But tomorrow has finally arrived, in that metaphorical sense, so heres the latest update.
Since we last spoke I finished studying spanish, well taking classes anyway. Studying a language is an ongoing process. And living in a culture is really the best way to learn a language. The people living here in Costa Rica are wonderfully patient and helpful, and I've learned more just interacting I think, than I did in classes. I wouldn't say Im quite fluent yet, but getting close.
My time after language classes finished was spent divided between looking for a place to live and all that goes along with that, and travelling while I still had the free time.
Finding an apartment was significantly harder than I expected. I remember many phone calls ending in "We just rented it". But, eventually I founda nice apt in central Heredia, with great natural light and really high ceilings. Its about 12 mins walk from the university, and only 5 or so to the central park, and central shopping district. Heredia is quite a small city and feels that way. Except in the morning, when I hear the commuter traffic coming down my street. But I got used to that suprisingly quickly. Its amazing to think both streets I lived on in NYC were much quieter.
During that free time, I took a short trip across the border to Nicarauga, to renew my tourist visa. This is quite a common practice for foreigners living here. One which Im surpised is so easily accepted. There are many many foreigners living in Costa Rica, for many various reasons, though very few with work visas, and legal residency. So, what everyone does, every three months is heads over the border, either Nicaragua or Panama. Either choice is a nice one. You can visit the pacific coast of nicaragua, with beautiful beaches, or the even more beautiful Isla Ometepe, an incredible volcanic island in the huge Lake Nicaragua. I chose the latter destination, having been there before and loving it the first time around. Its still a pretty isolated place, with a distinct way of life. I stayed in a small locally owned hotel, right on the lake shore. From there you can rent kayakys, bicycles or horses to explore the island. My first time around I rented a kayak one day and a bicycle the next, which my avid readers will remember from last January. This time around I opted for organic transportation and went out on a horse with a friendly british girl I met on the island. We took it slow at first, enjoying the scenery, and chose a waterfall coming off one of the islands two volcanos as our destination. The waterfall is on a private farm, and for a small fee you can ride your horse until about 2kms away from the waterfall. The farm itself was spectacular, though passing large cows with large horns on a horse can be a bit scary if youre not used to it. The horses seemed to get tired, or maybe lazy as we started climbing the base of the volcano, so we were happy to let them rest once we reached the point where we had to start walking ourselves. We hiked our way through tropical forests, eventually reaching a cliff of (my guess) 300 feet, from which the water fell. It felt great washing off all the sweat once we got there, and just enjoying the solitude. Though, as the clouds started rolling off the volcano we decided it was time to head back. We reached our horses, hoping they were well rested, and it seemed they were. On our way back it started pouring rain, and we can ran the horses all the way and they took it in stride, literally. An incredible experience, to really feel the power of such a beautiful animal.
After crossing the border back into Costa Rica, once again a legal visitor, with 90 more days till my next trip across the border, I stopped in a national park to visit and old old friend. Actually, my first friend ever growing up in brooklyn, just happened to be living and working in a national park right across the border. We hadnt seen each other in many years, but all that shared history made it easy to feel comfortable. If it wasnt for my contracted illness (something in the water in nicaragua) we could have explored more, but what I saw of the park was beautiful, and gave me a taste of what my futute in wildlife conservation may be like.
After a couple days, and many many trips to the bathroom I headed back to the capital. I spent some time recovering and searching for a place to live. Still no luck.
Shortly after my family arrived to spend a few a days in the moutains, and on the beach, where I joined them. It was nice to have family around, especially family from Isreal who I hadnt seen in several years. We had to buy all our food in the capital, which is the only place to find kosher food. The last days my family was there, two friends from NYC arrived, and I accompanied them, on a whirlwhind american style tour of the pacific, with a brief trip into the mountains. For me it was quite a new experience, having a rental car, staying in nice(r) hotels and moving so fast. They say they had a fabulous time, and we gotto see some great stuff, like troups of squirel and white face monkeys, as well as sloths and lava flowing from an active volcano. I felt reassured that I prefer the slower paced and bus oriented lifestyle of the backpacker, but was happy to see them.
And as luck would have it, I chose to leave them a couple days ahead of schedule, and that next day found my apartment. Having that settled was quite a relief, but brought on the next phase of finding furniture, fridge etc, which can be stressful itself, especially when you have the idea of trying to save money in your head. Though, Ive ended up with a nice bed and desk, and a nice new refridgerator. Luckily for me, my roomate who is costa rican brought us a sofa and a table, saving me from that investment.
As my last week of freedom aproached the beach beckoned once again, and I headed back the well known Manuel Antonio. Those of you who have been there will be familiar with the mix of incredible natural beauty and highly developed tourist industry. Luckily the landscape requires development in such a way that the beauty is still quite evident, even while the prices reflect another side of Costa Rican travel. Though, I have friends there, and things for that reason are significantly less expensive, making it an easy choice for me. This time around I finally took the time to get out on a surfboard. I took a lesson one afternoon and spent the following two afternoons practicing. I can see the attraction. Its a mix of brute force and grace, of intense excersice and totally tranquility. I really enjoyed it, and was even able to stand up on my own several times. I look forward to getting better. I also spent many evening hours playing backgammon and practicing my spanish. It seems not only Israelis are in love with the game. I returned to the capital before the following weekend, and met up with another friend to head over to the carribean.
Its an amazing thing to be able to spend one day on the pacific and the next on the carribean. The carribean coast here can really be its own country. The culture is totally different, heavily influenced by the black population, brought over to work on the railroads from other carribean island nations. The region was quite isolated until very recently when the first real road was built. There you´ll find carribean food, carribean music and carribean english spoken. As well, getting significantly more rain than other parts of the country, its even greener, if you can imagine that. We spent our first night in the town of Puerto Viejo, known for its party amtosphere, but decided to head south across the border to Panama our next morning. But it wasnt as easy as it sounds.
