The ride there was extremely long--we left San Jose at 1:30 and arrived at about 7. It's quite a ways to go anyway, but we also had an almost hour-long hold up at a bridge construction site (very scary! A bridge with holes in it, without sides, with workers walking all over the place and people honking. And we were riding in a huge 50 person motorcoach). San Jose is about in the middle of Costa Rica and Tamarindo is in the northwest corner. Here's a map I found to show the relationship between the two. (I'm also planning on visiting Tortugero, Arenal/Monteverde, and Puerto Limon eventually, and whatever else might come my way.)
Luckily, even though our hotel was a tiny bit ghetto they still had air conditioning in each of the rooms. Thank goodness for that. But unfortunately our toilet didn't work very well and would run for hours without filling up. My roommate invariably had to take a crap at six in the morning, waking me up with the sound and smell, and then the water would continue to run and run and run. This morning I had to use the lobby bathroom because she had used the toilet and couldn't flush a second time. Ugh!
Friday we arrived late enough that there wasn't really anything to do. I went out with some people to Subway but I wasn't hungry. On Saturday, I, my roommate and two other friends woke up fairly early and were at the beach by 9 am. A surfing competition was already in full swing. (Tamarindo is an international surfing hot spot.) Me and Liz, one of the other girls, rented a surf board for a few hours. Sheesh! Surfing is soooooo hard! Also I learned why a lot of surfers prefer wetsuits. The waves can't really pull a wet suit off your body, but if they're strong they can almost rip off your swim suit. I had a few close calls. The water was super salty, enough that when I got it in my mouth I immediately spat it out and felt that gross overly-salty taste in my mouth.
And even though I reapplied sunscreen at least twice, and even though we left at about 11:30, I still got a pretty bad sunburn. At first I thought I had escaped the wrath of the sun because all I could see was a bunch of new freckles. But later on in the afternoon, I saw my reflection and realized that under my new freckles was a lovely shade of lobster red. Luckily my face didn't get burnt at all, but my collarbone area, upper back, and legs are pretty red right about now. I was wearing my bathing suit without shorts and the skin of my upper legs basically never sees sun... that was a recipe for disaster. I think I need to make a trip to the store to buy some more lotion. I hope I can find something meant for sunburns specifically. I almost bought a set from Clinique (lotion and post-sun help) before I left but it's pretty pricey so I figured $9 Neutrogena sublock would be okay.
After the beach, but before I realized how sunburned I was, the four of us walked around and visited some of the shops. I bought a few souvenirs but wanted to go back to my room that had lotion and air conditioning as soon as I realized my burn level. I slathered my skin with lotion, took an aspirin, and took a nap. The other three went back out and did stuff. I was kind of grumpy so it was better that I was by myself. I joined them back at the beach as the sun was setting and got some cool pictures. The good ones are in the pictures slideshow but I'll post a couple of my favorites on this page for easy viewing.
Saturday night three of us went out to one of the local discotheques. There were more Americans there than locals and I think a lot of them were students on the same trip as me. In total, I think 4 50-ish person motorcoaches went to Tamarindo, although the people in the other 3 were with ISA and stayed in a different, more expensive hotel. Some of the locals tried to dance with us, but even beyond cultural differences, they were a teeny bit creepy. Latin Americans, in general, have a much smaller personal bubble that people in the United States. But these guys worked in teams and egged each other on and watched each other as one of them danced with someone and that was something I did not want to be part of. Besides I already have an awesome boyfriend so I'm not interested in dance-floor pseudo-sex. Needless to say, we told them "no gracias".
Today, Sunday, I slept in. I packed my stuff and walked around town a little more with my roommate. Then we loaded on the bus at 1 and I was back at 7:30. Overall it was pretty fun but I do regret getting so sunburned. On me, sunburns can take weeks to go away. I also have a bunch of new bug bites that are driving me crazy. Another reason I want to go to the store is to buy wart medicine. It's my secret weapon against itchy bug bites. You're really only supposed to use it on warts, but on regular skin the formula is strong enough to eat away the upper layer of skin that itches. It doesn't really hurt and it doesn't leave scars, unlike untreated bug bites that itch for weeks and develop scabs that turn into scars. Usually one tiny coat is all that's needed to stop a bug bite from itching. Then the skin can start to heal.
Here are my favorite photos from this weekend:
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