Sunday, December 17, 2006

Between Visitors

I said goodbye to my visitors this week. They left on Saturday. We were in Manuel Antonio for most of the week. The pic of the week is of the monkeys that were in the trees of our hostel. The were fascinated by the little red autofocus light on my camera. These are squirrel monkeys.

Manuel Antonio
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I've lost track of the number of times that I've gone to Manuel Antonio at this stage. It's still relatively unspoilt, and you have the beach and national park side by side. We saw lots of monkeys this time. In the park itself we saw squirrel and white-faced capuchin monkeys in two groups right beside each other.

The weather was fairly good, but there was a torrential tropical storm on the Tuesday night.

Out on the Town
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On Friday night, we went to a few of the gay clubs around San José. We hit La Avispa, Club Oh! and Bochinche. Paul and Aidan had discovered that their flight was at 9am, not lunchtime as they'd thought. So they decided to stay up all night, rather than have to come home early. I hope it worked for them, but I was so wrecked after they left at 6.30am. I got up about 11, and then had to go back to bed for a couple of hours in the afternoon.

Festival of Light
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Vin wasn't going home until Sunday, but he'd decided to stay for his last weekend at a hotel in San José. He left his phone in the apartment and I said I'd drop it in on Saturday.

I knew that the Festival of Light was one, but I hadn't realised it was so big. It takes place each year the week before Christmas. There were a million people in the city for it. My bus was diverted and left me on the outskirts. It took about an hour to get through the crowd to go the relatively short distance to the hotel.

This coincided with the parade. It wasn't unlike the Paddy's Day parade at home, maybe not as lavish as the ones of recent years. But it's at night, it's lit, and it's in beautifully warm weather. I was really impressed.

The journey home was hilarious. It took me about an hour and a half to find my bus, and I eventually found it just before the start of the motorway outside the city. I asked the driver if he was going to Heredia. He said he was. When I got on, he then reversed the bus, and headed into the city. We went around and around various side streets, because so many roads were cordoned off. The most distinctive building in the city (Banco Nacional) was at various stages on the right, the left, in front of and behind the bus. Having driven right into the city, we took on just one passenger. And then headed back out. We passed the exact spot where I got on almost 45 minutes after I'd done so.

White Confetti
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One of the traditions around the Festival of Light is that all people walking on Avenida Central, the main shopping street, are showered with white confetti. It's like a snow scene. The confetti is everywhere. And it gets everywhere. Every shop, restaurant, hotel, even the night clubs.

When I got up yesterday I realised it was all over my apartment, and in my bed.
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Well, that's it for this week. I'm between visitors, my mother and brother Enda arrive on Saturday. So until next week,

Pura Vida,

Éamon

Today's Headline in La Nación: Nobody wins more than C100 million (€148,000) in the Christmas 'Fat' lottery draw

Sunday, December 10, 2006

School's Out for Summer (and Christmas)

This was the last week of the semester in school. We also had our party on Saturday night. Paul and Aidan have been joined by a third friend, Vin, and the four of us came down to Manuel Antonio, where we are now, on Sunday. The picture of the week shows myself, Susannah, Jackie Brown and Ron at the Christmas party.

Busy Week
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This week was very busy in school. We had to do progress reports for all the students. Because I didn't come back from Puerto Viejo until Monday I was on the back foot all week. I was so relieved when it got to Thursday and it was all over.

Pub Crawl
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The department decided they wanted a pub crawl to mark the end of the year. As they were full praise for the crawl I organised for Paddy's day I was coerced into organising this one too. We had a good night crawling the bars of Heredia. They have launched a new version of my favorite beer. It's called Pilsen 6.0. Unsurprisingly, it's called this because it's strength is 6.0. Because of this Friday was a total hangover day. I was supposed to go to the 30th birthday party of one of the teachers in the afternoon, and I never made it.

San Jose
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Paul and Aidan arrived back from Panama on Friday afternoon. We had arranged to go into San Jose that night, so off we went. The club we went to had an entrance fee of 4,000 colones (about Eur5.80). That's very expensive for here, but we realised when we were inside that there was a free bar until 1am. When you paid, you got a ticket. That got you your first drink. After that you just had to return your glass or bottle and you got another one. We'd arrived too late to really take advantage of it, but after 1am you could pay as normal and we stayed until after 4. When we got home we had 'one for the road' and didn't get to bed until after 7.

