Rain in San Jose

Pura Vida

Group Email, 29/06/07



My Dear Friends,

This is the second day now of the group portion of my trip, but already the week at La Tranquilo seems another lifetime. I am (still in Costa Rica) in a small town called La Fortuna at the base of an active volcano. It is raining. Just this week it has occurred to me that ¨the rainy season¨ is not merely an expression; it is, in fact, a season, where it rains-- incessantly. Yesterday I asked Santos, the man who was leading us through the wet forest (not rain forest, ¨wet forest¨), if the pattern was sun in the morning, rain in the afternoon, and on and off in the evening (as it had been that day). ¨It is not so predictable,¨ he said. This morning it is raining.



I met the others on the evening of the 27th, in a small hotel with ants in the toilet (other than that it was quite nice). In total we are 14, and I´m happy to say there is more of a mixture here in terms of age and temperament than on some previous trips I´ve been on (though once again overwhelmingly female-- 12 to 2). Our guide´s name is J., he is 25, from Atlanta --but without the accent-- and looks more like a band geek than an intrepid traveller. Despite this he is cheerful and laid back enough to inspire confidence, and I was happy to hear he would be going with us all the way to Mexico City (45 days from now).

The first night I was sharing a room with a woman named L., who is training to be a solicitor in England. When I first arrived at the hotel I found her reading a fashion magazine, which made me a bit nervous, but she is actually quite nice. She has spent most of her time with another solo English girl named S., who I can´t actually recall seeing since that first meeting (but L.s talking about her so she must be around). There is possibly the sweetest Swedish couple imaginable, M. and M. who heard the hotel clerk saying they needed the ¨matrimonio¨ suite and started giggling so hard she turned to stare at them. Then there are three girls from Vancouver whose names I don´t know (they have not exactly made themselves available), and two others, A. and F. from the UK; they have alarming tans already, and spend a lot of time whispering in each other´s ears.

Then there are the 4 high school teachers-- two from Chicago, one from Alabama, and one from San Diego. The guy from Alabama is named D., and has the most peculiarvoice I have ever heard; it´s as if he is sucking on helium all the time, or under water, I have not yet decided which. The woman from San Diego, L., is my closest friend here; she very rarely stops talking and laughs often, whether others get the joke or not (but then so do I) and today she is going to ¨challenge herself¨ by rappelling over a waterfall. If that doesn´t add up to 14 do let me know, and I will figure out who I´m missing. Of course, this group is only together for two more weeks; then the solicitor, A., F., D. and I go on, picking up 8 others. If you´re confused now don´t worry, it is hard for me to keep them all straight, and I´m here.

The drive from San Jose to La Fortuna was just over 4 hours, through the most incredible countryside. At one point we had to stop because there was a huge pile of rocks in the middle of the road, some of which had to be moved or our van couldn´t fit through. We stopped again later on to take pictures of a waterfall beside the road-- a little market had been set up and there was lots of excitement over the stuffed monkeys with velcro paws. I switch over to my 6th set of camera batteries.



This place is La Fortuna because it is fortunate that the lava from the looming volcano (which is constantly flowing) travels down the far side of the mountain, rather than towards us, destroying the little town at it´s base. From our hotel (which J. referred to as ¨that pink thing on the corner¨) the volcano looks close enough to touch. At least, it looked close enough to touch yesterday; today it is so cloudy it is not visible at all. The place seems very empty without it.



Yesterday evening 5 of us went partway up the volcano for a hike (in the wet forest, remember). It was already raining when we got out of the car, but even so Santos had us stand for sometime in the parking lot explaining that in 1968 there was an explosion that killed more than 80 people. It seems much darker in the forest, and before long we can´t tell what is thunder and what is the rumbling of the volcano above us; the leaves filter out some of the torrential rain (and I do not use this term lightly) but after an hour or so we were soaked right through, and the ground had turned to mud that filled our shoes and sent us slipping in every direction. Every once and a while Santos would stop and talk to us about some plant or other, which we couldn´t really see in the dim light. D. asked if there were bullet ants here. Öf course, but they are mostly active at night¨, he says, as the darkness falls. Despite the picture I am painting here I was having a marvellous time; the jungle is my favourite kind of environment, but this this rain was so loud and so powerful it was as if nothing outside those trees even existed, like we were in our own green world, just us and the howling monkeys high above us.



