Around the World in 100 Years
Tuesday, February 22, 2005
Once again I've been a tad remiss in this whole blogging thing. I'm sure my fans worldwide are crushed.
This past weekend I went to Playa Grande with my Marine Biology class. It was pretty sweet. It's a national park with no real town affiliated with it so it wasn't packed full of tourists. Actually, there were about 20 surfers and us. We went there because it's one of the few remaining beaches where the leatherback turtles still nest. It was right near the end of the nesting season and the scientists hadn't seen a turtle in like 4 days so we weren't overly optimistic about our chances. I guess we should have been. Just as we were all about to go to bed for lack of anything better to do (at 9:30) our professor told us that there was a turtle nesting and we should all get ready. We walked down to the beach, which was quite the hike and then hung a left and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked. Finally we hit the end of the beach. No turtle. So we turned around and walked and walked and walked and walked (in loose sand). Finally we stopped and Ana (the teach) listened to her walkie talkie and found out that we were supposed to take a freakin' bus to this thing. We had been walking for quite awhile so we figured we had to be pretty close but we had to hurry. So we wogged and we wogged and we wogged (wogging is the term Meghan and I came up with the extremely fast walking we were doing) and FINALLY reached the turtle. It was at the opposite end of the beach. Please keep in mind that this place is called Playa Grande. They weren't kidding about the grande thing. So we got to see the turtle but it was almost done so we couldn't get very close. We watched it make it's painstaking way down to the beach. Those flippers are not designed for land, let me tell you. I wanted to pick it up and carry it to the water. But then I realized it had me by about 1500 lbs (literally) so that probably wouldn't be a good idea. Or a feasible. After the turtle excitement we started to walk back to the cabinas. Before we got to far Ana told us there was another turtle. Yeah, that's right, more wogging. Thankfully this one wasn't that far away. We got to see it dig its hole (that took FOREVER) and lay her 67 eggs. It was really cool because we could get close enough to touch it. Those things are HUGE! This one was over 6 feet long. By then it was like 1:30 so a large majority of us were falling asleep on the beach.
The next day we wandered around, not doing much. That night we got to release some baby turtles. They're so tiny, you wonder how they even have a chance. Not that they have much of one, 1 in 1000 make it to adulthood. A couple of the 7 they released were really really dumb. Finally the volunteers had to just pick them up and put them in the water because it was clear that they were never going to make it on their own. Good, those slow, dumb turtles can live to breed more slow, dumb turtles. They have to release the baby turtles at the high tide line because otherwise they won't know to come back to that particular beach to nest. I'm not sure how that works exactly.
And now I'm sick of typing and have to start preparing for test 2 of 3. (The first one sucked big time. How am I supposed to know how the ocean morphology differs in the Northern and Southern Hemispheres? What is ocean morphology?)
Tuesday, February 15, 2005
Mark another awesome weekend down in the books. I’m pretty sure that those are the only types of weekends that Costa Rica is willing to provide. Assuming that you leave the Hose, that is.
We hopped on a bus Friday afternoon in 75 degree San Jose and disembarked in 800 degree Manuel Antonio. I’m barely exaggerating. That place is HOT. It was dark so there wasn’t too much to do besides check ourselves into our hotel. I’m using the term hotel very loosely. I think I wrote on Friday that we didn’t have a hotel and we were going to get one when we got there. We didn’t have to wait, Luis hooked us up with a hotel for a sweet $25 a night, total. All he said was that it was ugly. He wasn’t lyin’. Not only was the Tico Lodge ugly, it was HOT (no AC for $25 a night) and there were community bathrooms. Ugh. But we were saving ourselves like $35 for the weekend so we figured we could rough it. It should cool off when it gets a little later, right? Hahahaha, yeah right. There was the added bonus of it being filled with extremely loud Tico families. How fortunate.
