Sunday, January 16, 2011

Just embrace it



The Beach!!!


The little Chocolate lady


I am not cutting off my arm, just the cacao



That was the motto for our weekend at Puerto Viejo. We left school at 1:45 on Friday, and the trip should have taken around 5 hours. It started to rain and driving so fast on those mountain jungle roads got pretty scary. Then, we stopped in traffic. It turned out to be a wreck, and we did not move half a mile for 3 hours. I think it could have been a very frustrating thing, but everyone on the bus seemed really cool, and we just played games and talked. Once we finally got there, we walked around a bit then went to bed. The next morning it was still raining, and NOONE brought an umbrella. So everyone was just walking around getting drenched. Some of the group went to a native “bribri” lady’s house. She makes chocolate the way her ancestors did, and gave us a tour and showing of how she does it. It was so interesting and soooooo different from how I thought it was done. For instance, her chocolate was made from cocao. It is pretty much an orange fruit, and the seends, once they are fermented, dried, roasted, crushed, and mixed with sugar, become the chocolate. She never used any coco??? It was a great little experience within itself.

We drove back to the beach, and it FINALLY stopped raining. We were a bit turned off though, because it was still so grey and cold out. We put our bathing suits on, but only walked on the beach. People were selling coconuts to drink, but we went and found our own that some people had told us about. They were softer than usual, and you could bang them together, and drink the “milk”. Zack and I tried coconut milk before and it was pretty bad, but this kind was a bit better. I guess people just feel cool drinking out of coconuts.

We got dressed, met up with some more friends then all went out to eat. I had heard that Puerto Viejo had great food, and we surely found it! It was a great little restaurant, and we all had a great time together. Next we went to the Crepeire, where we had the BEST crepes. I got a nutella, banana, and ice cream one. They were a bit expensive, but I think everyone would be quite proud of me. I mad an effort not to be my thrifty self on this trip, and I think I have done a pretty good job so far. I buy 800 colones crepes, around $4,and feel okay after and not guilty! But they were definitely worth it! A couple of us walked on the beach for a while, then turned in around 11. At around 11:15 we had a knock on our door. Our friend asked us if we had seen a girl, because no one could find her at the bar. She had been drinking, and kind of vanished. She asked us to go help look for her, which consisted of us walking in our pajamas to the reggae bar, and immediently finding her. She had gone to the bathroom….. We ran into the other guys who we had been hanging out with earlier at the bar. Both surprised to see eachother, they had walked a girl over to the bar because she was looking for her friends too. Barachos….

Finally, we woke up to Sun!!!!!! We got dressed and ate breakfast at this place that had crème filled corssants! Amazing!! You would have loved them Zack, they were all flaky. About 25 of us went to another beach on the bus. It was the craziest beach I had ever been to. There were all red flags, and one yellow flag, where we could swim. Their flags are very different though. They are about 4.5 feet tall, and spaced out about every 30 yards. The one yellow flag was where the 2 life guards were, and all of the swimmers and surfers. The waveds were HUGE and the current was so strong! Most of just waded in the shallow part and watched the surfers. I have never got to see that up close, and it was definetly entertaining. These people were legit!!!!! A couple of our students kept on getting in the way of one of the best surfers out there. It was kind of embarrassing, but really funny to watch it play out from the beach. The good guy would be coming in their direction, and they would just dive underwater. Meanwhile, the good surfer wold stand on his board shaking his fists and slowly roll of in order to not hit them. The first time, he actually ran over this guy Joey, and Joey got a scolding. Joey apologized to him later, and said he was cool. Then not long after, the same exact thing happened with another guy. Those gringos....

We went back to the hotel, and ate some more amazing food. I got a falafel pita sandwich, and I think it was the best meal I have had since my time here. The bus ride home was much more enjoyable. We all talked a lot, and had time to hear all of the testimonies of our little group. We were all talking about how thankful we were to have met eachother. It is so nice to have so many people who know where I am coming from. It is so great to have such encouraging and uplifting situations too. Zack always talked about how great his friends were in South Africa and how they made the trip so great. I was so happy to know that he was able to meet people like that, and was hoping that I would be able to do the same. I surely have, and am so thankful for that.

Perto Viejo was so interesting though. It was a very Caribbean culture, and the people spoke with a Caribbean accent, only in Spanish. Obviously, there was tons of people selling pot at night. Veritas warned us about it before hand, but everyone already knew. When were were all walking together and they would offer it to us we had some different stratagies. One guy kept on saying “No fumamos” we don’t smoke. Our other friend Joey, responded differently though. His mom told him to say “Tengo el creepi” which means I have creepi, which is supposedly the best weed down there??? We did not know what he was doing at first, and once he told us it was funny to see their reaction. Most of them would go," oh, wow…" and just nod and walk away. I guess his mom did know what she was talking about afterall.

1 comment:

  1. looks like you are having SO MUCH FUN! :) We miss you around here. But I love reading your updates! :) Have a great week, Kels! Love you!

    ReplyDelete