I said a bocas, a bocas del what? del TORO. wow, i'm deliriously tired

So in order to update things I have failed to put here, I am going to attach part of the e-mail I sent to my beloved professor, RR, detailing some aspects of my experience.

My favorite class is called Science, Humanism, and the Sustainability of Life, and it's great. Our readings are all about industrialization and development and environmental philosophy and connecting those things to the crisis we're facing today. We also do volunteer work with the class, and I was amazed by my experience with that class going into San Jose's very poor district and feeding and vaccinating dogs and bringing food to homeless people. What struck me most profoundly was how well organized the group was (that's often one of my frustrations with community service, that it’s badly organized) and how passionate they truly were about their work. We went to areas where people were living on top of piles of garbage in dirty, broken down houses surrounded by beer cans or in houses made out of garbage bags, and the people leading the volunteer experience talked to the residents there as complete equals, related to them, unabashedly immersed themselves in their surroundings, petted and crooned to their animals, and did not criticize their lifestyles. It was amazing. Also, the nurse doing the vaccinations was beautifully put together, not wearing gloves, and was not afraid to climb on top of aggressive dogs, soothe them and hold them down at the same time while being sure to give them the shots. She was such a kick-ass, inspiring woman.

Being in Costa Rica has made me realize several things. Before I came, I idealized it, thinking it was the most wonderful country on the planet judging from its eco tourism industry and its abolishment of its army. However, clearly no place is ever perfect. I feel that the eco tourism industry has led to a greater extent of Americanization here than in many developing countries, especially with, sadly, the fast food industry and the fact that Walmart has bought out their major supermarket chain. I also feel that in many areas there is a loss of culture. The traditional values of family, community, and relaxation are still intact, but television plays an abnormally large role, even larger than in many American families, and people are obsessed with American clothing and spending time at the mall. Many Costa Ricans don't travel much throughout their own beautiful country. Also, the education system is great in terms of it being so accessible to almost anyone, with it being almost free to everyone and actually free to a large number of students with scholarships. The issue is that, due to the lower opportunity cost of education, there is less of a motivation for many students to put in a lot of effort, and there is a great lack of organization within the university's infrastructure. I feel that school in the states is much, much more intellectually challenging. Additionally, there is a great lack of independence within many young people, since everyone lives at home until they are married. They depend on their parents, and almost everyone consistently has a significant other, regardless of whether or not they are truly compatible, often to maintain a source of comfort. Also, the great majority of people here are extremely religious Catholics, and in some cases it offers a sense of comfort, of understanding, and of community. However, in terms of politics, it poses a big challenge. The current president is against changing the constitution to allow for a separation of church and state, she is against gay marriage, and refuses considering legalizing the morning after pill. There is a large teen/unmarried pregnancy rate, and often this leads to lack of education and family tensions.

I also miss many cultural activities. I feel that the bigger cities are lacking in a music scene, and there are not many things to do at night as young people other than drink, but I guess that’s a problem in most places. It’s so sad how so many places enveloped in such natural beauty (here and many islands and other parts of South and Central America) and historical richness (much of Europe) seem to always come with such an intense drinking culture.

