Costa Rica Part II (The Actual Class Trip)

Day 5 (Continued)
We shed some tears as we turned in our Rav 4. We met up with the group and loaded up all of our bags and our Apache stone faced driver, Lito drove us to Hacienda Pinilla, our pad for the week. HP is located on 4500 acres in the Guanacaste region of Costa Rica about 12 km outside of Tamarindo. On site is Hotel la Posada, where we ate most of our meals, residential lots for sale (starting around $400,000/acre), and some really nice Villas (starting at $800,000). HP recently sold some land to Marriott and they are currently finishing construction on a 5 star resort along the beach. Here is our pad for the week, Casa Matapalo:

and here is the view from the back of our house:

Yeah, I think we're going to like housesitting. Matapalo was a rustic, open air 4 bedroom 4 bathroom house situated a grueling 20 meters from the beach. We unloaded our stuff and picked our rooms and beds. I was in a room with 5 other guys. I picked a bed right under the east facing window, figuring I would get a nice cool breeze at night. I was worried that I would not be able to sleep to well, but a couple of cervezas helped facilitate that process.

Day 6 (March 17th)5:30 am - I wake up sweating profusely as the sun is beating down on me through the window and struggle to fall back asleep because the howler monkeys won't shut the f' up. We got moving and headed to Hotel la Posada for a quick breakfast before we headed out. Now, many of the guides and hotel employees we have met have referred to what is known as "tico time", and it wasn't until this breakfast that we really understood exactly what they meant. At the hacienda no one is in a rush and people slowly go about their days. We had quite a relaxing 2 hr breakfast and were finally headed out around 9:30 to start our morning. We started off by visiting the clinic located on the HP property. It is staffed by 2 physicians, 2 nurses, and 1 receptionist. Dr. Hernandez told us a little bit about the clinic and I couldn't get past the fact that she looked like she was all of 18 years old. Turns out she is 33. Anywho, the clinic was set up to serve the healthcare needs of the 600+ employees of Hacienda Pinilla, most of which are construction workers. They typically see 500-700 patients a month, but in emergency situations the patients are taken to Nicoya which is roughly 50 mins away. As she was telling us about the needs of the clinic a truck pulled up outside with a construction worker with what appeared to be a pretty nasty gash on his leg. That was our cue to leave, though that would not be the end of our visits to the clinic. Lito and Yanith, the director of Fundacion Progreso Guanacaste, took us to visit one of the local schools in a town called Pinilla. So far the Fundacion Progreso Guanacaste (the foundation we were doing work with while in Costa Rica), has adopted 40 elementary schools, and based on needs, has built new classrooms, functioning bathrooms, or cafeterias. Yanith works very closely with Mr. Patillo, the benefactor of the foundation in making the decisions on how to allocate the budget. Several rotary clubs throughout Atlanta have partnered with the foundation to build playgrounds and donate other supplies. Another great thing the foundation is doing is giving 10 scholarships a year to high school seniors to attend 4 yrs of college in the U.S. After we left Pinilla, we went to meet some of the kids who had just recently taken the TOEFFL and were prepping for the ACT.

Here we are with the students and their teacher, Josh, on the far right. He graduated last year from Valdosta State and postponed joining the Peace Corps to take this teaching position with the foundation. His main focus is helping these kids improve their English so they can pass TOEFFL and the ACT. He had some interesting teaching methods, including playing a Jimi Hendrix song and having the students try and attempt what the meaning. That seems like a tall task, trying to interpret what someone was trying to convey in another language when they were this high.
The kids were extremely excited about the opportunity to come to the U.S and were asking us all sorts of questions about our experiences in college. It was probably my favorite part of the trip, though I was getting a little distracted when I thought I heard something moving on the whiteboard behind me.
At first I was relieved because it appeared to be a dead scorpion they had taped the the board. Upon further review it was clear that the little guy was still moving around. The fact that his tail was taped down pretty tightly to the board was not assuring enough to me our most of the others. The students laughed and told us that they found the scorpion while cleaning up and decided to tape him up on the board to teach a lesson to all of the other scorpions. I am not sure if that was effective or not, but I will tell you that it scared several gringos shitless. We visited a few more schools after another lengthy lunch at the hotel. Another thing to note about all of the towns in CR - there are 4 things you are guaranteed to find: 1) a church 2) a school 3) a bar and 4) a soccer field. In addition to school supplies, Jay brought over 30 soccer balls, some cleats, and jerseys that his soccer team had given to him in McDonnough. After a long day, we were all starving so we had dinner in Tamarindo. Tamarindo is well known throughout the world as one of the best surfing destinations. As we walked around it was clear that there were several gringos around, as well as a lot of drug pushers and prostitutes. We got propositioned for just about everything under the sun in the 5 minute walk to our restaurant. We got home to Casa Matapalo and Jay decided to wage war on the monkeys - BAD IDEA! These guys don't screw around. He thought that tossing a coconut into the trees might keep them from waking us up at the crack the following morning. Instead we got pissed on and just as we ran back inside they flung some poop onto the table we were sitting at. Monkeys 1 - Gringos 0.

