Jaco Taco Paco Saco

So I write this to you hungry. It’s been a while since I’ve even been able to say that here haha. Anyway, I just got back a few hours ago from a weekend in Jaco, the closest beach to Heredia. A bunch of us from the program took a bus there on Saturday in a few shifts, some came back yesterday, and the rest came back today. I went late on Saturday because I played my first game of paintball ever with my host brother, his cousins, and his cousin’s friends in the morning to celebrate his cousin’s birthday. Man was I confused. They explained the rules in extremely rapid Spanish, and everyone playing knew each other and joked around speaking fast Spanish the whole time. But they were all really nice, and I had a lot of fun! However, my head and hands and throat seemed to be excellent (and very painful) targets for paintballs.

      In Jaco we stayed at a hostel a five minute walk from the beach. The hostel had a rainbow gate, a tie-dye van parked out front, and cost $11 per night in non air conditioned room and $13 a night in an air conditioned room. The owner is a large perpetually shirtless quite tan Hungarian man with shaggy blonde hair named “Chubs” even though he isn’t fat. Turns out that’s actually just his real name. We almost bonded over both of us being Hungarian except for the issue that he actually was from there and I’m ¼ Hungarian and kept naming German foods in a failed attempt to recall my Hungarian roots. Jaco is an interesting place. This hostel in particular had peace signs painted on the walls, a bathroom that clearly wasn’t cleaned very often, a beautiful little pool, bunk beds, and some eclectic inhabitants. There was a 36 year old glass blower covered in tattoos from the Midwest, Mike from Jersey, Trace from Jamaica but actually Arizona, among several others. The atmosphere is extremely laid back with pretty much no rules. Jaco itself is a little bit of a tourist trap with more bars and restaurants and shops than well preserved natural beauty. The beach is hazy and hot with some murky warm water, good surfing, and an apparently dangerous undertow. Most of us didn’t shower for the 2 days we were there because it seemed like it might only make us dirtier, and we had the pool right there. We had a bonfire on the beach, bought stuff to cook our own dinner both nights (salad, pasta, and fruit salad the first night and stir fry, guacamole, and platanos maduros with maple syrup and vanilla the second night). We ran on the beach, did beach yoga and abs, hung out by the pool, listened to Trace freestyle rap to a random song for ten minutes straight, explored our different musical tastes, played chess, and sweated a lot. We ate brunch both days for $4 a person at this amazing place with large portions of delicious food. We never had the energy to really get dressed in anything other than cookie monster t shirts, bathing suits, sports bras, and running shorts and never actually got around to checking out the dancing scene like we had planned. It was a pretty great weekend in a pretty sweet place-what I’ve always dreamed a hippie hostel would be like. Except not truly hippie because our Hungarian host believed in eating a lot of meat and that the planet will correct itself no matter how many horrible things we do to it. He thrived off of all of the cool stuff people had left there over the years-a guitar, a Cracker Barrel game, towels, food, etc. The bus ride back was pretty sweaty and cramped because for some reason they sold tickets to people without seats unlike on the way there. There were people standing for almost two hours, apparently little girls throwing up from motion sickness, and way too much body heat, but I missed a lot of it because I slept almost the whole way. Oh how great a shower felt when I got back. I think I’ll like some other beaches better-ones that are significantly further away but that are cleaner and with better preserved natural beauty, but I’m definitely glad I went there. I start classes tomorrow! Although on Tuesdays I only have the mandatory Spanish class with other students from my program. I’m also taking Intro to Sculpture, General Ecology, Costa Rican Dance, and Geosciences. Probably an easy semester? But it’ll all be in Spanish so maybe not…