My friend and I, who met through the very interesting and useful site called couchsurfing.com (check it out for those of you not familiar) got in touch with another couchsurfer living on a sailboat in the islands of Bocas Del Toro. He invited us to stay with him for a couple days. All we needed to was get there. The only problem being my friend didn´t have her passport. Well, she is costa rican, and generally they can get across just on national IDs but a call to the border and a recent change in panamian government gave us some doubts. We arrived, leaving our car at the border and attempted to make the crossing. She gave me all her luggage, and "hired" a coyote (a term used for anyone providing various services, from illegal border crossings to bringing you into hotels) to help her across. Basically theyre locals who say they can help for a fee. In the end she just ended up walking across with him, not stopping in either imigration office and entering illegally. The coyote seemed pretty useless to me until, I unwittigly brought the imigrattion officer over and he asked why she never stopped in to see him. Then the coyotes skills showed themselves as he somehow got the officer to let her go without any trouble. Though we did feel the need to get out of there as soon as possible, and hopped in a cab. After more confusion and purposful misdirection by the locals, as well as two rides in the back of pickup trucks we finally made it to the island and met our sailor host. Hes a british fellow, who for the past 8 years has been sailing the world and living in his boat. Not a bad way to do things. We spent two days and two nights with him. We happened to be at the island in time for their annual Fiesta Del Mar which is the biggest party of the year, so we set off in the little dingy at night to go see some dancing and eat some great carribean food. I can now also say jumping into the ocean, in the middle of the night is quite a refreshing experience. And being rocked to sleep by the gentle waves I quite enjoyed as well.
Waking up our final morning, quite content with life in general we decided to get the most out of our last carribean day as possible. We took the dingy to another small island and spent a few hours hiking and swimming. As the sun started moving back down torwards the horizon we decided to start our long trip back to the capital, and back to real life in Costa Rica. She had work and I had my first day of university orientation. The trip back consisted of
1 - the dingy off the sailboat to the island.
2 - a walk to the ferry dock, and a ferry ride back to the mainland
3 - a bus ride to changinola, the closest major town connecting ferry and buses to the border
4 - a really slow bus ride to the border, instead of a taxi (having been turned off to taxis, getting ripped off the first time around
5 - crossing the border, needing a stamp leaving panama and another entering costa rica (this is where things really went wrong)
6 - and finally, getting in the car for the drive back to the capital
Well, you may have noticed things when wrong on step 5. Something we never really thought about (or not seriously enough anyway) was to ask when the border closed. I asked my friend in passing, and she assumed everything would be fine, knowing the border with nicaragua stays open quite late. But, this being a small border crossing, things are apparently different. Arriving at the border 5 mins after it closed, I learned many new things about life in the third world. After speaking to the soldiers on the panamian side, explaining that I can't miss my first of school, they explained that "we never met". Crossing the bridge into Costa Rica, I had my first lessons in greasing palms. The police on the other side noticed easily that I hadn't legally left panama, and obviously wouldn't legally be able to enter Costa Rica conserding the imigrattion office was closed for the night. They invited me to sit in their office, waiting for what I now realize is probably a good part of their salary. I can say that they were quite polite and friendly, explaining there was no way to cross tonight seeing as the office was closed. Though, he certainly didnt make the effort to send me back across, seeing that I really wanted to get home. After a couple phone calls with my friend who safely got back across (no problems with her illegal crossings), she convinced to get across however I could, and that we would just take care of things back in San Jose. Well, then the question comes out
"So, yea, is there any sort of special tax I can pay to get across tonight, seeing that the office closed?"
"Well, theres always that, how much do you think that tax should be?"
Not being experienced yet in the art of bribing border guards, I just gave him all I had which worked out to about $25, though I later learned $10 probably would have been enough. After that transaction I was free to cross, though at my own risk. As I was crossing, I saw several more stranded tourists in my same situation, who Im sure ended paying that same special after hours tax.
To make a long story short, we still had to get through two more police checkpoints, but after that I was back home, and safe, if not a bit nervous about my legal status. It turned out there was nothing that could be done in the capital to take care of it, so another trip the carribean was planned. This time around we just stayed in Costa Rica, but went back to the border early one morning. We left all our stuff in the car, and crossed with nothing but my passport and my wallet in my pocket. It proved incredibly easy to get across that way, with no one stopping us. Once I was back in Panama I was totally legal once again (well, no one could prove otherwise anyway) and my friend being Costa Rican, really had no problems crossing the border without checking in. I arrived in Panama, had a beer to cool down, and waited in line for the officers to return from their quite extended lunch break. I schoomzed my way to the front of the long line of tourists waiting to get into Panama, and was well on my way to legal status. After finally officially leaving Panama, and crossing once again, officially entering Costa Rica, once again obtaining a new tourist visa I was home free. It actually worked out great, since now I won´t have to leave the university to make another three day trip across the border, since my new visa won't expire until after this semester is over.
All in all things worked out well. Its the best time of year to visit the carribean, and that second trip back was great, visiting beaches and just enjoying the carribean vibe.
Now that Im back, and Im legal, I feel happy and ready to start school. Which began in earnest yesteday, with my first class, and my first field trip. Starting school with a trip to the crater of a local dormant volcano isn't a bad.
So, here I am, I can't believe how much Iv written. I dont blame anyway for not making it all the way through, but for those that did I hope you enjoyed it. I'd love to hear from all of you, and to hear how youre doing. I promise to respond to any emails I recieve, on a personal level.
I'll be adding some pictures in the next few days, so stay tuned.
Until next time....
posted by Oren @ 10:24 AM
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