Montezuma, Puntarenas, Costa Rica

Nina was here a few weeks ago and for the weekend she was here we went to Montezuma, a beach town on the southern end of the Nicoya Peninsula. The most convenient way to get there from San Jose is to take a bus to Punterenas, ferry across the gulf of Nicoya, then bus from the ferry stop to the city of Montezuma (about 5.5 - 6 hrs total). We stayed at a hostel that had howler monkeys right outside, and the sound is terrifying! I did not sleep well there at all. We had an amazing buffet lunch at a vegan, gluten free restaurant called Organico . . sooooo delicious!!! I also had mint choc chip vegan ice cream from there, also delicious. Unfortunately they were only open for bfast and lunch, not dinner. We tried to walk to waterfalls but didn't realize you have to actually walk in the river to get to the falls, and were not prepared for that. Then for dinner we went to a fancy restaurant on the beach! The ambience was great, but since it was dark you couldn't see the water, but could hear the waves. The next day we did an organized tour to Isla Tortuga! Which is very reminiscent of Bocas Del Toro, but the island was a bit crowded but had a lot of activities to do besides just sun bathe and swim. The organized tour took us to two snorkeling points (I had to hold Nina's hand while doing this, I don't know why snorkeling freaks me out, some form of agoraphobia maybe?), then a good lunch on Isla Tortuga. I had the most amazing pina colada there, made with crema de coco and fresh pineapple . . . mmmmm.

I also taught another dance class, this time to my own choreography for Desi Girl! It was a blast of course and am debating doing one more workshop in Jan before I leave.

xmas in CR

Well, its officially start of my "summer" vacation! The physics building closed at 11:30am, so no choice but to start vacation today! Although earlier this week there was a wave of cold weather, the sun is finally out burning my skin as it should be. Monday was probably the coldest, and since my apartment is not insulated - the windows don't actually close all the way and there's a 1/2 inch space under my front door - I resorted to drinking soup and hot tea at intervals. I should have done some stretching/dancing to warm up but was too cold to even start that. Eventually the combination of the hot liquids plus turning my stove on every 20 minutes warmed up my apartment a bit.

There's Xmas lights up in our apartment complex which feels very cozy at night. My two favorite vegetarian restaurants are closed for the next 2 weeks, but I did stock up on vegetarian tamales. Oh yeah, tamales are a big deal. Instead of smelling cinnamon and baked goods and gingerbread lattes, the smell of steamed masa represents xmas time here. They wrap their tamales in banana leaves (instead of corn husks like the mexican tradition), apparently this gives the tamale a different flavor but I'm not much of a tamale connoisseur, I just know I like 'em, a lot. Some families get together for tamale making parties, and tamale eating parties. There was even a tamale party in the Physics department on Wednesday afternoon. Campus is shut down for 2 weeks and when I return in Jan, the students will still be on their summer vacation until March or so.

The Tico tradition is to go to the Pacific Coast for Christmas, yes Xmas at the beach! This is their "summer" after all, and this really means its their dry season, and the Central Valley isn't actually hot, but the beaches are. Although summer time is xmas time, there's plenty of decorations that have to do with the usual themes of a north hemisphere xmas: snowmen, reindeer, snow painted in store front windows, xmas trees.

So, my plans for the next few days are to relax, prep for my parents' visit, maybe watch HP7 again. We'll do some sightseeing around here and head to Panama for xmas. For NYE, I'll be heading to Uvita Beach on the southern Pacific coast! A few weeks after that, I'll head to the neighbor to the north and see Nehcaragua . . then it will be time for me to head back to Cali . . crazy. . .