When we got to the station at the edge of the forest, emptied out our shoes and struggled to ring the water from clothes we could just see the steam pouring from the lava as it hit the water. By the time we made it back to the hotel it was too dark to see anything but the low-watt neon of the restaurant across the street.



That´s all for now, my dears. Only one more stop in Costa Rica and then we cross over to Nicaragua. See you on the flip side!

Much Love,

N.

-- "To live is so startling it leaves little time for anything else.¨ Emily Dickinson

Sunburned in the Rain

Just a quick update for today: I am feeling much better than the last time I wrote, and my hair has flattened out again, more or less. Three nice people moved into my room (I say MY room because I have been here 4 days now, and am getting territorial) yesterday, two of whom have already left again. The most entertaining of them was from New York, and was planning on staying in Costa Rica for 3 weeks, a week of which (beginning today) she was going to spend volunteering at an ¨organic type place¨ in ¨puscel¨¨-- a town which does not appear on any map, and which no one else seems to have heard of. The man who runs the farm gave her somewhat sketchy instructions about buses, but she had gone to the bus station yesterday and no one there seemed to have heard of it either. Last night she was flirting with the idea of not going to ____, and just ¨hanging out¨ here instead. Considering I am something of an authority on hanging out in San Jose I wouldn´t recommend it, but neither would I recommend getting on a public bus to ____. She left this morning. I hope she makes it okay.

I´m moving tomorrow to meet the GAP group. I spent the morning wandering around looking for a specific church the hotel is apparently near to, and couldn´t find it. I saw several nice churches though! I am eager to get out of this hostel with it´s 24 Coldplay/Jack Johnson/50 Cent, and cold showers. Not that I´m not fond of it, because I am. It´s a peculiar paradox that as much as love moving around between cities and countries, as soon as I am in a new town, as soon a I set my bags down in a hostel the place becomes home. I´ve been made fun of because within an hour of moving I´m talking about ¨going home¨to unpack. People need some degree of familiarity, they need a base, they need home. Turns out home is just more flexible than it seems at first.

It is raining again. And I do mean Again. And yes, I have a sunburn.

N.

Penny Lane

Group Email: June 23rd, 07

I promised myself I would include this in the first email, so please bare with me: As most of you know I have been studying anthropology at university for about a year and a half now. I will not go into the details of the subject now (because then I'd have to figure out what they were!) but I will say that the first thing they teach you in an anthropology class is that you cannot say anything without offending/slandering/judging somebody. As you can imagine this is a tad limiting for a writer, because it forces you to censor and rethink yourself with every turn of phrase (also can make you irritating company, but I'm working on that). A fair number of you reading this email are also in anthropology, and know how passionate I am about it-- however, I usually have a limited amount of time in which to write these updates, and I would rather not spend it searching for "neutral" language. All this to say that, for the context of my travel writing, I am just a writer. Agreed?


Who: Nel S., 5''2 Canadian, battling a post-summer school-stress cold
When: 2ish PM, June 23rd
Where: Tranquilo Backpackers, San Jose, Costa Rica
How: Stratford-Toronto, Toronto-Houston, Houston-San Jose
Why: Not sure how to answer this one.



So my first 24 hours in San Jose are complete, and as usual I feel I have been here much longer. The journey here was quite seamless (even though it did begin at 4 AM), despite 23 minutes of severe turbulence (I say 23 because that's what the pilot assured us it would be, but didn't actually time it). On the cab ride from the airport it started to rain and stopped again 3 times; this drive cost me 10000 colones (pronounced cuh-lone-ehs); this is not bad at all, but as I hadn't yet worked out the exchange rate it was a bit of a shock.

I am staying in a 8 person mixed dorm, surprisingly, since I booked a 4 person female. Not that the gender of the room makes overly much difference; if anything it is harder to sleep in a room with girls, who take hours getting ready to go out at night-- talking in stage whispers, giggling at their own attempts to be quiet-- then repeat the whole ritual when they get home. Of course there was a good deal of this last night, as well as some fuss about who was sleeping in what bed, and a lost locker key-- this ended with some yelling in several languages. I was half-asleep through all this, and half reading a pretentious-looking book on Napoleon and wondering why the air here reeks of pot. Not my definition of "Tranquil", but kind of charming in its own way.

