LLWorldTour

After class today, I hopped on the bus to Manuel Antonio National Park. This entire coastal area used to be all forest and sadly this park is all that’s left. The entire country of Costa Rica used to be covered with mostly forest, but agriculture has taken over and the forests have shrunk considerably. I arrived at the park at about 2:45pm and unfortunately learned it closes at 4:00pm. Why am I rushing on a one year vacation? But today actually was the only day I could see the park because the rest of the week I have surfing or other activities after class. Inside this national park is the perfect picture of a beautiful beach—white sand, huge palms, and not another sole around. On and near the beach many iguanas sat basking in the hot son. There were also hundreds of bright red crabs crawling around under the trees in the shade. I could hear the rustle of monkeys in the trees above. I hiked on some trails that left the idyllic beach and went into the rainforest. Wow—I’m in a rainforest. All by myself. And they gave me no map. Great, I’m lost. Well, not exactly.

Even though the park ranger told me it takes 4-6 hours to see the park. I figured he just doesn’t know how fast I walk, right? Wrong. I hiked up the Cathedral trail into the forest. It was dense and humid. The humidity here is really something I’ve never felt before—in fact I still have clothes hanging that are not dry after several days. On my barely marked trail, the sand gave way to mud and slippery rocks and trees that had fallen across the path. Not being one who likes to return the same way I came (I bore very easily—maybe that trait will mellow on this trip), I keep going and going and going. Many times I stopped and thought, ‘maybe this trail doesn’t loop and I should turn around.’ But then I’d see some light ahead or a curve and think to myself—‘let me just see what’s up there.’ So, of course, then I kept going and going some more. I hiked for another hour and the park was closing in 15 minutes. There was no way I could go back the way I came in 15 minutes. I was so torn on whether or not I should assume it looped. Damn it! I turned around and went back. On the way, I saw and heard some Capuchin Monkeys way up high in the trees. I also spotted a few Cabybaras (the world’s largest rat!) enjoying a small stream. I returned to the beach where I started and walked back though the entrance that was now gated shut. I squeezed through an opening in the fence and out of the park. Ah, but not so fast! An interesting thing at this park—it was now late in the afternoon and high tide. The entrance was actually on a high part of the peninsula this park was on. A road actually deadends into the park and you must cross part of the beach to reach the entrance. Well, now this beach was covered with water. Little men waited in little boats for you to shuttle you across the 200 yards or so. You dropped some change in their bucket and away you went. My driver was probably 15.

Before he left me off he asked, “Que tipos animals tu ves?”
“Yo veo monos y iguanas y raton.”
He shuttled me over to a tree and pointed, “Mira en el arbole!”

There laying in the branches was a huge snake. I’m glad I was on my way out!

Every morning at 7:30am, my minivan “school bus” honks outside to pick me up. Jennifer, my housemate and one of the teachers, my neighbor Ryan, a nineteen-year-old ex-air force academy cadet, and I climb in the van to pick up a few other students and head to school. I have to say it’s neat to be “in school” again and learning something. I felt for a while now that I wasn’t “learning” anything new in life like I used to back in college and I like learning. It doesn’t always have to be in a classroom though, and I feel this whole trip will be a huge learning experience for me—making the world my classroom!

El Paraiso (The Paradise) school is on the main road to Manual Antonio National Park. There is one small indoor office with a desk and a few computers for the staff and all the rest is in the great outdoors. There are five or so open-air “classrooms” which consist of a concrete slab, wood table, four maroon plastic chairs, and a log and tin roof. There are trees all around us filled with chattering Squirrel Monkeys. It’s hard to study mi verbos reflexivos when all these cute white faced guys are jumping around tree to tree.

There are about 5 other students studying at the school right now. It is the rainy or low season in Costa Rica which makes things cheaper and not as crowded. I have to say I was slightly disappointed in my new group of amigos. They are all nice for the most part, but not as friendly and outgoing as I’d hoped. Maybe it’s because they’re all Americans? Plus, they are all a lot younger. If this was a reality show (“Spanish Immersion School: Costa Rica”), we would have an interesting cast:

Ryan: A very white, slightly chubby nineteen-year-old from a suburb of San Francisco. He’s nice and quite smart for his age, but a bit dorky and unsure of himself. He and I have class together (it’s just each teacher per one or two students) and every time he says an answer in class he rocks back on his chair, answers, and then makes an annoying popping noise with his lips. He lives just next door to me in our barrio and we’ve gone out for cervezas, but he’s just not all that much fun.

