Easter weekend

As I had four and a half days off work (after only one and a half days ON), I went away last weekend to La Fortuna, the town next to the largest (only??) active volcano in Costa Rica. There used to be a couple of towns closer to the volcano, but they got obliterated in 1968, when what they all thought was just a mountain erupted after being dormant for 450 years. (My father tells me that he was actually here at that time. Bet that was exciting!) I don´t know about you, but when the rivers started to run hot, I might have gotten out of town....

As I mentioned before, La Fortuna is basically just a tourist hotspot, but at least that meant it didn´t shut down completely on Good Friday. I wandered around the town a bit (okay, I pretty much walked through the entire town in about half an hour), popping in to various souvenir shops. No, I didn´t buy a hammock or sarong, which seemed to be mostly what was on offer. I did look at various wooden bits and bats, but I´m not willing to carry anything around the country. Maybe I´ll head back into a claptrap shoppe right before I leave. Maybe not.

I did get to go on an outing to see the volcano. Unlike in Guatemala, we weren´t allowed to actually climb on this volcano. (In Guatemala, I could have touched lava if I were insane. No barriers, no guards. Just common sense protecting us. Or at least some of us.) In fact, we saw it from quite a distance, but we did get to go on a nice nature hike through the forest (I think that´s what they call it here, rather than bush or jungle or something else I don´t know). Lots of palm trees, vines, and those wacky plants that you can grow in a little shell on the side of your fridge-- bromeliads, I believe they are called. They are happy growing anywhere, and don´t need a lick of dirt. (I won´t be mentioning that to any of my first graders, for it will just confuse them.) We saw howler monkeys and various birds. Everyone ooooohed and ahhhhed while the guide said "This is the most common monkey/bird in Costa Rica." As I said before, I wasn´t too bowled over, although seeing the hummingbird nest with two little (and I mean little) chicks in it was pretty cool, even for someone as jaded as myself.

My favorite part of the hike, however, was hearing this American guy ask a woman with an accent where she was from. She said Israel, to which he replied, "Cool. I have a friend who just went to India." (I think he might have been someone in Guatemala who would have melted his shoes on the lava.)

After the hike we went to a lookout spot at dusk so we could see the lava coming down the side of the volcano. We were (literally) miles away, but it was pretty neat nonetheless. From there we went to a hot springs spa place, with 25 pools of different temperatures. I particularly liked the Giant Jacuzzi, as well as the pool that had tile recliners built into it. But, as in Thailand when we went to the hot springs (although this place, thank goodness, didn´t smell like sulphur), we were allotted two and a half hours there, and I was ready to go after 20 minutes. I assumed something like this would happen, so I had brought a book.

One evening in La Fortuna, at a restaurant where the poor waitresses were forced to wear ridiculous lacy-collared blouses and huge peasant skirts (I wanted to give her an extra big tip just for having to endure that, but when I had to ask twice for the bill, I decided on a regular tip), I saw a child with a paper napkin tucked into her shirt-- but not as a bib as I would have expected. No, this child had hers tucked into the BACK of her shirt and was wearing it as a cape. That´s my girl.

Two nights there in a hostel (I was in a dorm room, but happily had the whole room to myself), and then I came back to San Ramón. Not much going on here, so I read a lot, studied my Spanish a bit, and then took myself to the movies. You know you are truly desperate for entertainment when you pay to see Dragonball: Evolution... in Spanish. That was Saturday afternoon. Yesterday, Easter, I treated myself to Monsters vs. Aliens, again in Spanish. Luckily, neither of these plots were terribly hard to follow, and the dialogue was pretty predictable, so I was able to catch bits and pieces of it. I think my next movie will be that Benjamin Button one (in English, but with sub-titles, so I can read along and perhaps learn a bit). The final movie they have here (I still have 5 days in Podunk) is Infamundo: Mays 18. Does anyone know anything about that, or what "Mays 18" means? Is that like NC 17, because if so, I need to be mentally prepared before heading in. Maybe I´ll see that on Wednesday, when it only costs $2.40 to go to the movies (as opposed to full price of $3.80!!).

Oh yeah, I´m wishing that there was another volunteer here with me, but I did find Their Eyes Were Watching God and The Diary of Anne Frank, so at least my reading has classed up a bit. (I tend to rotate between a real book, like The English Patient, which I finished in La Fortuna, and mindless rot, like the Patricia Cornwell book I finished yesterday morning.)

I would have loved to ask my hostess if there are any special things that they do or eat on Easter (I saw no evidence of eggs, or bunnies, or chocolate of any sort), but that question is just too beyond my level of Spanish (please see David Sedaris´s story in Me Talk Pretty One Day about discussing Easter traditions in French class).

I guess that´s it for now. Adios, amigos y amigas!