Cena de Despedida

We celebrated our cena de despedida or farewell dinner tonight among the students in my study abroad program. We took a private bus to the trendy suburb of Escazú and to a mountainside restaurant there overlooking the city. The restaurant served fantastic typical Costa Rican food, provided some traditional dance performances as entertainment, and offered a fantastic night view of the city.




I taped a few videos of the dances, but unfortunately they refused to upload themselves to this blog. I'm assuming the dances were authentic and traditional; at the same time they were performed at a touristy restaurant, so who knows? This picture is of a Spanish-heritage group dance with the city lights in the background.




We also saw a dance from the Caribbean province of Limón. The style was heavily influenced by the Afro-Antillean immigrants to Costa Rica; more "reggae" maybe than "flamenco". The song was partly in English Patois (similar to the English spoken in Jamaica) and partly in Spanish, a linguistic mixture typical of the people of the province. Ask me to show you the video when I'm stateside!

Home in about 40 hours!



Pura vida,

Eric