Cock-a-Doodle-Doo

Chickens are a seemingly common pet in this country. You can frequently see roosters strutting about on the sidewalk outside their owners' houses with a few hens clustered nearby looking anxiously around at the new world they've stumbled upon outside the gate.

You can also frequently hear the roosters crowing at 4:30 in the morning, whether you'd like to or not.

Yo Versus the Volcano

This weekend's excursion was a trip to Volcán Arenal. After an ungodly 6:00 am departure Saturday, we made a quick pit stop at the town of Zarcero to take pictures of the topiary garden there. We only stayed about 15 minutes, but here's some more info I found on it later: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=18602490.

Next we stopped at a waterfall near Arenal. A small stream blasts over the side of a cliff then falls at least 50 feet to a small pool below. We all stripped down to our bathing suits and jumped in the cold water: a welcome relief after a cramped four-hour bus ride (not to mention in-transit movies Tim Burton's "Charlie and the Chocolate Factory" and "All About Steve". Both just awful).

After that, we briefly stopped in the town of La Fortuna de San Carlos for lunch before driving to our hotel, excuse me, our resort near the base of the volcano. The resort offered (potentially natural) hot springs, pools with large water slides, a miniature zoo of sorts with butterflies and crocodiles, and a hiking trail. While most of the night was spent at the hot spring (did I mention its wet bar?), I opted to hike the trail the next morning.

Or I tried. The hike became a wild goose chase for an apparently inexistent observatory. Furthermore, though Arenal is one of the world's most active volcanoes, the Fates were not on our side this weekend; most of the time, the top was covered by clouds. We did not see any lava flow, but the volcano was still impressive without. This is the best picture I got of the cone.

Yet another fantastic trip. Back to the beach next weekend!

Pura vida,

Eric

Boyz N The Barrio

Today I had some free time and took a tour of my neighborhood with my camera. Montelimar is a middle- to upper middle-class neighborhood within walking distance of downtown San José. Here are some highlights:

Awesome house with downtown San José and the mountains in the background.

Montelimar is a barrio organizado, so we basically have neighborhood watch but with night guards. They hang out in these little structures that dot the sidewalks throughout the barrio. This one has campaign stickers for Laura Chinchilla, the woman who (hopefully) will be elected President in a couple weeks.

I'm really hoping we'll host "Jersey Shore II: Dumber and Italianer".

Palm-like trees. Enough said.

Conspiracy Theory

The following message appeared as I tried to watch last week's episode of '24' on Fox.com: THE VIDEO YOU ARE TRYING TO WATCH CANNOT BE VIEWED FROM YOUR CURRENT COUNTRY OR LOCATION. It's like someone's trying to cut me off from all access to American television. Really, mysterious conspirators? You just had to pick a foreign cultural immersion trip as the time to do this?

Babel

Every single conversation I have is a comedy of errors.

Something There Is That Doesn't Love a Wall

Each and every house in the city is hidden behind a massive gate, giving the appearance that all Josefinos are under siege by their neighbors. Robert Frost would hate it here.

http://writing.upenn.edu/~afilreis/88/frost-mending.html

The Horn on the Bus Goes Beep Beep Beep

Today I'm starting a series of observances of day-to-day life in San José. They will be limited to one or two sentences in length. I'll try to post daily during the week. Let it begin!

If you go driving and don't honk your horn at least once, you're wrong.