Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.

Hasta luego world,
Karin

So, the last few days I’ve travelled northwards of San Jose. Together with my two travel-mates Steffi and Rach, I went to La Fortuna. That’s the place where you can have yummy buffet breakfast, lunches and dinners. Where you can have an incredibly relaxing time in one of the many spas of the luxury hotels in the area. And where you can see the volcano Arenal if you’re very lucky. And we were. =) The sight of this big and very impressive mountain was amazing. And the fact that the volcano is still active adds kind of an exciting feeling to actually seeing it.

The following days we went to see some beautiful beaches in Guanacaste. Firstly, we travelled to Tamarindo, where we stayed for three nights. And then we went to Samara, which is a bit further south, to stay for four nights. We spent many many hours at the beach doing nothing but sunbathing, reading, sunbathing, reading, bit of swimming, sunbathing, … =D And of course – SURFING! And after three sessions of unsuccessful tries, I managed to stand up for more than just a second or two. Yay! After that you could see me paddle around out in the sea even more, because you kind of get addicted once you’ve been able to actually get up on your feet.

And now, I’m back in San Jose for a night before the three of us will hit the road again to go to Monteverde (Canopyyy!) and afterwards to the Caribbean coast.

Hasta luego!
Karin

The bus from San José left at midday on Sunday, the 5th of April 09. It was a long long ride to Nicaragua. After five hours we had the first break at the border of Costa Rica and our destination country. We had to wait an hour until everything was checked. But there was a short moment, which almost made up for all the waiting: When you reached the front of the line to go through customs of the Nicaraguan boarder control, there was a yellow button, big and lonely in the middle of the table. And all the officer did was pointing at it. The excitement rose and I didn’t quite know what to expect once I tough that thing. But I dared: Hit! The red light showed green which meant: Lucky you, you don’t have to get your luggage checked! Walk on. That was it. It was fun anyway. =)

We arrived in Granada at around 9pm, tired from doing nothing all day. A good night’s sleep would help to recover our energy, hopefully.

Next morning, and we still felt kind of exhausted. The heat was not easy to handle for our bodies. We still managed to get up and get to know the city. It has got a beautiful centre with old houses in all colours one can imagine. People sell jewellery etc. at their stands in the park, and the churches attract tourists as well as locals. But Granada seemed everything else but crowded. Even on the busiest time of the day, you find many many empty streets.

To get refreshment from the heat, we took a bus (old American school bus pimped with a TV and an excellent sound system) and a cab to get to the Laguna de Apoyo to go for a swim. The water of the lake wasn’t cold, but at least it wasn’t quite as warm as ocean either. So a bit of soaking in the water really did help.

The next day, we went on a tour around the Isletas in the lake. After another ride in one of those (school) buses, we enjoyed long boat rides with short breaks on several islands. We had fresh fruit with locals on one island, a swim on or better next to the ex-dictators island and dinner on another island again. We saw islands with poor people, islands of very rich people and islands with monkeys. It was a really nice tour and the beautiful sunset was a perfect ending for the day on the lake.

And on the last two days we surrendered to the heat and just hanged around, had some ice creams and a lot of sleep.
I enjoyed these four days in Granada very much. It was interesting to see another Central American country, it showed how Costa Rica really does have quite a bit more money.

And then on the bus ride back to Costa Rica, when we were almost back in San José I realised: There wasn’t one single McDonalds, KFC, Subway or whatever fast food place you can think of in Nicaragua. Not one single one. I’m going to move to Nicaragua! =D

Hasta pronto!
Karin

But luckily not yet. =D

Currently, I’m packing my stuff for the third last time. I’m going to Granada in Nicaragua tomorrow, the seventh country I’m going to visit on this trip around the world. I’ll go there with three friends and we haven’t made any plans yet what we’re going to do. But that is something I’ve been enjoying in these past eight months so much. Just be spontaneous and live. No pressure in any way. And that is something I’m afraid of loosing when I return back home to Switzerland. All of a sudden there will be lots of things that have to be taken care of, and this bill to pay, and that appointment to be attended.
Solution to the problem: Just get through it and save money to be able to take off again. =P

But now, I’m still on my trip and making the very best of my last three weeks. After all, I’m still on the road! So, watch out world. =D

Hasta luego!
Karin

And then on Easter Sunday, I’ll start travelling around Costa Rica for another 2.5 weeks with my two best friends from Switzerland. That will be heeeeaps of fun!

