Jacó Beach Weekend

So this past weekend we took our first trip.  We went to Jacó beach which was about 2 hours away from San Josecito.  But first, on Friday, after morning Spanish class everyone came to my house to my "ranch" (basically the backyard of my house which is the front yard of some of my family members' homes) to cook Tico food for lunch.  We were all split into groups and we made tortillas, gallo pinto (a rice and bean dish which is amazing and I could eat it for all three meals everyday), fresco (fruit juice), fried platanos (plantains), meat, cheese, and bread.  It WAS SO GOOD.  The food here is amazing.

Rolling bread dough in pretzel-like form.

Our "teachers", Nathalia and Carlos. 

Half of the group left after eating to head for Jacó.  I decided to go with the other group on Saturday because I didn't want to spend the ENTIRE weekend out.

At 4 am Saturday morning, I woke up and packed for the beach.  The bus for San Jose came at 5.  When we got to San Jose (Me, Holly, Susie, Melissa, Omar, and Kevin) we waited patiently for our friend Diego (he is Ana & Maria's nephew so we see him a lot and invited him for the weekend).  We thought he'd be there already since he called Omar at 4 am for a wake up call.  But no.  He didn't show up until after 6 and we were planning to take the 6 am bus from San Jose to Jaco.  So after that we bought tickets for the 8 am bus and waited at the bus station for 2 hours.  All turned out okay anyway. 

Once arriving to Jaco we "checked-in" to our hostel which was probably one of the nastier places I have seen.  We had two rooms reserved for 15 people and heard lots of fun but not-so-fun stories from the group that stayed Friday night about dealings with cockroaches and spiders in their beds.  Omar, Kevin, and Diego did not seem phased by the stories so those things are pretty common.  Plus we shouldn't have expected much from the looks of the place.  We all spent the entire day on the beach and just hung out in our rooms that night after going out for dinner.  

On Sunday we woke up pretty early, or didn't wake up because it felt like I hadn't even slept through the night, and headed to the beach again.  I went to breakfast with Omar and Diego and then went down to the water for just about an hour.  I did NOT get sunburned!!!  Just a little pink on my back where I couldn't quite reach to rub sunscreen in all the way.  My group who I went with Saturday took the bus back to San Jose at 4 and didn't get home until about 7:30 or 8. 

Jenna, Erin, and I - Beach.

While coming into San Jose, there was a lot of chaos and craziness because Sunday was election day here in Costa Rica and people really enjoy expressing themselves, especially in the streets.  Every car had a giant flag on a pole hanging out of at least one window and people were yelling and chanting and using car horns to sound out for their candidate.  It was pretty crazy.  I didn't get any pictures of anything which is kind of sad.  Anyway, at the end of the night it was announced that Laura Chinchilla was elected - Costa Rica's first female president.

Overall, it was a great weekend.  The beach was wonderful (duh), and it was really nice to get away from home and be on my own.  I won't lie, it was definitely hard to want to come back when I had two days of freedom.  It's been kind of difficult for me to accept my lack of freedom to do what I want, even though anytime I want to do something my mom always lets me.  I just always feel so bad leaving all the time or asking to do something all the time.  She told me the other day that she really does not like leaving the house and she would rather never go anywhere.   I thought "Hm well we could not be more opposite."

We're off again this weekend to Manuel Antonio which is another beach area but it also has one of the National Parks and rainforests :)