Halloween and Jaco

Not toooooo much has happened since the last post, but it's been a little while, so I figured I should get to writing...

Will left Wed. (10/27) while I was at work. It was definitely nice to have such good company for a bit, though I wish I hadn't been so sick while he was here. Speaking of, my cold/flu has since dissipated. Mostly. Being sick sucks. Being sick in a new country sucks more. Thank goodness that's over.

That weekend, mostly better, I went out with some friends from work for Halloween. I came up with a costume last second and went as Quailman, from the old Nickelodeon TV show, Doug. While almost no one here understood, it was funny nonetheless, not to mention comfortable. Halloween was a fun night, though, and it was good spending time with people I work with. We all met at one apartment and then went to Rumba, a bar that seemed to me to be in the middle of nowhere as I had no idea where we were. It was fun though, and the bar put on quite the show for Halloween.
The highlights included: the DJ was dressed as Elmo; a couple dressed as the Smurfs (or los Pitufos) won best costume; there was a Michael Jackson Thriller dance; a Brazilian drumline carnival thing... I stayed out too late. But it was fun.

The week of November 1 marked the last week of my TESOL classes. The three of us were scheduled to take the TKT test on Friday but we decided to take it on Thursday instead, cutting the number of times we had to commute out to Escazu short by a day, which was a really great change. Overall the classes were fine. I definitely learned some useful tips for teaching ESL, and am grateful Politecnico paid for half the class.

Last week also began all the rain. Due to the elections and disasters in other parts of the world, including Haiti, I know this didn't receive much coverage in the US, but it was a huge deal here. It poured and poured for about 4 days straight here last week, causing major flooding and landslides killing more than 20 people, closing many of the roads, and, ironically, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without water.
The president declared Thursday a day of national emergency, and Friday and Saturday were days of mourning. Check out www.ticotimes.net if you want to read a little local coverage in English.

With all the rain came the cold. For Costa Rica standards, it was really freakin cold here last week, so I decided to take advantage of my long weekend and try to get some sunshine. Sunday morning, my friend/coworker Sara and I hopped the bus to Jaco, on the Pacific side of the country. The bus ride was about 2-2.5 hours and we arrived and found a place to stay without a problem. Due to all the rain, there weren't too many people in Jaco this weekend, which was pretty nice. Jaco is the closest beach to San Jose, so it gets a lot of traffic, both from tourists and Ticos. Many Ticos, however, have strong anti-Jaco feelings and I can easily see why.
While the beach is nice, the town of Jaco is being built up and taken over by tourists and ex-pats looking to make a living off of said tourists. Regardless, it was empty enough that Sara and I had a great time. We did a whole lot of nothing, laying on the beach, eating and drinking, and sleeping. Monday (yesterday), Sara and I went over to Playa Hermosa, which is about a $7 cab ride from Jaco. Hermosa was full of surfers, a boy who couldn't have been more than 19 hitting on Sara and me, and lots of big, strong waves that were too much to swim in. Due to the floodings and all the rain, the water at the beaches was a little more brown than blue, but lovely nonetheless.

One note about Jaco: with the rise in tourism, there has followed a rise in drug and prostitution problems as well. Last night, while Sara and I were asleep, some drunk older (40s?) American men stumbled back to the hotel around 2am. They woke us up with their general drunken behavior: being loud, slamming doors, breaking bottles, etc. However, I did notice one Spanish speaking woman with them. As it turns out, after listening to what was going on a little, it became clear that much of the noise being made was coming from one man in particular, who was trying to trying to understand exactly what (how long) it was he had paid the woman for.... Classy.
Eventually they all quieted down and I was able to fall back asleep for the rest of the night. Despite this craziness, the hotel was good - clean, cheap and otherwise quiet - and our trip to Jaco was a success. We managed to miss all the rain, and were blessed with mostly blue skies and perfectly warm (not too hot) days/nights. It was a perfect weekend getaway. Furthermore, there are delicious smoothies available almost everywhere.

I head back to work and reality tomorrow, but am already planning my next get away. Literally. I have to do a border run to renew my visa by the end of the month. Given the situation with Costa Rica and Nicaragua fighting over where the borders lie (if you don't know anything about it look it up and keep in mind that CR doesn't have an army of any kind so there will be no actual fighting), I'm figuring I will be heading down to Panama to do that just to avoid any potential problems trying to come back in to CR. If anyone wants to meet me in Bocas del Toro for a long weekend let me know!
Other than my visa run, I'm looking forward to my mom returning for another visit in a couple weeks. :)

Love.