And just for a quick what-have-I-been-up-to-lately update: Last weekend I went to Manuel Antonio with some friends. A beautiful, but touristy, little place. Beautiful light-coloured sandy beach, lizards lying around and quite nice streetsellers. They just go away after being rejected. Like that a lot. =)

Hasta luego!

Karin

For example, every morning, I get woken up by noise from the huge construction site next to our house. And that special alarm clock doesn’t go off at eight o’clock, no, the workers actually start at six am every day but Sunday. I have gotten used to it now, and it doesn’t bother me much anymore, but I still think it’s a very early time to start working.

Then when I walk towards the town centre, the streets are not quite similar to Swiss ones. Mostly, all the streets are straight, so the town is split up in blocks. But not only that but also the houses are different. Most houses only have one level and are quite small. And when you walk along a street, it definitely doesn’t get boring because all the houses have something unique about them and they’re usually painted in bright colours. =)

Something else about Tico homes is: People just keep on coming and going, and mostly they just enter and leave again without knocking or anything. Of course, they know the family but at the start it seemed a little strange still. But it makes life more interesting because you never know who might come in and bring the latest news. =P

And speaking of houses and streets, addresses in Costa Rica are a little special. You don’t use a street name and number to say where you live, but you give a whole direction. So, if you write a letter to someone, it might look like that:

Señorita Sara
Del Banco National 100m sur y 275m este,
Casa verde a la derecha,
La Sabana,
San José

Crossing a street in Costa Rica is different as well. Since people here live with Tico-time, which means they take everything more relaxed, getting from one side of a street to the other is nothing stressful. Usually, you just stand there wait until no car is in close site and then you cross. That can very well take a few minutes, but it’s not worth it to get angry or stressed about it. At least no one does here. Sometimes, cars even stop to let you cross even though they wouldn’t have to., because usually there aren’t any zebra crossing sites.

When it comes to food, Ticos eat a looot of rice. Often you get it with every meal, including breakfast. And along with that you get beans. Gallo pinto, one of the most common dishes in CR is also made up of these two ingredients. You usually eat it for either breakfast or maybe lunch too.
In general, food is not very spicy. And something very delicious to eat in Costa Rica is fruit. There’s a huge variety of fruit and it’s incredibly sweet (naturally, not from added sugar or anything =P). And I’m lucky enough to get yummy fruit for breakfast everyday. =D

And something else you encounter a lot here are dogs. They are everywhere, really. But surprisingly, I haven’t seen any in really bad condition. But it seems as if all those dogs you see out on the streets actually belong to families. They just go for a walk themselves, which is very handy I think. =)

That’s it for the moment. And apart from a hike in the local mountains last weekend, I haven’t done anything very special in the past few days. But I’m sure I’ll have more to write about again soon. =)

Hasta luego!
Karin

On Saturday morning, we all met up at the big bus station in San José and grabbed the last seats in the coach that was heading to Jacó. We got there at around eleven in the morning. And after checking in at our hotel, we went to the beach straight away, where we also spent the rest of the day. =) In the evening we went out for a yummy dinner and afterwards enjoyed the nightlife (even though we had expected a bit more). The night was lots of fun, and we just napped in the sun at the beach the next day to get rid of our sleeping deficit. =P And then, in the evening we already had to catch our bus back to the capital.

