Well, its been a few weeks. A very eventful few weeks, so eventful that I've been unable to attend to my duties as ACM global ambassador. But now I'm gonna do it.
So last i wrote, we had just finished painting the gate, which seems like a long time ago. The entire house has now been stuccoed(sp?) and looks muy hermosa. The weekend at Sarapiqui and Guapiles was pretty cool. My favorite part was probably going into the rainforest at night, turning off all the flashlights and being quiet. You can truly appreciate how much stuff there is in the rainforest. The next day I tried hot chocolate with chili pepper, which was much better than it sounds.
Life in San Jose has become more day-to-day than it was during the first week. The ACM is truly great though. I couldn't have asked for a better group of kids than the ones who have ended up here for 3.5 months of learning spanish.
This past weekend we went to a volcano called Poas, which was pretty cool. After buying the La Teja, a newspaper which only costs 20 cents but contains some questionable content, for the ride, we set off from the coca-cola station. We nearly got to the park when the bus stopped and they asked us to get off and shop for twenty minutes. Having heard enough stories from my dad, who was a tour bus driver in Europe for a while apparently, I knew that the driver/tour guide was going to get a cut of whatever we bought, so I abstained from buying any overpriced shot glasses/flexible wooden snakes at the small souvenir store at the sid of the road, just to foil his plan.
When we finally got there, we thought there had been some sort of mistake. We got out to the viewpoint where the crater was located and you couldn't see five feet in front of you, due to a mixture of fog and steam from the laguna at the center of the crater. We were just getting ready to start complaining when a break in the clouds came! It was a pretty incredible landscape, unlike any I'd ever seen before. The crater was literally huge, and I would've loved to hike down into the crater. Unfortunately, a man working for the park was standing there just to make sure my wish wasn't fulfilled.
Then, we did a short hike up to a lake thats on top of another part of the volcano, and ate lunch in an area that wasnt a designated lunching area, which is apparently a no-no. Basically everyone contributed something to the lunch, except for Stuart, whose mediocre strawberry cookies were roundly scorned. My "te frio" was a success, i guess.
Then we headed back to san jose, and decided we would stop in the central market again in order to find a cheap jersey of the soccer team "la liga deportiva de alajuense" or algo asi, which is the equivalent of a costa rican coming to america and buying a yankees jersey. Its easy to be a fan of the best team!
Unfortunately, we got there and were informed that it would cost treinta mil colones, which is about 60 dollars. I am positive i can find a knockoff for cheaper than that, and so i told the shopkeeper "me falta plata" which is Costa Rican for "I lack money" and got out of there.
Then we went and saw "agente salt" in mall san pedro. and afterwards, we were too tired even for an olaffo at pueblo viejo, our favorite bar, which means we were REALLY tired.
After a sunday filled with work and naps, the quest for a cheap la liga jersey continued. Stuart told me his host brother had said that during the day before a liga game at night, as was the case yesterday, you can find guys selling knockoffs "on the street" near the subaru. We made the 20 minute walk, only to find no such men.
The Quest continues.