Kate: Okay, now it starts to get interesting. Kate is also pretty young—maybe 20. She’s from Colorado and seems like a hippie/burnout type. Despite multiple warnings by locals and friends, she’s been dating Mohammed, the town drug dealer and all around thug. Apparently Mohammed stakes out the surf lessons and preys on unsuspecting young American chicas looking for love and security. Today in class, Kate told us all she stayed with Mohammed overnight and he lives in a hammock on someone’s roof. Sounds like a stable guy to me.

Jennah: This is the spoiled 18-year-old rich girl from Boca Raton, Florida. She’s ‘too cool for school’ and mumbles when she talks. She seems mostly nice, but doesn’t say all that much. She also wears her board shorts super low and is constantly drawn to playing with her own stomach.

Jennifer: Another one from the San Francisco bay area, this 28-year-old is a social worker looking to quit her job and shake life up a bit. She seems mostly cool, but ah, some drama, I just found out today that she’s “hanging out” (having sex) with our surf instructor Jorge. I think it could be all cool, although she seems to get a bit possessive of him when other muchachas are trying to learn to surf—like me! Plus I really think he’s just like Mohammed—maybe not a drug dealer (just doer—he lit up a joint after our last surf lesson), but still has fun with the touristicas when they are here. I think she maybe naïve to think they have ‘something’ more.

Crystal: Okay, last one’s a charm. Crystal is a mini Pamela Anderson. She’s a beautiful ex-mormon with long blond hair, big eyes and lips and fake breasts. She also annoyingly wears way-too-long fake eyelashes every day. How about saving them for a special occasion? Nope, while everyone else is super casual in shorts and bathing suit tops, she’s got on her long lashes in class and to surf. Here’s the kicker: She’s 22, already divorced and is now dating some Utah Mining Equipment owner “sugar daddy.” I’m guessing he bought her the new boobage. He “sent” (paid for) her down here for six months to ‘get away’ and look for a house for them! She says he did it because he wants to show her that he will miss her. Que? He’s almost 40 and she said he’s about to retire. She is constantly on her cell phone with him and even got lost in Manual Antonio Park because she was gabbing with him instead of seeing all the rainforest has to offer. She is literally doing everything for and around him—sending pics and videos everday, getting packages from him. And she doesn’t go out with the rest of us at night because she needs to talk with him. Or he forbids her to—that’s what I’d like to think. Not sure why she’s even here. Oh Yeah—to buy a house? She can’t even figure out the ipod nano he sent her…so I’m guessing real estate in a foreign country might not be her thing either. Ya think?

Tune in next week to see if Kate gets killed by Mohammed or Crystal gets off her cell phone!

Several years ago my friend Mark had visited Costa Rica with his friend Seung. They’d rented a car and I distinctly recall him telling me how terrible the roads were here. Well, it appears not much has changed since then. Let’s just say that on my bus ride from San Jose to Quepos, I wished I’d worn a sports bra. Ouch!

Before I left on my trip one of the things I decided to do was enroll in a Spanish Immersion program in which I would take lessons en Español and live with a local familia. The school also offered surfing lessons which I couldn’t pass up.

