La Fortuna, May 12

Sunset greetings to you all!

I am sitting on my balcony in La Fortuna watching the sky shade into night. As if the spectacular soft hues of violet and rose weren’t enough, there is an active volcano in the background. !! Can’t see the lava flow right now because it’s a bit cloudy, but the immense hulk of it looms over the town. Got some stunner shots of the cloud-shrouded volcano with the church steeple in the foreground and the most intricate cloud-pattern that I’ve ever seen painting a canvas behind it all. This is a fantastic town for taking dramatic photographs! I must admit, however, that I am baffled by the “Super Christian #2” supermarket. ???? Is there a #1 Christian somewhere, and what is #1 doing that #2 isn’t? Very puzzling…

Had a brilliant last week in Sámara: went to a different (!) club on Wednesday and danced to everything from salsa to rap to techno (also did something called “disco fox” that my Swiss dancing buddy taught me; very fun) and then went to the standard-but-always-good Las Olas on Thursday for a second helping. My Disco Fox man was there again, so had another killer night. We wound up competing in an impromptu contest, but we got knocked out right before the final portion. (We came in as couple #4—obviously, we are not fit to open up a supermarket in these parts.) Still loads of fun. And got to teach my capoeirha buddy some salsa and my Guatemalan “I-can’t-believe-she’s-a-gringo!” pal more merengue. Also finally witnessed a coke deal go down at the bar—John the Texan clued me in just in time. He always sees at least five deals in any given night, but I’m usually too busy dancing to pay attention to anything else. “You’re kidding!” I said when he pointed out the Rasta handing a small clear plastic baggie with white powder in it to a beefy, sunburnt American tourist. “Well,” John said with a shrug, “it’s either that or the gringo is chafing and needs some talcum powder.” Touché, John, touché .

Friday night was the Last Supper with my Cally guys, Steve and Jesse. I love cooking at Steve’s house—I chop whatever needs to be chopped while Jesse cooks the fish and Steve hauls out his guitar and serenades us with live Enrique Iglesias songs. Very pura vida. Afterwards I went back to (surprise!...or maybe not, seeing as Sámara is a one-cart-horse kind of town) Las Olas with Jesse for one final beer on the beach. For whatever reason, drinking beer sparked a desire in him to go find ice cream, so we found the one place that was still open that had ice cream on the menu. I only mention this because of the irony of what happened the next day when we were hanging out at the school and a street vendor came by and tried to sell us jars of honey. (Vendors here sell everything from corn flour to gourds. Or coconuts. Yesterday I saw a guy shinny up a palm tree and gather some green ones. Amazing…) “No, sorry, I can’t,” said Jesse. “I’m a diabetic.” (Which he is.) “Ah, okay then,” said the vendor. “Have a good day.” He left. I just looked at Jesse with my eyebrows raised. “Sometimes being a diabetic comes in handy,” he said. I couldn’t help but snort at that one. “Uh-huh. And who wanted to go get ice cream last night? With whipped cream and chocolate on top?” More power to him, though, if he can get away with it…

The fam had a really nice lasagne dinner for my farewell evening. The guest list included Steve, Jesse, Eric (the very talented guitarist and singer boyfriend of my Tica sister), Beatrice (my Tica amiga) and an American from Albuquerque who is a friend of the family and just flew in last night. He stayed later than the other guests, so for the rest of the night, the scene was reminiscent of “An American in Paris,” except that there were two of us and we were in Sámara. It was a really fun evening. Eric even wowed us by composing songs on the spot in honor of me and Gabriela, my other Tica sister. What a talented guy! Amazing…the lyrics even rhymed.

I’m going to miss all of those guys and gals, especially my Tica family. I’m really glad I stumbled upon Sámara as a place to study Spanish. The professors were fantastic—I really hope I see all of them again someday. I had to give a speech at the graduation ceremony (in Spanish, of course), and although I was sweating bullets over it, I think it went pretty well. I was really, really happy when the Vince-Vaugh-esque professor announced that the graduating student of note (the professors chose one every week) was me. That is a really great compliment, and it made me feel like I’d done a good job with this whole crazy let’s-go-study-Spanish idea. I’m still far from fluent, but at least I have a good base. I actually got up to Advanced Level 5 (the highest class is Adv Level 6). So all in all, Costa Rica has been a magnificent experience and very much worth the effort.

Dang, I’m going to miss those piña daiquiris at Las Olas! Even though there weren’t many nightlife options, I really did dig that place. Sometimes a guaranteed good Thursday night is better than chancing it. There was kind of a running joke, though, about the sameness of it all. “So, guys, what’s new in Olas tonight?” somebody asked the group one night. “I heard they changed the toilet paper,” I said. “I think the coke dealers may be two barstools to the left tonight,” said John. “Or maybe they just moved over to try and get away from the crackling-loud loudspeakers.” [insert loud regaeton music here] Yep, Olas is definitely the place in town…seriously, though, it’s a really chilled-out beachside bar. Probably in my personal Top 3 list of bars/clubs, the others being Slattery’s Pub in Oldenburg, Germany, and Luna in Royal Oak.

Well, tomorrow I am off to see the waterfall! I’m very excited about this—one day a volcano, the next a cascada. Time for yet another adventure! …Speaking of that, I think I’m going to venture out in search of dinner…

!Pura vida!