Day 161, el
Viernes 21 de Deciembre 2012 12:40
Happiness is beside a feeling a memory
forever.
I didn’t write my blog for a week,
with a very good reason I just didn’t have my computer and I didn’t need it
either, I was taking the best of life.
I have been happy all the time in
Costa Rica, and I still am happy, very happy, demasiado. And then, during the
happiness I got a moment of pure happiness, so much happiness, so perfect that
I call it the best moment in my life so far. It was not winning the lottery or
a special sport event it was just the people, the moment and the love.
Last Saturday I went to San José with
my uncle, aunt and host brother to go to the festival de la luz of San José. We
went to the house of my aunt and 2 cousins in San Pedro, the university
neighborhood in San José. It was cool to be at a student house again, like I
visited my sister in Amsterdam back in the Netherlands. We took a bus to
downtown San José and went to China Town which was just 4 Chinese shops, not
like I expected but yea, I didn’t come here for China Town anyways. We walked
all the way through to San José to eat lunch at a fastfood square. San José was
very full, people everywhere, I loved it. It was a lot like Queensday because
there were people selling stuff everywhere; like on Queensday. After lunch we
went to my bus station to buy my bus ticket for the next day. Later we searched
for a spot to watch the carnival. After 2 hours of waiting it began, first
sailors, coastguards and policemen passed showing off their boats and
helicopters, yes with boats on trucks through the busiest street of Costa Rica;
Ticos Locos. Then people on skateboards
doing tricks, quads and commercial cars, a lot of useless bullshit to fill up
the time but it was cool to see it. Later in the night the real stuff started.
Beautifully made things passed, silver carts with painted dancers, ‘standard’
carnival stuff, clowns, dancers, gymnastic clubs and the bands a lot of bands.
The band from Orotina won the competition, I’m proud of my little town. It was
amazing to see this festival, Carnival is amazing and it was really good. And
the bond I have with my cousins, uncle and aunt got even better. After 5 hours
of seeing wonderful things we walked back through San José at night to a bus
stop to get back to San Pedro. I slept at the student house and the rest went
back to Orotina to sleep there.
I woke up at 6 the next day to catch
my bus to Guanacaste. It was cool to walk through San José in the early after
the biggest festival of the year. The sun was shining nice and the morning
smell kept me company while I walked through pretty vacant streets except for
the drunken people still awake from the night before. I had to wait in the bus
station for a while before my bus left. I felt like a backpacker sitting there
with my backs in between the other backpackers. The bus ride wasn’t that bad,
it actually was good in some way; I had time to sleep and time to think.
Sitting in the bus for so long gives you a lot of time to figure some things
out. After 5 and a half hour I arrived
in Brasilito and there Frida picked me up. I met her host family, and ate a
nice fish lunch with them. We went to a pool party with Frida her host sister
and friends of time. If was nice just chilling in the pool, playing ball for a
bit and eating chips.
After 2 hours we left to pick up
Louisa and Valentina who took a bus later. We got settled in the cabin, and
went to the supermarket to buy all the stuff we needed for the week. I always
turn into a little kid when I go to the supermarket, I don’t know why but it
just is that way and I love it; it is good to be a little kid sometimes, but
not all the time. Maybe it is because of my dad, he sometimes gets like a
little kid, and I probably just copied it, I love it. In the evening we cooked,
ate and chilled. We stayed up pretty late just chilling, eating ice cream and
talking, we are always talking. I love talking it makes you feel so much better
just sharing and listening to the others; serious stories and funny stories,
scary stories and jokes. Just laughing and loving.
The next day we woke up early, and
took a walk around the area. Guanacaste is very different from the rest of
Costa Rica. It is dry and more like a prairie including the cowboys and plains.
The culture is different as well, the language is a dialect and also the food
differs from Central Pacific. After the morning walk it was time for the beach!