Anyway, enough of Ms. Negative Nancy who always finds the negative parts of everything when her life is actually pretty damn good. This weekend we had a long weekend because it was Costa Rican independence day on Thursday, and I never have classes on Fridays. So seven of us skipped our Wednesday classes if we had any, left Heredia at just after five in the morning, and headed off to Panama. We had to take a bus to San Jose which actually proved a problem because Molly didn’t make it in time to catch our other bus and Mariel’s card got eaten by the ATM. Hence, they had to take a bus about four hours later while we caught the 6 am bus to Sixaola, which is a pretty run down boarder town, then walk over this rickety bridge with boards missing to get into Panama. At migration we were told we were not allowed into the country without proof that we were leaving, even though we were all planning on walking back over the bridge and taking the same two buses home at the end of the weekend. Therefore, they made us buy bus tickets from this ticket booth that charged $4 more (which is significant when your ticket is usually $10) to take a bus from Panama to San Jose. It was a pretty sketchy situation since they wouldn’t let you buy one from Sixaoala in Costa Rica, and the bus only left at 10 am every day and you didn’t buy your ticket for any particular day…hence, it was most likely a deal worked out between migration and the bus company. Once we got through that, I ran into a man leaving Bocas and looking to exchange dollars (used in Panama) for colones (used in Costa Rica). I offered to give him 10,000 colones for $20, which is a great exchange. He did not believe me. He examined my money in the light, started doing his own calculations, asked several people if I was making things up, and overall made me, a sweat-covered, t-shirt wearing, 5 foot 2, American college student, feel like I was a professional counterfeiter who looked for unsuspecting tourists to trade my counterfeit bills with. Eventually he did make the trade, and kept glancing back at me, waiting for me to burst into laughter at how easily he had been cheated. Of course the reality was nothing of the sort. Then, we were told by a tour bus driver that the only way to get to Bocas del Toro (the cluster of Carribean islands we were headed to) was to take his bus, which cost $10 for an hour and a half ride. I basically screamed at the man, since we had just taken a 5.5 hour, more comfortable bus for that price. But he insisted that that was the only way unless I wanted to take three public buses and spend the whole day getting there. Of course once we gave in, went with him, and got to Bocas, we had to pay $5 for a water taxi to the main island.

Our hostel on the main island of Bocas was called Mondu Taitu and was the funkiest little place. It looked like a bright yellow, slightly run down old house from the outside, and on the inside it was filled with the laid back hostel vibe, drawings, and quotes scrawled by guests over the years. We befriended two of the owners, both young American men, one a graduate of Princeton, the other Cornell. And not intimidating in the least. The hostel was $10 a night, and included a non air conditioned bunk and make-your-own pancakes in the morning. They also had a spigot of filtered rain water to drink and full use of their kitchen. We then took a $1 water taxi to another, very small island to look for a beach. After a walk through a dilapidated neighborhood of very poor houses, we discovered there really wasn’t much of a beach. It reminded me of how much, with our mentalities today, we consider vacations and tropical places natural filled with, made out of, resorts and affluence, when, more often than not, these places are often filled with poverty, alcoholism, and bitterness towards tourists. However, on that same island there was a bar/hostel with a trampoline to jump into the water from, swings and balconies for doing the same, and giant circles cut into the deck to form private swimming holes. As you can imagine, I tore that place up, flipping my heart out and taking a million pictures. That night we went out to a quick dinner and headed back to the hostel to hang out for a bit before sleeping. The hostel had a bar, and to give you an idea of how funky it was and how dumb college students are, it had a free shot that consisted of snorting a line of salt, taking a shot of the worst tequila in the world, then letting the bartender squeeze lime into your eye. One of my especially well chest hair endowed friends offered to let me wax his chest if I did it, but I had no desire to. So then he and my other guy friend did it. They were crying, sneezing, and coughing for the next half an hour. And then insisted it had been awesome. We went to bed relatively early and then slept about ten hours. The next morning I made myself a banana with peanut butter and then proceeded to help Maria and her new Israeli friend cook pancakes. Then the Israeli man, who’s English was not exactly fluent, took out a “banana” that he was planning on putting on top. It happened to be a green plantain, which, let me tell you, if eaten raw, will taste bad AND dry out your entire mouth. So I took it from him and made patacones for him. In the meantime we talked about being Jewish and discussed me going on birthright to Israel and us getting married and my mother being happy about that. He then made me take a picture wearing the Jewish star his grandfather had bought for him right before going into the army… needless to say, I was sure not to bring up my on-the-fence political views…