After a super sweaty night we woke up and headed to the park, which was cool as (and hot as) hell. I saw lizards and monkeys and 4 sloths and a herd of coatis, which is like a cute raccoon type thing. I’m not sure they travel in herds. Maybe they’re flocks. Or gaggles. A gaggle of coatis. That sounds good. How about someone look that up and get back to me. Great, thanks. Oh yeah, we also saw a GIGANTIC spider. It must have been 7 inches across, not including its legs. I had a bird in its web that it looked like it was about to eat. I would have tried to save the bird but I heard that all of the spiders in Manuel Antonio are really poisonous.
Just kidding Cherie!!!
The rest of the day was spent strolling around the beach and hitting up the 2 for 1 happy hour. It was pretty damn fun. I’m pretty sure that I’m not going to be able to handle a normal weekend when I get home. Friday will roll around and I’ll feel automatically entitled to heat and beauty. So if someone could buy me an island before I get back so I don’t suffer from reverse culture shock I’d really appreciate it. Well, I guess it’s time to move on to bigger and better things than blog writing. I don’t want to give away too much so my mom and Cherie can be surprised by Manuel Antonio when they get here.
Oh yeah, Carrie can’t come down when she thought she was going to so now you have to come entertain me Dad. Otherwise I will be allllll by myself. You wouldn’t want that to happen WOULD YOU?
Friday, February 11, 2005
I guess I've been a tad remiss in posting lately. That's because during the week I do absolutely nothing. The amount of nothingness that I do is absolutely staggering. Let me recount my week to you.
Monday: 6:30-8:30 Wake up, get ready, eat breakfast, walk to school
8:30-12:30 Class
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-3:30 Home/Unnecessary Nap Time (I get at least 8 1/2 hours of sleep a night)
4-6 Class
6-10 TV, Dinner, Homework
10 Bed
Tuesday 6:30-12:30 Same as Monday
1-3 Class
3-4 Wander aimlessly around the school, drink coffee
4-6 Class
6-10 Same as Monday
Wednesday 6:30-12:30 Same as Tuesday
12:30-1:30 Lunch
1:30-10 A very long unnecessary nap, TV, 1 1/2 hours of Spider Solitaire, occassionally
shopping if I need something
Thursday 6:30-12:30 Same as Wendesday
1-3 Class
3-10 Yep, that's right, more unnecessary napping, TV watching, and solitaire playing
Friday 6:30-12:30 Same as Thursday
1:00 I get the f outta this shithole city (usually, sometimes God is cruel and I have to
wait until Saturday morning)
So there you have it, a typical week in the life of Jaime. Sometimes the solitaire playing is interrupted by going to a movie or watching Costa Rica get beat by Mexico. Yes, I have friends, but they have very different schedules than me and live 15 minutes away. That's not good in a city that doesn't allow you to go anywhere alone after dark, and it gets dark at 6. Oh well, at least I'll be prepared to make my living as a master solitaire player. It's not so bad though, I guses. I've read a lot of books and watched a lot of CSI and I'm "stockpiling sleep" as my dear younger brother would say. I'll be ready to go for like 6 months without sleep if it works the way he seems to think it does.
This weekend I'm going Manuel Antonio. I was going to wait to visit there until my mom and Cherie came down but everyone and their grandma is headed thataway so I guess it's my most fun option. We elected not to go on the pre-organized tour because it was a trifle expensive. Right now we have a bus ticket and that's about it. If we can't find a hotel we're camping on the beach with all the beach snakes and crabs. The crabs are everywhere, there was one crawling under me when I was sunbathing last week. Scared the hell out me, it did. They're little and cute though. I can deal with that.
Snakes, however, are not little and cute. I have yet to see one but I think that that streak is going to end soon. Our Ecology teacher went over a list of things that we need to concern ourselves with on our next field trip. The list is as follows.
1. Bug repellent
2. Rubber boots (I don't think those will be making the return trip)
3. Hydration
4. Pants
5. SNAKES
So apparently there are a ton of snakes where were going. Our teacher reassured us that "there will be people there to help you". So when I get bit by a giant poisonous snake there will be people there to help me. Great, thanks Teach. Now I don't have to worry. I can't really think of anything less cool than snakes right now. I'm pretty sure I'd rather deal with crocodiles and malaria carrying mosquitos. Although I think those are included in the journey as well. Hmmm... I'm sure it'll be fun though.
