The Dirt Field

After a harrowing yet beautiful trek over every single back road in Costa Rica, I am now happily settled at my final destination, Playa Tamarindo. Within two hours of arriving, I was already in the water for my surf lesson, and I am now able to pop up and ride a wave like a pro...or maybe like a whale in the process of being beached, but whatever. I have a board for the next three blissful days, and I plan on hitting the waves both early in the morning and in the midafternoon to get plenty of practice. The byproduct of all of this activity is that I have the appetite of a buffalo, which resulted in my consumption of an entire large pizza for dinner tonight. I know the waiter wanted to make a comment, but was graceful enough to keep his mouth shut.I am going to go find ...continue reading.

It was another laidback afternoon in Santa Elena. I went to lunch and ate an enormous meal, which I followed with a trip to the supermercado to purchase cookies, ice cream, and beer. When I returned to the hotel at 2:15, I stationed myself in the lounge with my snacks, my forty of Imperial (Costa Rican beer), and a book. The book, however, became unnecessary, as I ended up spending over two hours chatting with a perfectly amusing Irish girl over beer, cookies, and cigarettes.When the beer was gone and my hunger started to get the better of me, I headed to the kitchen to make tortillas for dinner. They tasted decent but had the consistency of complete shit, so I took the suggestion of a few other guests and made a replica of our hotel out of the remaining dough. A particularly dry and sassy British guy was in ...continue reading.

The serpentarium, while interesting, was a fairly short trip. I was able to skip most of the non-venomous snakes, if only because I had already had then as pets back home or had seen enough of them in the past to not be enthralled. However, the venomous snakes were fascinating with their gorgeous colors and their triangular heads, and the workers didn't even mind when I slipped a hog-nosed viper into my backpack as a souvenir.I spent the rainy afternoon reading my book (Caitlin: I love Atlas Shrugged) and socializing in the lounge area of my hotel. Almost everybody staying here is in their twenties, and the hotel has a distinct hippy/Rastafarian feel, which makes hanging out with the other guests while downing beers a sublimely relaxing experience. At seven, my friends from the previous evening came by to meet me for dinner, and we headed to the "nice" restaurant ...continue reading.