We then left that hostel and headed to Red Frog Island to our next hostel, Bocas Bound. This hostel happened to be spotless, air conditioned, with our own set of bathrooms and breakfast included, for $8 a night. We also had full use of their kitchen, refrigerator, and board games. Anyway, on the way there Maria realized that she had no idea where her camera was (and she has one of those fancy ones) so she and I decided to head back to the first island after dropping our stuff off to look for her camera and buy stuff to cook dinner with. The camera ended up being in an unlocked box in the hostel in a room filled with other people and no one had touched it! Gives me a little more faith in humanity. Then we had a lot of fun scouring the island for veggies and plantains and rice and beans and talking it up with our new friend Ariel who was 24 with two kids, such a flirt, and had given us a good deal for snorkeling the next day. Once we got back to the island and the hostel we headed to the beautiful, virtually deserted beach for a run. When we got back we did some conditioning and had a hilarious experience all trying to do yoga headstands. Then we cooked dinner with this awesome trilingual Italian man who had spent the last year and a half traveling the world. He shared his homemade Indian bread and this awesome spread he made from guava, bananas, and sugar. We cooked patacones with refried beans, salad, stir fried vegetables, rice (which was interesting since we didn’t have any sort of measuring utensils and Chris overcooked it to the point of mush…) and cut up some of the sweetest pineapple ever. We then just sat around talking and Maria and I made peanut butter and banana sandwiches for everyone to bring on the snorkeling trip the next morning. We paid 15 bucks a person to go out snorkeling (we saw some of the sweetest coral and fish ever), to go dolphin watching, and to get taken to the beach. We then showered and headed out to grab dinner on Bocas at a traditional Panamanian place which, for me as a vegetarian, cost under $2. Then we decided to go out and went first to the first hostel we had stayed in and at the bar befriended some Canadians, one of whom took a liking to me and we decided to tell everyone we were long lost track friends from high school. He asked me when we should say we graduated, I asked him when he graduated, apparently 2001…Then we went over to another place where we just broke it down. I danced so unbelievably much and was literally dripping with sweat. I ran into my Israeli friend who this time told me he loved me so much he could eat me,,,which, apparently in Hebrew means he really liked me…well then…We ended up at a different place with more music and swimming and I realized that I could barely will my legs to dance anymore and that’s when we decided to call it a night and take a boat back…we got back at about five am. The highlights of the rest of the trip:

1. while dancing my pants off I happened to lose the key to our safe box, and we had to have maintenance cut it off for us
2. We didn’t wake up until 12 the next day, and checkout was at 11…
3. Two people who shall not be named were woken up in the lobby of the hostel by a woman who apparently was trying to eat breakfast…these same two had no recollection of how they had gotten there or as to why an article of one of their undergarments was sitting on the table in front of where they had been sleeping
4. There was a torrential downpour during which the restaurant we were sitting in flooded, and Chris’s flip flop was floating around the tables. Stepping into the streets involved stepping into a foot and a half of water.
5. I met a super cool British man who was doing volunteer work in Costa Rica
6. the best and worst part of the trip were the water taxis-sitting in them riding through the majestic ocean was the coolest feeling in the world, but we spent between 5 and ten dollars each way for most of them
7. the last hostel we stayed in was super weird. It looked so laid back and cool at first and clean, but Maria found a tampon in her shower, they shut off all of the lights and locked every outside door at 10:30 so that some of our friends had to scale the fence to get back in late at night. This also caused issues when we tried to wake up early, get our deposits back, and leave in the morning. No one was at the desk; when we had the security guard get someone he was a very angry young man. We tried for an hour and a half, got three deposits back, and then the rest of the people just took their locks as compensation for not getting the deposits back…
8. The sketchy bus we had bought the tickets for before allowed for standing room. And the bus ride was around 5 hours. Those poor people who didn’t get up as early as us…although I did stand for a few hours so this one lovely girl had a chance to sit.
9. We left at 7:30 am and didn’t get back until 5 pm and it’s only about 4 hours away without traffic.
10. I’m really tired so this entry really might not make sense at all
11. We met a TON of Israelis. Apparently it’s because, after high school they serve in the army, then after their service they traditionally take a chunk of time to travel before going to university.
12. We also met Australians, a Kiwi, people from throughout the US, a bunch of German people, some Costa Ricans, some Panamanians, a French couple, and probably more.
13. A GIANT grasshopper was perched on Maria’s butt and I have never seen someone that hilarious in my life as Maria was during that experience
14. We played the funny faces game (as you can see by those fb pics) and had some great heart to hearts
15. I’m really starting to get over caring too much about being dirty/a little aeromatic and about constantly paying a lot of attention to what I’m wearing
16. I definitely feel like I’m missing a bunch but I’m WAY tired. Maybe later.