Just Some Pictures

That´s some cold water

Cow crossing

Playas del Coco

Oh no, my feet are wet

More Free Time

I have been contemplating quitting The Journal for the last couple weeks and just travel around Costa Rica and Central America for my remaining time. I have not been particularly interested or happy working with the newspaper and the idea of visiting other countries has become incredibly appealling (it was actually my original idea when I made plans to come to CR). I was mulling over the whether to quit at the end of next week, but as I was very diplomatically asked not to submit any more articles after today, the decision has been made for me.

I can´t say that I was actually surprised at all that I was fired. The Journal has been going through a transition period of the last month or two and a lot of people have been cut out from the staff. I definitely stuck it out through the darkest of the days but Miguel just wants me gone I think. I have very little respect for him as an owner for the way he treats his employees and runs the business.

I feel quite content and a little releived actually not have to work any more. I have already started making plans to go to Nicaragua and beyond very soon. I have a lot more free time now and am determined to make the most of what time I have left in Central America.

Good for what ails you

Once again soccer has come to the rescue. I have been sick with the flu and have down and out for a days. I do not get sick very often and when it happens, as my mother can surely attest, I am not the most pleasant person to be around.

I was feeling slightly better on Monday but still down on my luck when I received a phone call from my coworker Carlos. Last week he said there was a possibility of playing soccer this week but it was still uncertain. There are all kinds of small sided ´canchas´ for ´fútbol sala´ around and he told me we reserved space to play that night. Needless to say, I jumped at the opportunity and hopped on a bus to Liberia.

I felt a little weak and sluggish but it was still so much fun to run around and play for a bit. We had the space for an hour but I was drenched with sweat after five minutes. It´s 4v4 plus goalies in a space slightly smaller than a basketball court and it felt great to work hard and sweat out most of my cold. We ended up tying 18 - 18 after an hour´s play and I even scored a good goal.

I spent the night at Carlos´ house in Liberia and went with him to work in the morning. I am still in the final throws of being sick and another day should do it. My overall personal state (physically and psychologically) has improved significantly which has only reinforced my belief that soccer is my go to cure-all. And what´s the overaching lesson to be gleaned from the experience, you might ask: soccer is good for what ails you.

It´s hot and I don´t want to work

It has been hot almost every single day since I´ve been in Costa Rica, but now it is getting ridiculously hot. I have taken to sweating profusely while sitting still and usually don´t wear much more than shorts whenever I can. However, that still doesn´t help. I have the fan locked on me while sleeping and I am missing the air conditioning of my old apartment more and more.

Compounding the situation is that I have little to no motivation to work this past week. It was a struggle to find stories and write them for some reason. I just did not want to work. Truth be told, I am not enjoying working for the Journal that much anymore. I love the people I work with (minus the owner), but I don´t feel interested in researching and writing articless and it is becoming more and more tempting just to quit and bum around for a while. We´ll give it another week or two, see how I´m feeling at that point, and go from there.

Despite my complaints, things are still fine in Costa Rica. The week was challenging for several reasons, the car crash being the primary factor, but it´s just one of times everyone has to deal with at during life. I am sure I will be right as rain, which is falling with more regularity and intensity, shortly.

A Whopper

Oh boy, have I got a whopper this time. The whole story starts last Friday when Katie and I – my friend from Macalester who was visiting for the week – decided to rent a car for a couple days. The idea was to get the car so that we could go hike around some national parks in Costa Rica, use it to take her to the airport, and then drop the car off afterward.

It is nearly impossible to get to many of the parks in Costa Rica by public transport and we really wanted to hike a volcano to top off what had already been a very fun and adventuresome week. We got the car, a small sized SUV, and headed off to Rincon de la Vieja Friday afternoon to hike for a bit. We made up to a sweet, hidden waterfall halfway up the mountain and back down without a problem.

Feeling optimistic, we made plans to go visit another national park, Guanacaste, a bit farther north on Saturday but that turned out to be a disaster. Although it is a national park, there are no signs directing you how to get there. We drove around looking for it the entire morning and ended up stopping at a stream and spent most of the afternoon walking amongst the rocks. We intended to hike a volcano, but we had to settle for this alternative.

The story really doesn’t get interesting until we’re about two miles from my apartment. It had just stopped raining and we were coming down a big hill that leads into Coco. I was driving at a reasonable speed, certainly not going excessively fast, while a bus was coming up the hill in the opposite directly. I pressed the brake to slow down as we passed it but the car skidded on some oil or something slippery on the road and veered into the path of the oncoming bus. I tried to slow down and steered the car away from the bus, but that unfortunately put us heading toward the shoulder of the road and we were still sliding out of control.

