger, and there were things like crabs (big ones and little hermit crabs), little sea snails, etc. etc. And, right off the beach there was an island with a big mountain. Here is a pic on the day after we arrived- it was still a little cloudy from a morning rain:
And here is the beach at low tide:
Basically, at the beach, we swam, and went out by the pool, and had pina coladas the first day (I could only make it through half of mine, and gave the rest to John. Lol.) We were so dead tired that night, I can’t even tell you. The second day, Brian, John, Jacque, Ronnie and I went deep sea fishing. We didn’t catch much, but the view from the boat was phenomenal. I had never been out on the open ocean before, and thankfully I am not one of those people who gets seasick and is hanging over the side of the boat.
We passed these gigantic islands that looked like something out of Lord of the Rings- they were gigantic rocky masses with incredibly green trees on top.
We actually only caught two big fish- both were the same kind- I’m not sure how to spell the name, but the guy we were fishing with told us that the meat was really red and not good for eating. I was happy when they threw the really big fish back- killing something like that would be like killing a dog, or a kid. It was fun to watch it being reeled in though. Action Shot! (I was on the little upper platform of the boat, looking down)
And here’s me, saying hi from the boat. It’s hard to take a pic on a boat in the sun with the wind blowing your hair like nobody’s business:
At night in Tamarindo, we went to a few ocean front restaurants- I was dismayed by their selection of non-meat items. At one restaurant, all I could eat was the side salads. It’s really lame waiting an hour for the cooks to make 9 orders of mahi mahi, lobster, etc, etc, and then getting a tiny little salad that probably took 3 minutes to make. I was not in a very good mood that night- I thought it was supposed to be our coordinator’s responsibility to make sure the restaurants we went to as a group had vegetarian options. The extent of her concern was: She glanced down the table at me, after we had finally gotten our food, and, in mid-slurp of her lobster, asked: “Mallory, did you find something to eat?” That whore.
But, overall, the beach was very nice. I was ready to leave, though, at the end. I got a little sunburned on the last day, but it’s all good. The ride back took an incredibly long time- almost 7 hours. Traffic was bad, and they don’t have any highways here, and it was raining, and the gigantic potholes in the dirt roads were filling up with water. The views of the mountains on the way back were freaking amazing, but it was hard to get pictures to show you guys, because our bus driver was zooming around like a crack addict looking for a fix. This is one of the better shots I got- it had just finished raining, and was deciding whether to rain again:
That’s all I can show you right now- it’s time for breakfast. But, I’ll to update again later. Mom, if you read this, you should download skype, if you haven’t already. It’s free to download and make an account, and then I can talk to you from my host family’s computer with a mic and a cam, and your laptop probably has a mic and a cam as well. Tell Fidget I miss him!! I will try to call Grandma asap- I can get a phone card today at school. Alicia, thanks for the comment! If you haven’t noticed, I only have the one. *glares at everyone else, except Ryan, who is at least following.* lol. Well, I’ll talk to you guys soon. I miss you!!!!!!! It’s past the halfway point, so I’ll be home soon.
Hugs,
Mal
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