We went to playa conchal; shell beach. It is called this way because the
majority of the beach it just shells and no sand. You have to cross a river and
climb a mountain to get there, as Frida told us. It turned out to be a little
stream and a small hill but it makes a cool story. The beach looks so pretty;
the most beautiful I have ever seen. We lay in the sun, swam and walked the
beach. It was so cool, so beautiful so perfect. We planned to do horseback
riding and snorkeling and stuff like that, but we decided not to, we didn’t
need to do that expensive tourist stuff, just chilling is what we needed We
also spotted a lot of monkeys close to the beach, never have seen them so
close!.
After 5 hours on the beach we went
back to pick up Lena she missed some busses but that was no problem because
that way we had more time on the beach, thanks Lena. It was great to see Lena
again, such a wonderful person. We bought ice cream, again because yeah, ice
cream is delischous. We walked back to the cabin, trying to talk but also
trying not to get run over by a car. We settled Lena in and cooked our dinner;
mac ‘n cheese. That’s always a really good part of going on holidays, getting
to cook yourself, getting to do everything yourself just the way we want in,
good thing we are all on the same line doing stuff. We stayed up very late,
talking and eating snacks again. I have never had such good conversations about
everything and nothing. These conversations are indescribable, so much idea’s
topics and meanings. At 4 we were long gone from ending our talks but Frida and
Lousia already fell asleep and we decided that it was best to go to sleep as
well because we would be fried fish the next day if we didn’t.
We got up a bit late; around 9 and
cooked breakfast. We made Gallo Pinto and a lot more stuff but that took more
time as we expected so around 2 we arrived at playa Tamarindo. Tamarindo is one
of the most touristic places in Costa Rica, but still it was not that full. We
lay on the beach again, it was a way bigger beach as Conchal but a bit uglier.
We walked a bit of the beach to a river splitting the beach in 2. It is cool
that the rivers in Costa Rica actually reach the beach, in the Netherlands all
the rivers are being used as harbors so you don’t have them on beach, and
rivers make beaches even cooler. I swam across this river and arrived at the
other side of the beach. This part was way more beautiful as the other part,
there were barely people because you have to swim or pay a boat to take you.
There were not shops behind the beach, just trees. I didn’t walk this beach as
well even though I wanted to but I didn’t feel like walking there alone, even
though I sometimes love walking the beach alone.
We met up with some friends of Frida
later at Tamarindo downtown, well downtown it is just the main street. Most
touristic beaches have 1 main street along the beach and that is it, the rest
are just houses or hotels. Because Tamarindo is so popular the tourist street
was pretty big and the souvenir shops actually sold different things; most of
the souvenirs shops in Costa Rica sell exactly the same useless stuff you want
but don’t need. We drank iced coffee at a smoothie store and it was damn good!
I love the fact that Costa Rica is just splendid with smoothies stores because
they are so good and not that expensive.
Valentina and I went for a sunset swim
and that felt so good, I love swimming in the sea even more when it is a bit
darker. It didn’t last that long since it got darker pretty quick and then it
gets dangerous. And as they always say: ‘watch out with this, don’t take
Columbian women to your cabin, and this is dangerous and you will die of you do
this and you should not do this’, yes a lot of things are dangerous in Costa
Rica, too bad. We took a bus back to the cabin but stopped at the supermarket
first, to buy ice cream, obviously. The next bus didn’t come but some Italian
traveler fixed a taxi we took us for free, that is just so nice, so Pura Vida;
so inspiring, I love the people here. We wanted to go out to dance but we
couldn’t, that is a bit of a problem in Costa Rica going out is pretty hard
since there is no transportation if you don’t have a car. But we enjoyed the
last night that Lena was here with more ice cream and more talks, stories and
jokes. During these talks we really got to know each other, we are such good
friends, best friends but before these days we didn’t REALLY knew each other I
knew this people from 1 week camp and some trips, sometimes I think I know
people but they turn out to be so different. Especially on my exchange,
everybody has their lives and it takes time to really get to know people.