For some strange reason I woke up today at 6 AM, and went out almost immediately, hoping to take pictures while it was still dim and cool. Of course I ended up getting lost for a few hours. This city is very difficult to navigate, as every direction you look you there are hills, and distant cloud covered mountains. I spent quite a while on a wide, crowded street called Penny Lane (why?).

Some things I see here: McDonalds (Shrek toys!), KFC, Subway, Quiznos, Wendys, Pizza Hutt (bankrupt).

Some other things: An old woman with pink hair, giant splashes of brightly coloured pain all over the sidewalk, many many crushed cockroaches, a man peeing against a tree, a house with painted snow-flakes all over it.

It's quite a beautiful place, filled with elaborate coloured buildings, and empty parks. I spend a fair bit of time trying to think what city it reminds me of, but I think now it is only details of it that I recognize (the hills and down of La Paz, the stunning crumbling architecture from Lima, the imposing hills of Cape Town, the deafening noise of Shanghai, the eclectic street vendors and green spaces of Buenos Aires), on the whole it is something totally unique-- and thrillingly so.

The gutters are huge, like trenches separating the street from the sidewalk, so you have to jump across every time you cross the road. And the smell! Freshly skinned chickens and cheap cigarettes, rotting mangoes and fresh pastry... On one street it is sunny and on the next it is raining. Between the rain and the humidity my hair swells to twice its normal size. I take over 100 pictures this morning alone and use up my first pair of batteries. I buy a bottle of Coke Light for 470 colones, and pay for it with a 500 coin.

I feel lost, I feel disoriented, I feel overwhelmed and I love it. I love the rush, I love just walking and looking and finding everything unfamiliar (aside from McDonalds). I admit it is a relief to see I have not forgotten how to travel, or as I describe it-- to explore, to listen, to be open to everything, and to keep my sense of humour close at all times. (Now, about those roommates...!) One of whom is waiting for the computer, so I will sign off now.
Much love, until next time,

Nel

Tranquilo?

So I have been in San Jose for about 15 hours now, though the majority of it I have spent in bed. The journey yesterday started at 4 in the morning in Stratford, getting me to the airport at 6, checking in to fly at 8:30. Short flight to Houston, then only slightly longer one to Costa Rica. An easy trip, in lots of awkward little pieces.

I was in a ridiculously good mood the whole way (yes, even at 4 in the morning). I could hardly believe that I was really "going", that the uncomfortable chair and dry air was because I was on an airplane, that the reason we had turbulance was that I was flying. It's magic, it's incredible how easily it slips back on-- like riding a bike.

I am in a hostel called Hostel Tranquilo which is a terrible name for the place, which is busy and chaotic and filled with (mostly) young people of various nationalities, most of them rude, which is unusual for a hostel like this. I really wanted to write last night, but the free internet was not working, from 3 PM-12 AM. It is now half working (at half the computers) we'll have to see about later...
I am sick, as is my usualy response to the removal of stress (you don't believe me?) and finally allowed myself to go to bed around 9:30 (after watching Blood Diamond which is really quiet upsetting, and made me miss South Africa... which I don't think was the intent) and at 11:30 woke up to a great squack about beds-- apparently bed E and F were already assigned but they already had people in them. There were 2 other empty beds, but these girls really had their hearts set on E and F. Then someone knocked over a bottle of water and several people starting yelling at them in French and Hebrew. Not sure what language they spoke!

The taxi ride here cost 10 000 colones. Haven't quite figured out the exchange rate yet, but it is unsettling to pay that "much" for anything. It started to rain and stopped again 4 times before I'd even made it to the hostel. I got quite soaked on my quest for Coke Light, but I tell you nothing could have dampened my sunny mood yesterday. Even illness. Even rain. Even rude roommates.
I think today will be my favourite kind of day-- wandering around the city and seeing what I see. My impression was, there is lots to see!

Graduation

Today the campus is filled with graduating young people (most of whom have not dressed up in 3 years) and proud parents, bearing uncomfortably large boquets, telling their "children" to stop playing with their hair or pulling at their dresses. How easy it is to regress.

The sun is very bright. I can only imagine the heat, and the nerves, inside that silly white tent. This is what we spend 4 years working towards?

Next year, will this be me? It seems so far away.