After that weekend away, a new occupation was awaiting me back here in Escazú: I started my volunteering job at the municipality. Here I just help out with stuff that has to be done (like checking, if documents are put away correctly… how exciting =/), but I also work as a German teacher twice a week. =) Rahel and I are teaching fifteen students (between 13 and 28 years old). Classes are twice weekly for three hours each. So far, we’re really enjoying it and it’s fun to see the progress of the students. But it’s also a lot of work, because we have to prepare all the material ourselves. That’s actually more time consuming that we expected it to be. And explaining everything in Spanish didn’t turn out to be a big problem, which is great! Even though we neither can’t talk very sophisticated nor grammatically correct, it’s still working out somehow, so it’s aaaall good. =D

Hasta luego!
Karin

So, on Friday morning, we caught a bus at 6am to go to Cahuita. After almost missing the bus, Rahel & I spent the 4-hour-trip sharing only one seat. So while one of us was sitting on it, the other one had to spend some time on the floor… It wasn’t too nice, especially after sleeping for only a bit more than an hour before. But we survived and arrived safely at 10am at our destination where we met up with David, Kevin & Balz. The rest of the day, we spent mainly with sleeping, relaxing, meeting another friend (Ida from Denmark) and eating a bit. The beaches were full of branches from trees from last week’s storm in the Caribbean, so we just spent time in our rooms or around town.

The next day, we went on a tour to the Cahuita National Park. Firstly, we went on a boat trip to go snorkeling. Sadly, we couldn’t really go into the water though, because the sea was too rough and the current too strong. So, after floating around for a bit, we got dropped off at a beautiful beach, where we could swim in the very warm ocean and enjoy our lunch. Unluckily, Rahel & I could only eat half of or lunch, because a cheaky wee monkey decided that he liked our cookies as well and promptly stole them from us. And as clever as he was, he climbed up on a palm tree, so we had no chance of getting them back. Hard luck for us. =P
After spening time at the beach, we met our local guide and walked back through the rainforest. The path was very beautiful with the incredibly light and the fascination wildlife we could observe. We watched many ant trails with heeeaps of busy working ants, then we spotted a lot of monkeys and sloths high up in the trees, and we also got to see quite a few leguans (also up in the trees!), crabs and a poisonous yellow snake.
And after returning back in town, we had an ice cream, a shower and afterwards a nice dinner and a few drinks as well. =)

And then it was already Sunday, which meant we had to catch a bus back to San Jose again.

Apart from travelling around the country for a bit on weekends, I’ve been going to the language school to learn Spanish. It’s going quite well with the progress but sadly today was already the last day of school! This means, that starting from next Monday, Rahel & I will start volunteering at the Municipality of Escazu. We’ll teach German twice a week for 3 hours. Hopefully that will all go well. =)

But before starting with our volunteer job, we’re going to Jaco for two days. We’ll be a group of at least four friends and hopefully we’ll get a lot of time at the beach to go swimming and sunbathing. =D

Hasta luego!
Karin

PS: I wouldn’t mind seeing sooo much more of this world, so I’m participating in a contest (http://www.geckogo.com/blogger) to win a trip to Asia with http://www.intrepidtravel.com. Would be nice to see even more of this beautiful world! =)

My Spanish isn’t  going too bad, and yesterday I was even able to have a whole conversation with a taxi driver for half an hour. I’d call that quite an achievement. =) Talking to my hostfamily gets better and better as well, and hopefully after finishing my four weeks language course at the end of next week, I’ll be able to speak that beautiful language more or less fluently.
After finishing the Spanish class, I’ll start working at the Municipalidad de Escazú, which is something like the local government (I don’t really know how else to translate it). I’ll help out with doing administrative things etc. And Rahel & I will also teach German twice a week. It will be an evening class for locals and somehow we’re supposed to teach our second mother language. We’ll see how that goes, since our Spanish knowledge won’t be overwhelmingly big. =P But we’re confident that we’ll master that challenge.

Last weekend, I also saw a little more of the country than the capital in the center. Together with David, Rahel and two other Swiss friends, I went to see the volcano Irazú. It would have been very impressing on a fine day, I guess. But sadly, it wasn’t. After only sleeping for four short hours, we caught a bus to San José, to then take another bus to Irazú. After paying a tourist price for the bus and also another entry fee to the volcano, we got there and simply saw grey grey and more grey… We went for a 50minutes walk and got back very wet, cold and kind of depressed. But after two coffees, our moods improved again. =P

Apart from walking around the town I’m living in, the city San José and volcanos, that are covered in clouds, I’ve also been dancing quite a bit of Salsa, Merengue, etc. Rahel & I are going to the local dancing school once a week and last weekend, we also went out twice. It seems as if just about every single Tico and Tica knows how to dance, and that’s just heaps of fun! =) It’s good to be able to dance again.