Upon arriving at the Jimenez casa in Quepos (just outside of Manual Antonio National Park—famous worldwide for it’s endangered squirrel monkeys), I really started thinking about how fortunate (or spoiled) we are in the States. Their home had everything they needed and yet probably less than 1/8 of what I had. The floors were plain old concrete. There were no area rugs. . There were no lamps or any other lighting except simple florescent bulbs in the center of the ceiling and there were none of the “extras” we have to decorate our homes. No art on the walls (besides the few small religious cards of the Virgin Mary and Jesus randomly hung where there happened to be nails), no bookshelves, no end tables, vases, no pretty paint colors on the walls, etc. Now granted, I love this kind of stuff—I love making my house feel like a home with cool tchtochkes and niceties like candles and framed photographs sprinkled about, but of course none of it is a necessity. The entire house felt like an unfinished attic. Now, don’t get me wrong, I’m not complaining or judging them, but I wouldn’t be honest if I didn’t say it took some getting used to. There was no dry wall—just the beams and rafters. The kitchen was an amalgamation of various tables covered in cut up contact paper acting as counters. There were no cabinets, no real countertops, and just one mini sized fridge. There was no oven—just a few burners in a portable camping type stovetop. My room was upstairs and as bare bones as you could get—just a bed and one small armoire. Seriously there was NOTHING else in it. No bedside table. No lamp. No pictures. No rugs. No nada. Just a bed and some windows. It felt sort of like a cabin you’d rent in the woods somewhere. There was a wastebasket outside my bedroom door—well, it was actually a box with the top cut off with a plastic bag in it. It took me a day before I decided what it was for as there was no trash can in the bathroom. The bathroom probably made me the most uncomfortable—kind of like an outdoor bath you’d find in a campground with the requisite cobwebs in the corners and a makeshift shower stall. There seemed to be some odd rigging for hot water with actual electric cables leading right to the shower head. This electrocution-trap-waiting-to-happen did not sit well with me. There was also a dirty, wet towel sitting just outside the shower stall on the concrete floor that did not look like a place I’d want to put my clean wet feet post bathing. A subtle mildew odor filled the air. And, of course, there was no A/C and it was 90 degrees at least here. This brought me right back to my freshman year in my hot and sticky dorm.

My host madre y padre were Wilma y Jose Ramon Jimenez. They barely spoke any English—which was fine by me as I think that’s when you really “learn” a language when you must speak it all the time. Ah—hence the world immersion! The only problemo was they were really quiet and didn’t speak all that much to me. They had 2 sons and one daughter-in-law living with them. It turns out that Jennifer, the daughter-in-law, was one of the teachers at my Spanish Language school. She was 22 and had been living with them (and dating their son) for 5 years.

She graciously invited me to join her y una amiga para una cerveza (o dos) that night. It was really fun to be out with some locals—albeit kids about 12 years younger than me. But I did learn from her and her friends some interesting things about Costa Ricans I would not have guessed. Jennifer told be about the unimportance of marriage here. Most Costa Rican couples tend to live together and never get married. It was not very important here to be joined by holy matrimony. It was too costly and just not a necessity here. Jennifer didn’t plan on it and neither did my 40-year-old teacher at Spanish school who’d been with her ‘spouse’ for 14 years. I wrongly assumed most Latino cultures were very catholic and therefore marriage was high on the list. But although the majority of Costa Ricans are catholic, many are not religious and rarely attend church. I also learned that it is quite a liberal country—this attitude reminded me of Quebec, Canada or some parts of
Europe where most couples are also not married and just happily live together. Not sure if many in the States realize how conservative and puritanical our country still is.
Costa Rica is getting cooler by the minute.

Ah, the tropics–lush greenery, swaying palms, and afternoon rainstorms. I landed in
San Jose, Costa Rica Thursday afternoon. I was intact. My big backpack was intact. All was good in the world. I took a cab downtown to theDon Carlos Hotel. I decided to stay somewhere a bit nicer than a hostel for my first few nights in order to allow myself some alone transition time. The goodbye back in Chicago was pretty hard—it all hit me and I was a blubbering mess. And no one wants a weepy roommate to ruin their vacation.

My friend Claudia had brought wine and paper cups to O’Hare Airport to toast me and my trip. It couldn’t have been a better send off at three in the morning—when my plane departed. We even got to see four young Latino guys handcuffed to each other being deported back to
Guatemala. They were having a grand old time laughing and carrying on and would probably be back in
Chicago in a few weeks. I found that rather interesting and of course the producer in me jumped up to ask the TSA agent some pointed questions on the matter. She didn’t know much except it was quite common on these night flights. Well, lucky me, the guys were all on my flight seated in the back row (now in open airspace and therefore uncuffed) so every time I got up to go to the bathroom I was eyed up and down and then it just didn’t seem right to make small talk with them.

