Last Day in Playa Carmen

Happy St. Patty´s Day!

So today is my last day in Costa Rica - and I´ve been just running around taking care of little errands. I need to pick up some Salsa Lizano (I learned on my last trip that you should pick this up BEFORE you get to the airport), some Guanabana beverage mix (Guanabana is this delicious fruit that to me tastes like what honeysuckle would taste like as a fruit) and some Flor de Caña Rum (a delicious Nicaraguan Rum), all of which I can get at the grocery store.

Also on the agenda for today is an afternoon surf, and then I need to sell my surfboard and take some books over to the book exchange. And then comes the question of how people in Costa Rica celebrate St. Patty´s day...

Just checking in

My friend Adam arrived in town on Wednesday from New York to hang out with me during my last week here. We have been checking out some of the restaurants that I haven´t gotten a chance to check out yet since I have been here. We just now walked down to Soda Piedra Mar (which I had posted pictures from back in January) in Malpais for dinner to find that it was closed on Sundays. So we hitchhiked back and we´re going to go grab some dinner at Las Piedras, an Argentinian grill here. I have been compiling a list and have been taking pictures of all the wonderful restaurants there are around Playa Carmen and Santa Teresa and will be posting that soon.

I can´t believe that I am down to my last three days in Costa Rica. It has been such an amazing trip and I am going to be sad to leave this amazing place and the wonderful people that I have met - but at the same time, I am excited about returning to New York and approaching things with a different perspective. More pictures soon!

Delicacies of Costa Rica

Here are a few delicious things that I have discovered since I have been here (these things aren´t necessarily native or unique to Costa Rica, I just had no idea they existed until I got here):

TRITS - are delicious Ice Cream Sandwiches that come in little plastic containers. A Trit is made up of chocolate laced vanilla ice cream sandwiched between two sugar cookies. I have heard that there is a Trit factory glitch that results in a Trit with two cookies on each side of the sandwich instead of just one... I have yet to experience this mystical Trit...

Trits also makes for a good birthday cake - here´s one we had for Matt´s birthday a few weeks ago:

GRANADILLA - According to Wikipedia, this is a type of passion fruit, known as a ¨Golden Passionfruit¨ Here is what Wikipedia has to say about Granadillas and about Passion Fruit in general. Before I got down here, I had only seen the purple wrinkly type. Here´s a picture of a Granadilla that I had and the fruit truck from whence it came:

COSTA RICAN COFFEE - made using a Costa Rican coffee maker which consists of a coffee ¨sock¨and a stand to suspend the sock.
Instructions: Put ground coffee in sock. Place cup under sock. Pour boiling water into sock.

Videos!

Here are a few videos that I have taken lately...

Here is a fire performer that came by D&N during a recent Reggae Night (sorry it´s sideways):

Here is a video from the beach where the surf competition is being held:

Here are pictures from the first day of the surf competition yesterday - didn´t get any good pictures of the surfers unfortunately:

Will try again in a bit! Heading back out to the beach now to try to catch some of today´s events!

Update! Part III

So, over the weekend of the 21st, some of my roommates and I moved to some new cabinas. We had decided to look around to see what other lodging options there were in Playa Carmen and absolutely fell in love with Tierra del Sol.

The property is about a 7 or 8 minute walk down the road from our old cabinas and up a hill. This is a view of the property at Tierra del Sol.

The owner lives in the one on the far left, and mine is the one on the far right. My old neighbors from the other cabinas - Marcus and Martina - moved into the one in the middle along with another friend of theirs, Gina. There is another cabina on the property (behind the middle and right cabinas) and a house available for rent. Here is my cabina:

Here´s a picture of the interior:

And a better view of the kitchen:

I have my own private open-air bathroom now! Below is a partial view of the shower.

Here is my patio:

And the view from my patio:

To get to the cabinas, you have to walk up a hill (the last segment is the steepest):

Here what it´s like walking down the hill:

The following Tuesday, the 24th, Marcus, Tine (short for Martina), Matt and I checked out the Rodeo in Cobano, a nearby city. Unfortunately, most of the bull events had concluded the weekend before, but the Rodeo food and Carnival were still there. (Which were my real motivations for going to the Rodeo anyway...)

We checked out the food court:

I tried this beef dish that was served with Fried Yucca and topped with this delicious, vinegary salsa:

For dessert, churros filled with Dulce de Leche:

We also took a spin on the Tagada... The Tagada is not for the fainthearted... Not only does it spin and tilt, but it jolts and tosses people around like sacks of potatoes... Like 30 seconds into the ride, I was already wanting off the ride. ¨¡No más, porfa!¨

Here´s a picture of us before we realized what we had gotten ourselves into:

There were of course other carnival festivities. The vendors, the games...

Things were pretty low key following the rodeo - Marcus and Tine were leaving for Colombia to continue on their travels on March 4, so we all just hung out and chilled before they left. Playing cards, cooking, surfing, going to D&N - you know, no big whoop... It was really sad to see them leave - I´d only known them for a short time, but it was such a pleasure to be neighbors and friends with them. Now I have people I can visit in Germany (where they´re from) and hopefully their travels will bring them to New York sometime.

Here are some pictures from Tine and Marcus´s going away party:

And that pretty much brings us up to date. There is a Surf Competition outside of D&N this weekend that I am looking forward to watching. Happy Friday!

Pictures!

Ok, I gotta run to work in a few minutes but I wanted to post some pictures really quickly.

Here are (finally!) some pictures of Jack:

Jack got dinged up a little while back so I had to have some repairs done...

All is well now, though...

I've also got a pic of howler monkeys! (They are a little hard to see, but they're in there!)

More soon!

Update! Part II

OK, continuing from the last post following the Full Moon Party... Not too much happened in the days after the party since we all stayed at the party until 6 a.m., and it took me two days to recover from the lack of sleep.

After that - things basically returned to normal: work at the restaurant, study/practice Spanish, spend time in my hammock, go to the beach, hang out with roommates, check out the weekly Organic Market, go to D&N...

D&N is short for Day and Night Beach Club, a nearby bar/club right on the beach that hosts Electronica Night on Saturdays and Reggae Night on Mondays with live DJs. It is a good time on both days - the whole town seems to come out so there are always lots of familiar faces. Marcus (aka DJ Marcolino) dj-ed Electronica Night at D&N on Saturday the 14th. Sadly, I did not take pictures of the party, but it was a great time and the dance floor was still packed when Marcus stopped spinning at 4 a.m.

Here are some more pics that I have taken of the beach (during low tide):

Here´s a picture of the Organic Market at Sunset:

Here is a picture of D&N at sunset from the water:

The following week, the owners of the restaurant at which I am apprenticing went to Nicaragua for a few days, so they asked me to fill in for some of the sous-chef duties while they were gone. It was so much fun to work on the line! As much as I love prepping calimari and sweet potato chips, it was a total blast to also manage the cooking and plating of the orders. :) One of the highlights for me was having to prepare the staff meal at the end of the evening some nights during this period - normally, one of the owners or YoYo, the normal sous-chef, does this, so having responsibility for feeding the team was such an honor and such a surreal experience for me. The owners are back now and I am back to prepping things and being the recipient of the staff meal (yummy), but I am now able to step in and help on the line if needed.

I know I keep talking about ¨the restaurant¨ - it actually has a name, Camaleon, and the owners are Joann and Kevin. Here is a picture of Camaleon:

More on Camaleon in a future posting...

OK, this update brings us up to date through the end of last week... More soon...