Festival de Mascaradas 3/29

Although I go to school in Heredia, I live in a town just north called Barva, known to have some special local flare especially through its local customs, such as the Festival de Mascaradas. Think: the pictures of the heads on the street signs that I uploaded earlier this semester aka this guy:

 

So the Festival de Mascaradas is an annual festival, basically where people bring their crazy masks out and dance around with them in Central Park. 

The masks are super intense, hand made, and have a lot of detail. Lots of work clearly goes into them, especially because I believe there is a winner of who has the best mask at the end of every festival.

Around Central Park there were GIANT heads, and here I am with my friend Ryan being disrespectful but kinda funny...

Some heads were scary looking, some were of real people's faces, some of movie/tv characters... very strange but fun!

Dobby!

 A little scary....

Faces of probably important people who I do not know:

 Dance scene!

One of the mask dancers trying to prove to a little kid that he's really not as scary as the thing on his head is:

Now this one is possibly the weirdest, although I'm sure it has some sort of cultural significance, but I do not understand it whatsoever. Huge half-horse-faced woman with one boob sticking out:

The women masks were huge!

There was a band playing music onstage, and people would rotate through their masks and have different ones coming out to dance. We hung out for a while to watch the craziness:

Dad & Caroline Visit! 3/22

Dad and Caroline were my first visitors, and so I was overly excited to see them!! After my first class on that Thursday, I went to go meet up with them, and we headed to our first destination: La Fortuna and Volcán Arenal. After a 4-5 hour windy drive through the mountains in our little, unbelievably weak Peugeot, we made it! There are a bunch of restaurants and hotels that line the base of the volcano, like ours, called Volcano Lodge and Gardens. Beautiful place! Everything was so green and lush. So when we arrived, we walked around the grounds, and then hung out in the pool and hot tub to relax a while. We had dinner at the hotel restaurant, and I had a delicious steak...so nice to eat good food again!
Pool area:

Rooms:

The huge, beautiful volcano:

Volcano sunset:

Caroline! 

Us & the volcán

The next day we woke up early, had breakfast, and then went hiking up near the Volcano. Lots of black, volcanic rock, and you could really see the lava flows on the side of the volcano. Pretty neat. There was pretty much always clouds around the top of the volcano, so we never got a full view (apparently it's almost always like that). 


This was the weekend that my whole study abroad group was also going to Arenal, so luckily I didn't miss anything! When we were on our way to our second destination, La Fortuna Waterfall, I was gazing out the window and recognized the hotel where everyone else was staying...to see that everyone had just got off the bus! So we turn the car around, and we go up and briefly try to introduce Dad and Caroline to everyone... most importantly they both got to meet Alex! But they had their own itinerary, and we wanted to get to the falls, so there wasn't much time for interaction. So we continued on to the waterfall... which was beautiful. It was pretty overcast, raining a little, and chilly, so no one really wanted to swim. It was still beautiful!

Dad and I at an overlook of the falls:

That afternoon, we went to Ecotermales Hot Springs. They are one of the smaller hot springs in the area, but very relaxing, and there weren't a ton of people there. There were about five pools in total, of all different temperatures, so we went through a few cycles of the different temperatures. We had a delicious, home-cooked Costa Rican dinner after soaking for a few hours, which was very nice.

Path to the springs- notice the cute mushroom lights!

Beautiful setting, very green, peaceful.

Waterfall pools! (See Caroline and I in them below)

 Caroline being a goof in one of the waterfalls:

The next day, it was off to destination #2, Jacó Beach. Pacific side, definite surfer town. On our way there, we stopped at a bridge over the Tarcoles River, a spot well-known as a good place to see crocodiles, which was also the same river where I did the crocodile tour back in one of my first weekends here.


In Jacó, we stayed at Hotel Mango Mar, which was in a very central location, right on the beach. The people who worked here spoke barely any English, so I got to play translator the whole time. But the grounds were nice, and the location was absolutely perfect.

At the hotel, there was a cute calico cat who hung out around the grounds. I'd love to post a picture but the only one I have of her is a gruesome picture of her eating the dead rat that she so kindly placed on the doorstep of our hotel room. You know you're with cat lovers when the reactions to that scene are along the lines of "Ohhh good kitty! Great job! What a great hunter you are, thank you for the gift!!" I love my family.

Once we got there, we just did a lot of beach-going and hanging out, which was really nice and relaxing. Lots of surfers at Jacó, so they were fun to watch.

Caroline and I had a bit of an adventure our second night in the hotel. As I'm climbing into bed, I lift up my sheets and jokingly yell, "Scorpion check!!!" 
Except something scurries out of my covers, and Caroline shrieks a little- "oh my gosh something just ran out of your bed and under your mattress!"
So naturally, I jump out of bed, and start slowly ripping blankets and sheets off my bed, and looking in and under the pillows, and under the mattress. I'm terrified that it's going to actually be a scorpion, and that I'm only going to have my flip flop to defend me from said creature. Caroline and I are freaking out, half laughing half actually feeling really scared because there may be a scorpion running around our room, but we finally find the mysterious creature once we take the mattress off of the bed frame. This little crab was hiding under my mattress! At first glance though I did think my worst fears about the scorpion were confirmed, so we had to call Allen in to save us. He manages to trap the little guy, although he was very speedy, but luckily once he started to run around we realized that he was in fact just a decently-sized crab, probably about 3 inches wide. Thank goodness my father was there to save the day and allow us to sleep in peace!