The rest of the images I remember in very clear, but disconnected flashes as we skidded off the side of hill, catching our tires on something and rolling over twice before we landed right side up and stopped. The whole thing happened so quickly I didn’t fully realize what had occurred until we stopped.

The windows and doors were smashed and our things were tossed all over the place as we rolled, but miraculously, Katie and I were almost completely fine after the crash. Dazed and mostly angry, I emerged from the wreckage literally without a scratch, and only with a sore neck. Rolling on her side of the vehicle, Katie fared only slightly worse with a scratch on her shoulder and thigh, and bump on her head and forearm. Which, all things considered, could have been a lot worse for both of us.

The response from passers by and emergency personnel was rapid, but fortunately nothing was severely physically wrong so we got a ride back to my apartment and that was that. Katie was a bit more shaken up than I was and it was a psychologically difficult rest of the night and morning as I went with her to the airport Sunday morning.

I have definitely been in a weird state of mind since the accident (unfortunately for Katie because I should have been more supportive) but am gradually getting back to normal. Strangely, my initial reaction was simply being pissed off that the whole thing happened, but time has gone by, the gravity of the situation has sunk in a bit more.

Looking at the car afterward, pretty well smashed up, it was astounding that nothing worse happened to us. Without any warning, and for no drastic reason, the car skidded out of control and flipped twice. I simply pressed the brakes and we could have (and perhaps should have) been injured much worse than what actually happened.

In was especially a shame because it put an incredibly sour flavor to an otherwise very fun week. We met up with one of Katie’s friends living in Costa Rica, went boogey boarding, SCUBA diving, went out to eat and a bunch of other things that were a lot of fun. I wish I were writing about those instead, but this story definitely trumps the others.

I have been graced with good fortune throughout my lifetime and everything has always seemed to work out for me just fine. It’s the luck I have lived by and thankfully it hasn’t run out yet. However, a situation such as this quickly and dramatically, puts things in perspective and is a stark reminder how your fortunes can change in an instant.

I am back at work and have made a claim and started the whole process to get this resolved. It promises to be a long and drawn out process, but we bought insurance on the car so I am optimistic it will not be too much out of pocket. However, considering the extent of the accident, any amount of money is pennies in comparison to what could have been.

SCUBA Diving

I am now an officially certified PADI Open Water Diver, which means I able to dive anywhere in the world for the rest of my life. The Open Water level is the most basic level of independent divers but I am incredibly exited about. There are still lots of skills and other tasks you can do to gain experience and advance your level, but those you generally accumulate over time.

The course consisted of a series of book/theory exercises out of the water and there was also a number of in the water skills activities. I was definitely nervous at first but I gradually became more and more comfortable with the skills, breathing and moving around in the whole aparatus. It is a strange sensation to be breathing underwater and swimming past rocks and fishes but it is really cool. It´s incredible to see things that you´ve only seen on nature shows or read about in books.

My first deeper water dive was a bit of a challenge because I couldn´t equalize my head properly so my ears were killing from the pressure. Eventually I got it but thoughts that I wouldn´t be able to finish the course were running through my head.

Of all the many things I´ve seen, highlights have been seeing some huge sting rays gliding along the bottom of the ocean, a moray eel (they´re remarkably ugly), a couple sea horses and three sharks. On one of the dives a person had a camera and I might be able to get some under water photos from him, but I´ll have to wait and see.

La Poza Mono Feliz

Though there has been a string of inconveniences lately, things have not been all that bad. Last Saturday, after finishing up my last article, I hitched a ride from Liberia in the back of truck with Ines and her family back to their house for the weekend. Ines has always been incredibly nice, almost like a surrogate mother, and she invited me to go swimming at a river near their house.

Anyway, we woke up early Sunday morning, packed some food and made our way to the “Happy Monkey Swimming Hole.” It was definitely a family affair including all of Ines’ nuclear family plus a couple cousins.

The river is no more than a big stream but the place we went to was remarkably deep and had gigantic rock walls leading directly down to the water – perfect for diving off. You could scramble your way up to some good jump-off points, but what made it even more excellent was the addition of a rope swing and ladder going up the rocks.

The weather was hot, the water was refreshing and needless to say, I made the most of situation. Actually, I think if I were to rate all the days I’ve been in Costa Rica, I would have to put this up there as number one or two.

We headed back to the house in the afternoon and in the evening I went back into Liberia to play some soccer and basketball with Ines’ husband, son and nephews. We rode our bikes into town, which took us on the Pan American Highway, played for a couple hours, and then worked our way back. It took us a lot longer to return because we had to stop a couple times to drink some beer, finally arriving back home about 9:00.

I was exhausted and sore just about everywhere in my body, but it was definitely a good kind of a pain after a fun weekend.