The hotel I stayed at in San Jose was just $50 a night and gorgeous. Even though that is pretty cheap for what we are used to, it’s more than I plan on spending. Most hostels are $10 a night per bed. When I told some about my ‘round the world plans, their first comments were‘how are you going to afford that?!’

Many don’t realize how cheap world travel can be. For example, for dinner yesterday I had a cold Costa Rican “Imperial” beer, an appetizer of yummy bass ceviche, and some jamon y queso quesadillas. My bill with tip and tax (which here is nicely included) was under $10. And
Costa Rica is by far not even the cheapest country I will visit!

The city was pretty rough around the edges and not so safe. The hotel staff warned us not to go out after dark. I walked around some during the day and encountered lots of stares and cat calls. I’ve read about the “machismo” way in Central and
South America. Plus my blue eyes, and light skin and hair don’t allow me to blend in very much. The downtown was dirty, hot and muggy and filled with people. The sidewalks were either non-existent or crumbling and motorists definitely have the right of way here—not pedestrians. But I did not come here for the city. I came to Costa Rica to see the luscious landscape of volcanoes, rainforests and beaches and of course the wildlife. So my second day here I took a full day tour of some of the more interesting spots just outside of the city. Our first stop was the 11,000 foot high Irazu volcano. It last erupted in 1963 on the day President John F. Kennedy actually arrived in
Costa Rica. The dry and gray ashy landscape seemed rather moonlike and the crater was filled with a nuclear looking bright neon green lake.

Driving through the Orosi Valley, the tour guide told us of Costa Rica’s biggest industries. Numero uno, thanks in very small part to me, is of course tourism. Suprisingly, number dos is technology. According to our guide Intel has a plant here. Number three and up are all agriculture—coffee, bananas, pineapple, onions, potatoes, and squash. Another stop we made was the beautiful Lankester
Gardens. There are more than 1400 varieties of orchids in Costa Rica and Lankester Gardens has no fewer than 800 of them! Lunch was at a beautiful restaurant with a huge outdoor patio over looking a lush green valley.

So, my first day in Costa Rica was a little lonely, but once I got acclimated, I was feeling fine and by second day I was already making new friends. One of the things I’m most excited about on this trip besides actually “seeing” the world is meeting all kinds of different people and characters along the way. It’s people that really touch your soul more then just they places. On my second night in San Jose I met Michael in the hotel lobby bar. He was a graying, bearded business man from New York City looking to invest in an agriculture company down here. He was the kind of New ‘Yawker’ that was successful, but not altogether polished or cultured. He was a bit ‘nebishy,’ but awfully friendly and was easy to talk to. We had dinner together at the hotel and were joined by red-headed Olga. A Russian gal with piercing eyes who came here on a whim to meet a not-so-attractive beer bellied man named “Jimmy” who she’d met ‘online.’ Hmmm. Maybe one of those Russian brides-want-rich-American man sites? But too bad for Jimmy because she made it very clear she didn’t like him. I think her wrinkled brow, tongue sticking out of mouth, and thumbs down gave it away. Don’t need to speak Russian to understand that.

The next night Michael and I went to dinner down the street at a place called Café Mundo. It was a great neighborhood Italian restaurant in a Victorian house setting. It really was a surprise in scruffy, dusty San Jose. Michael was an interesting guy—married and divorced 3 times, lived all over the world, and surprisingly lost his son to the Iraq war just a few years ago. In the middle of our Caprese salad he said this was his first “date” in a while. What?

I did not hesitate to blurt out, “No, this is NOT a date.”

“Oh but I figured you could call it a date,” he said. “Wow. You wasted no time correcting me.” He replied, rather shocked at my directness.

“Nope.” I said. “You can definitely not call this a date. The word ‘date’ comes with all kinds of connotations that do not pertain to two new friends doing dinner together.”