The fam on the last day at breakfast, looking pretty darn burnt.

I had a blast with my first family visit! Although the visit was short, I'm so glad they made it down!!

Manuel Antonio, Weekend of 3/17

Let me preface this by first apologizing because I am aware that my English language skills are deteriorating... in writing and even more so in speaking! 

We had a head start on the weekend as our Thursday afternoon class was cancelled and so we were able to head down after our morning classes. That day was great--my first class (Spanish) got out and hour and a half early, and we got our final grades for the first class/first part of the 2 part Advanced Spanish deal... and I got a surprise A-! I was expecting a B... that's the best. 

Although Manuel Antonio was so beautiful, I had my first real taste of culture shock. We were right in the middle of US spring breaks, so there were many many vacationing gringo families. Walking around, I was very uncomfortable, seeing so many white people all around me. To attempt to counter the overwhelming gringo-ness of the place, Alex and I mostly tried to speak in Spanish, which definitely helped. Scary! Made me worry a little bit about going back to the US!

Manuel Antonio is a pretty crazy area, the restaurants and hotels and everything are situated on a mountain! At the southern base of the mountain, is a very beautiful beach. Just outside of the mountainous area, is an actual town arranged on flat ground called Quepos. Our hostel was more or less at one of the highest points on the mountain, called Backpackers Manuel Antonio. It was pretty cool, had a sweet open-air kitchen with a beautiful view.

Pictures of the grounds:

Pool! Definitely not a bad view from here...

That afternoon, me, Alex, and the two other boys who were staying at our hostel ventured down a trail behind the hostel to find the beach. It was steep all the way down, not meant for people in flip flops (and especially not fun walking back in the dark!). But we had the beach all to ourselves to watch the sunset, which was amazingly beautiful. 

 

Walking back after the sunset, we saw all sorts of wildlife, such as a little black snake (Scary! My body moved away from it sooner than my brain could realize what I was jumping away from... talk about instincts), and this nice little guy, who we almost walked right into because it was getting so dark! 

Day #2, Friday
View during the day from the hostel:

That morning, Alex and I walked down the mountain (a decent trek for sure), but with some nice views!

View of the beach from the mountain:

He wanted to check out the surfing, so he rented a board, and found out the best place to surf was an area called Playitas, at the northern part of the public beach. So we walked up there, and I hung out all day, swimming and watching him catch waves. Turned out the beach was at the base of this ridiculously beautiful hotel (Hotel Arenas del Mar), so we decided to check it out to have lunch there. We take a path from the beach where we get picked up in a golf cart and then are taken to the restaurant, which is located right on the beach, but secluded from the public beach. Very beautiful, and great food. I had some amazing seared tuna. After lunch, we hung out in some hammocks on the beach, under palm trees...just beautiful. I'm so lucky. Before heading back to the regular beach, we got a little tour of the hotel. 

lodging tucked away into the jungle:

and we got to see the main lobby area that had a restaurant and spectacular pool deck:

Amazing view of all of Manuel Antonio from the pool deck:

On Saturday, the whole group of us decided to head to Manuel Antonio national park to check out the wildlife.

We paid for a tour, $10 each person, but the guide had a cool telescope thing for us to see animals better, and he could take pictures of animals using peoples cameras through the viewfinder! Like this adorable, smiling sloth. We also saw bats, wasp nests, birds, and a whole bunch of interesting plants.

 

There were lots of these white-faced monkeys hanging out near the beach near all of the tourists, hoping for some good human treats. Here's a pic of a pretty relaxed monkey, hanging out above the beach.

There are a few beaches within the park, very beautiful, surrounded by jungle that is teeming with monkeys!

 

The group of us inside the park! :)

While we were hanging out on the beach inside the park, we had some pretty cool visitors, like this very thirsty deer, but luckily Alex was there to give her some water! She was pretty brave, coming up to a group of gringos. But she hung around for some pictures and let people pet her and stuff. Crazy. I've never seen a deer do that before!

This iguana also came around to hang out with us!

After the park tour, we went to the public beach and hung out all day. Such a beautiful beach, although the water was unrefreshingly warm! I did have a great time playing volleyball with my friends though.

That afternoon, Alex went surfing again, same spot as on Friday. There must have been at least 3 or 4 beach weddings that happened during that time along the beach, what an absolutely beautiful place to get married. The sunset was gorgeous too! After that, Alex and I got amazzzing tacos- not Costa Rican at all, but so delicious. Great day. I always hate leaving such a beautiful place like that.