The extra visitor
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Aidan's friend Vin decided at the last minute to join Aidan and Paul for the last week of their holiday. He got a good fare and just hopped on a plane. He's the most casual visitor to Costa Rica ever. Aidan collected him at the airport on Saturday night, while I was off at the Christmas Party.

Christmas Party
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Our Christmas party this year was held up the mountains in a bar called La Puerta de Alcala. We had a lovely meal, but they were a bit stingy on the drinks this year. Last year we had a free bar, but this year we got four vouchers for free drink. However, it didn't stop us from enjoying ourselves. There was a latin band, and they played local songs and latino versions of international hits. It was a good laugh, and I danced nearly the entire night. Something I haven't done for years. After it was over, the bus dropped us back into town where we continued until about 4am.

Manuel Antonio
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The four of us took the bus down to Manuel Antonio on Sunday. We arrived Sunday evening, and spent yesterday on the beach. Their lack of luck with the weather continued. Although it didn't rain, it was overcast throughout the day. There was really torrential rain during the night, but it seems to have cleared up for today. They've headed off kayaking in the mangroves this morning, but I've decided to take it easy, catch up on email, and just laze on the beach. The weather is quite sunny today, but still with a little cloud.
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Well, that's it for this week. I'm going to head home on Thursday, for a quiet night before the lads are back on Friday. Aidan and Paul head home on Saturday, and Vin leaves Sunday. I'm hoping to go to Nicaragua on a visa run next week.

Until next week,

Pura Vida,

Éamon

Today's headline from La Nación: Deputies from PLN, PUSC and ML will vote for the TLC

Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Wet & Dry


My friends Aidan and Paul are here at the moment. They arrived last Sunday week. We were in Puerto Viejo for a wet and dry weekend. This is my last week in school for this semester, and my Christmas party is on Saturday.

Dry weekend
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The mayoral elections were held on Sunday. You may remember from the Presidential election that there is a dry law in Costa Rica, and it kicked into force this weekend. Terrible timing for my visitors. The sale of alcohol was banned from midnight on Friday until midnight on Monday.

Wet weekend
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We went to Puerto Viejo on the Caribbean for the weekend. The weather, particularly on Saturday, was amongst the wettest I've experienced since I got here. While the wet October last year was pretty bad, I wasn't on holidays and entertaining visitors, so this seemed a lot worse.

During the week Paul and Aidan went up to La Fortuna to visit the Arenal volcano, but despite staying for two nights, they didn't get to see any lava. It was cloudy and rainy and they saw nothing. However, they did go horse-riding and had a canopy zip-line tour. This is something I haven't had the courage to do yet, being afraid of heights. You clip yourself onto a pulley and shoot across the rain-forest hanging from a wire.

Puerto Viejo
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I was working until Thursday, so on Friday I met up with Paul and Aidan in San José, fresh from their Arenal trip, and we went down to Puerto Viejo. We had a nice night on Friday, before all the bars closed at midnight. In planning our weekend, we decided to buy spirits so we could just order coke, and top it up with rum or vodka. It's difficult to know how much you'll drink over a weekend though, and we vastly overestimated. I arrived home carrying 2 and a half bottles of spirits. Which they emptied out of my bag with much amusement at the police checkpoint on the way home.

Although weather-wise Saturday was a washout, Sunday was beautiful. We hired bikes and cycled 13km to the unspoilt beach in Manzanillo. It was beautiful, although we did get quite a bit of sun, and the back of my hands are burnt. I obviously didn't think to put suncream there, unaccustomed as I am to cycling here.

I came back yesterday morning, and the two have continued on to Bocas del Toro, some very picturesque islands in Panama.

End of semester
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This week is the last of this semester. It seems to have gone faster than most, but I'm looking forward to the time off. After Thursday I'm not back in work until January 18th. Our Christmas party is on Saturday.

Picture of the week
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I'm just testing this feature. This week's picture is Paul and Aidan on the sunny beach of Manzanillo on the Caribbean. I'm testing the picture feature (rather than adding another 1,000 words), and if it's successful I'll give people the option of getting it on the email or not.
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Well, that's it for this week. I'll probably join the lads on the Pacific coast on Sunday for a weeks holiday before they go home.

Until next week,

Pura Vida,

Éamon

Today's headline from La Nación: Falling unemployment and rising job numbers in Latin America