I didn’t say outloud that he was also two years older than my father and therefore just a wee bit too old for me. But apparently this would not have mattered to him as he later revealed his last “affair” was with an African 18-year-old girl in Zimbabwe.

He also later asked me if I smoked dope or knew where to get some in San Jose. This guy was getting odder by the minute. Since I could count the number of times I have on one hand, I don’t think I’d be good at scoring him his favorite weed here in some back alley of south central San Jose (although it would be another interesting way to get a mug shot and would of course make for good blogging!). He said he liked to smoke it everyday. Oh Yeah, I guess he did say he was in the agriculture biz! Although I was adamant about it NOT being a date, I graciously obliged when he paid for the check. See, there’s another way this could be a cheap trip around the world—my trip is getting cheaper by the minuto!

I’m in a metal capsule hurling through the atmosphere towards the equator. It still hasn’t sunk in yet, but this has to be one of the coolest AND hardest things I’ve ever done. I know I will get used to it, but I also know that the first few days (hopefully no more) will be the hardest. But it’s not like I haven’t gone through similar feelings before. I went 800 miles away from home to College in
South Carolina and didn’t know a soul. I cried for the first week or so when I got to my hot, sticky, non-air-conditioned dorm room. I missed my high school boyfriend terribly. I hated my new, odd roommate from Georgia (who’s father happened to be the lawyer for James Brown—but that’s another story I don’t even know). It wasn’t even half way into the semester when I was already applying to transfer to universities ‘back home’ like Rutgers and the University of Delaware.
By the way, does anyone know ANYTHING about
Delaware?? It’s like the secret state. I must go there on my next
US tour. I mean I literally lived in the state just to the north of it (NJ for all you geographically challenged) and never heard a peep out of it. I know where I’m from it was a bit overshadowed by the huge lurking metropolis just to my east, but c’mon…not even one news story? It’s kind of like
Canada. Eh?
University of Delaware and Rutgers, but come my second semester at USC, I’d already started having fun and decided to stay.

I also took a huge leap of faith when I moved to Chicago and only knew about two people there—one was my friend Jim who with his girlfriend at the time (now wife), Jennifer, took me out for one of my first dinners in Chicago at Rosebud on Rush. And they just took me out for one of my last dinners too. To this day we remain great friends.

Chicagowas a bit easier of a transition—I had a great new job at ABC and I loved the city in an instant. Plus it was good to be back in “yankee” territory again. Better food, cooler people, and…windier wind.

As the time ticked down on my days in Chicago it slowly started to hit me and I began to “feel” what I’d been telling people I was about to do. It’s much easier to SAY you are traveling around the world for a year than to know what it FEELS like to actually do it! The last days were also filled with so much stress—packing, selling car, renting condo, cleaning, etc., that I didn’t even have time to sit and reflect on what I was doing. I packed up all my stuff and put it in those big crates that they just haul away to some far off warehouse (in this case Libertyville). Slightly unnerving to see all your belongings being fork lifted down the street.

My final week in Chicago friends took me out to dinner every night. It was as if I was on death row waiting for my execution and I was getting to pick my favorite meals. The last 6 nights in a row consisted of Thai, Sushi, Middle Eastern, Italian, Indian, and finally, Greek. Opa!!

So, where was I? Oh yeah, on a plane to Costa Rica. As we climbed altitude and broke through the clouds, a bright luminous full moon came into view. Gotta be a sign.I hope my transition time into this trip does not take a semester. I don’t think it will. Many people have said to me that ‘I’m living so many others dreams.’ While many have also said what I’m doing ‘takes a lot of guts.’ So the way I see it, those two things don’t exactly mix. I think in fantasy this is a dream trip for many. But in reality, the packing, leaving everything, quitting, saying good-bye for a year is way too much a risk for most. I had thought about doing this a while back, but even for me it was too much. But then this year…my plan seemed to slowly evolve right before my eyes and before I realized it—I was going to do it. Kind of like most other big decisions in life—you never really know what the outcome will be until you do it.

(ding) “The captain has just turned on the saftey belt sign, please raise trays and seat backs to their upright and locked position and fasten your seat belts as we prepare for landing. Gracias”

So…here I go.