Anyway, it's time for lunch and then I get to hop on the bus to the sunny sunshineness. Leave me some love.
Monday, February 07, 2005
I have to say that this weekend was the best one yet. And it was FREE! Sweet, eh? I went on the first of my 2 trips for my Ecology class to Curu, a little preserve on the Pacific.
Saturday morning we hopped on a bus and headed to Curu. I'm using the term morning very loosely, my alarm woke me up at 3:30. 3:30 is not an uncommon time for me to be awake but it's sure as hell not because I'm getting up then. Oh well. So I made me lonely trek in the dark down the ever dangerous streets of Zapote to the bus where I hopped on for my pre-COD ride to the Pacific. We had to be at Puntarenas for the 8:30 ferry. We arrived at 7:30. Yes, that's right, I could have slept for an extra hour. Grrrr. At 7:30 it was only about 87 degrees so we searched for somewhere to eat breakfast and warm up.
After an interminable boat ride through the same boring islands in the same boring ocean (I'm kidding) we finally arrived at the hotel, dropped off our stuff, and headed to Curu, which is a privately owned wildlife refuge. We walked through the park and saw a bunch of mangroves, which aren't really that interesting to me but we're studying them in class. Work work work. Then we saw monkeys. Lots and lots of monkeys. One tried to shit on us. He seriously did it on purpose too. I was unimpressed. Almost at the end of our walk through the park we saw 4 scarlet macaws flying away. Not bad considering that there are only about 50 of them in the entire country.
The rest of the day was spent snorkeling. There weren't enough fins for us small-footed types so I ventured in the sea sans-flippers. I'm a strong swimmer, no big deal. Haha, yeah right. I'm a strong swimmer but the current is stronger. Or so I heard it saying as it bashed my knees repeatedly against the coral covered rocks. Stupid current. If you disregard the pain and blood, which is actually pretty easy, it was really fun. There were muchos pezes. I even saw a puffer fish!
The next morning we got to sleep in until 5:30 and then it was back in the boat for more snorkeling. That Jorge is a slave driver. This time I got flippers though, although I'm not sure that is a good thing. They managed to rub half of the skin of the top of my right foot and now I'm stuck wearing tennis shoes on this 80+ degree day. I think it was worth it though. I got to see a lot more fishes (yes, fishes) and the current seemed to have relented in its full out assault on my personage. We laid around on the beach for awhile after that but then it was time to go home. We took the noon-thirty ferry this time. Holy hot Batman. I was seriously wishing that I could send about 25 degrees your guys' way. I was a delicious medium-medium rare when I disembarked. Thanks to mom's SPF 77 I was only cooked on the inside though. So yeah, it was a great weekend. Especially since I only spent about 5000 colones, that all on beverages. It's daaaamn hot over yonder.
Now it's Monday and I'm sitting here waiting for my Ecology class to start. I would really very much prefer to be just about anywhere else. Except for in Michigan, of course. Pura Vida.
Friday, February 04, 2005
It's so Friday and that's so awesome. Unfortunately Miles decided to implement the Spanish only walks to school. That's cool 'cause Meg is in Advanced II and Cory and I are in Intermediate II. Miles, however, is in Basic II so it makes the conversation a weeee bit difficult. Not that I'm a Spanish master. I'm not as dumb as my Tico brother thinks I am though. Not Smiley, the one who is studying medicine in Cuba. He came home for awhile. I have no idea what his name is. Anyway, yesterday he wanted to tell me that he was going to the grocery store and that supper would be ready in 20 minutes. Instead of just saying it in Spanish, which I would have understood very easily, he used this horrible Spanish English combo. I think there might have been some Portugeuse in there too. I'm not sure. So my family thinks I'm a Spanish failure. That's cool. Well, this has to be short 'cause I have to go to class. We get to watch a movie today though. It's all in Spanish. That should hold my attention for, oh, about 29 seconds. I'll update more later when I hit up the Internet Cafe.
Wednesday, February 02, 2005
If you look veeeeeeeery closely you can see me going down the zipline. This was one of the short ones.