On the 4th day we went to
Conchal in the morning to have a good time again, and we did. We met up with
some other friends of Frida. We were being crazy in the sea everybody
launching, ‘smashing’ from my shoulders doing summersaults in the air, cool
pictures, cool pictures. We ate a nacho lunch and then we walked back to bring
Lena to the bus stop. She missed her bus again, so we waited an hour at the bus
stop spending our time with making crazy pictures and hugging. I’ve become
pretty huggy hugs are just so good and important, a sign of love, knowing that
people care about you, as a greeting, as a goodbye or just random because it is
possible. Lena bus came and we had to say goodbye, for a longtime a very
longtime I wrote about goodbyes before and this was the hardest, it is weird
since it has never been really hard on me, at least a very good hug. All my
goodbyes here are in busses or bus stops, always that last image of a person
graved into your brain, hoping to never forget it.
We walked to Playa Flamingo and
luckily we got picked up by a bus on the way. We stopped at a café to drink
some coffee, we were pretty tired and I didn’t have coffee for days and got to
keep my addiction satisfied. We walked over playa potrero to playa flamingo, a
nice walk to a beautiful village. You kind of have to cross a mountain to go
the beach, this time it was a bit bigger hill filled with resorts and hotels.
The hill was beautiful paved with stones, it looked like Italy, all of
Guanacaste looks like Southern Europa by the way. Playa Flamingo was stunning,
again a main street, a palm tree strip and then the beach. It wasn’t as
beautiful as Conchal but it is a better beach to me. The waves are a bit bigger
and that makes the swimming more fun. The sunset was begun and playa Flamingo
is the best place to see the sunset in Costa Rica. We were swimming in the sea,
the sky and sea turned orange it all was so extremely perfect. Frida was
singing beautiful songs and Valentina and I mummed with her. The sun lowered
and it got better every second. Nothing could have been better and I felt so,
so warm inside it is indescribable, these moments are the best moments in my
life so far, and I will not ever forgot them. After enjoying these moments to
the max it got dark and it was time to go back.
At the cabin we made epic burritos,
and got our bellies well filled to get ready for the next activity, going out!
I got ready in 5 minutes and the girls took about an hour more to get ready, yeah.
We went with the friends we met on the beach earlier that day and we drove to a
beach club 15 minutes away. It was so so so so good to go out again after 5
months not going out. We had so much fun together and we met some people we met
earlier these days and we made new friends. The music was mostly just dance
music with sometimes reggae, I heard an Oppa Gangnam style remix, and I have
never heard one before, that made me realize that I have not been going out for
so long. There also was Salsa music, but I can’t dance salsa, yet. So I went
outside the grab some air with a new friend from the states to chill on the
beach. At 2 the party ended and we had to go, too bad because I was having so
much fun! I loved it, and we created good memories.
The next morning we were all very lazy
and tired but sweet little Valentina cooked us a delischous breakfast. We
cleaned up the house, packed our bags and went to Brasilito to buy our bus
tickets. We ate some lunch and drank smoothies at brasilito and went to playa
brasilito for the last time. I didn’t want to swim but I totally should have
gone swimming, the last swim is always important.
I lost all the stress I had in my life
except for the busses, I always stress about the busses, probably because of that
one time in Jaco. So we were at the bus stop pretty early and waited there. We
called with Lena and spent our last minutes together. The bus came, it always a
heartbeat more when the bus comes, you have to get ready and you have to say
goodbye, I gave Frida a big hug and got ready for the bus, my bus ticket flew
away so I had to get it, a good excuse to hug Frida again.
The bus ride was around 5 hours and I
slept most of the time, and talked a bit with Valentina about the days before.
I got out in Esparza, took a bus to Puntarenas and from Puntarenas to Orotina,
almost all the time sleeping.
I arrived back at my host family in
the evening, I love arriving back home. It feels so good, telling about the
trip and seeing them again. I was, even though I slept a lot in the bus still
tired so I went to sleep early.
These days were so special, so perfect
with so much happiness that I turned our happiness into memories forever. I now
am for sure that these people or my best friends, I can trust them with everything
and I love them. I barely say I love you, but to these people I love to say ‘I
love you’.
It all seems so short ago, all the
places where I have been, I remember them like they are just moments ago, and I
am afraid for the time when Costa Rica just seems moments ago
Pura Vida.
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