And this coming weekend, some friends and I are going to the Carribean coast for three days. Hopefully, it won’t rain too hard and we’ll get to do some tanning (and maybe surfing??) at the beautiful beaches. =)

Hasta luego!

Rahel & I arrived in San José on Sunday the 25th of January. It was around ten pm at night when we got out of the airport, so apart from saying a quick ‘hola’ to our hostparents, we didn’t do much but falling into our beds and sleep.

The following week, we started our four-week Spanish course at a local language school. The lessons are from 08.30 – 12.30h every morning, with a half an hour break in the middle. Our class has only got three students: Rahel, Sam (an eighteen-year-old Dutch guy) and me, and of course our teacher. This class size is pretty ideal because then we can always ask if we’ve got a question etc. The three of us are having a good time.
Learning Spanish is fun, but hard as well. It has got quite a few similarities with French, so understanding the words is not too hard. But of course, it sounds different and the grammar’s not the same and so on. But I think we’re doing very well, considering that Rahel & I have never learnt Spanish before. We can understand the people, not necessarily every word but the context. And speaking Spanish is going okay as well, but it’s still tricky. But that just takes some time.

In the afternoons, we usually relax either in the park in the town centre, or at our hostfamily’s house, or we explore our new hometown for the next two and a half months.
Escazu is kind of an outer-suburb of San José. It contains of three main parts:

• San Rafael de Escazu, where lots of Americans live and where there are heaps of fastfood places.
• San Antonio de Escazu, where mostly only Ticos live and which is the least wealthy are of town.
• And Escazu centre, where we live. The population’s mainly Ticos but there are quite a few Americans as well. The town centre is the church with a park next to it, and there’s a really nice laid-back atmosphere in town.

Where we’re living at the moment, the temperatures are usually very warm, but sometimes quite hot as well. It’s not humid and it doesn’t rain often either, because it’s currently the dry(er) season. Escazu’s not on a beach though, it’s up in the Highlands on about 1500m above sea level. On the first two days, we noticed quite a difference when walking upwards, because our bodies got quite exhausted after ‘climbing’ only a small distance. But now we have gotten used to it already, which is good.

The hostfamily Rahel & I are staying at is very nice. We’re living with our hostparents and their four kids, who are 19 (male), 17 (male), 16 (female) and 6 (male) years old. We also have a little dog, but he’s living outside and we don’t see him very often. The family’s very friendly and they are always trying to talk a bit slower so we can understand what they are saying. We’re trying to chat with them as much as possible, but the language barrier still very visible. But hopefully, it’ll disappear more and more now.
Our house is rather small but very cosy too. There are always lots of people coming in and going out, so there’s always something going on. Very Tico-like, I think. =)

And of course, we’re currently adjusting to the special ‘Ticotime’ at the moment. This means that everything’s going a bit slower and if you’re talking to someone you can just take all the time you want for your conversation. And if you have an appointment with someone, it doesn’t matter if you’re half an hour (or even more) late. Also when crossing a street, people just wait until there’s no car anymore and only then they cross. Sometimes cars also just stop randomly to let people go across. Nobody is in a hurry. And that is veeery nice. =D

So far, Rahel & I have already caught up with quite a few people from back home too. Last Friday, David came from Switzerland to Costa Rica. We organised a hostel for him to stay and spent quite a bit of time together too. =) It’s great to see him again! Then on Sunday, we met up with Meli, a friend from school in Switzerland, and she showed us Downtown San José, with its many parks and the main shopping area. And tonight there are even two more friends from Switzerland arriving here. So, we’re definitely not missing out on practising our Swissgerman. =P

These are some impressions of my first week in Costa Rica. I can’t wait now to be able to talk Spanish properly, to see more of this beautiful country and to live a Costa Rican life.

Hasta luego!
Karin