Day 7 (March 18th) In the pic below, Marco shows that he means business when it comes to computer netowrking
Today the hotel set up a buffet for breakfast which was much more efficient and allowed me to eat as much bacon as humanly possible. Today we went to a school and helped set up a computer lab that I believe the Dunwoody Rotary Club donated most of the equipment for. This was very generous of them, however, the few rotarians that were on hand to "help" were about as knowledgeable about the internet as Ted Stevens:

As Dayne put it, "it was like being in an organizational behavior microcosm" when we were trying to set up the computer lab. There were way too many chiefs, too many cooks in the kitchen, however you want to put it. To add to this, there was no circulation of air in the room and the sweltering heat was starting to take its toll on our decision making. One of the older rotarians was trying to get involved in some of the technical stuff, clearly not realizing that half of our group had either an engineering background or worked in IT. The older guy, let's call him "Pins" for all of the Rotary related flare he was wearing, was really thrown off when he saw Alex, one of the guys in our group taking out the window to get some air circulating. He never directly addressed Alex about it, but would just make comments in his general direction - "I don't know why he is doing that" or "I wish he wouldn't do that!". It did feel nice when the window was out to have some air circulating, but it was time to step outside and play some hoops with the rotarians' sons/grandsons. Me and another kid, ironically named Will, played against Yoshi and some tubby kid with a shirt that said "The Future of Rotary" on it. Future is not looking so bright. I don't gotta wear shades. The game was fun and a nice break from being in the computer lab with the old coot. We were starting to get tired and Yoshi (our Japanese friend) was getting tired of Will, the little kid, calling him Yao Ming. In other news, Hinman apparently had some bed bugs get after him the night before and whatever the hell was on his arms looked like it was spreading so we dropped him back at the Hacienda clinic where Dr. Hernandez applied some creams and gave him a shot in the ass. That about covers the highlights of the day - setting up a computer lab with a guy who probably doesn't use email and Hinman getting a shot in the ass.

Day 8 (March 19th)

Because it was Semana Santa (Holy week) we really didn't have much else planned for the trip. So we met with Mauricio Estrada, the GM of Hacienda Pinilla. He explained to us how he worked in mergers & acquisitions in his former career and quickly burned out on the hours and wanted a switch. He is originally from San Jose and hopes that some of the development in the Guanacaste region will provide jobs for the local residents and highlight the importance of receiving an education. He talked a little bit about the Hacienda's commitment to the environment and how they have planted over 500,000 trees. After visiting with him for a bit, we headed back to the clinic to have Dr. Hernandez check on Hinman and Pasha wanted to go in and get some cough drops for his sore throat. Guess what he came out with? You guessed it.....a shot in the ass. Apparently that is the cure all in Costa Rica. We had a free afternoon so we took a tour of the property and went inside one of the villas they are selling. The place was pretty decked out and the A/C felt really good. That afternoon we went horseback riding around the property. My horse, Ranchero, was not the most energetic horse. I guess I would rather have a slow horse than one that bucked me off or ran into the ocean. We stopped halfway to take a break, drink some water, and enjoy the view from one of the highest points on the property.

Pictured Above from left to right(Elke, Josh-the english teacher, Mark-our professor, Yoshi aka Yao Ming, Herb-nice hat!, Hinman, Jay, and me)

As we took this picture I kept looking over at my horse and he was just peering over the edge of the cliff like he wanted to end it right there. Thankfully, we made it back to the stables and my streak of no broken bones remains intact. Later that night I was introduced to French Uno or FRUNO! has we started to call it. The rules of this game are way too crazy to write out and frankly I can't say that I remember all of them. All I know is, there were some heated games of FRUNO and I can't wait to play again. I think I finally stopped playing at 430am. Just in time for the howler monkeys to sing me a lullaby.

Day 9 (March 20th)

The following day we discovered that one of the downstairs toilets was clogged. I am pretty sure that it wasn't my fault, but who knows it wouldn't be the first time. Another relaxing day at Casa Matapalo. We went to Tamarindo for lunch and found a little bar that had a small TV where we could watch the end of the Kentucky-Marquette basketball game. Some of the group went surfing, but I decided to pass considering I could barely body surf. We went back into Tamarindo for dinner that night, watched a little of the NCAA tourney, but were more interested in the Costa Rican futbol game and all of the fights going on in it. It was like a hockey game!

Day 10 (March 21st)

The tide was low in the morning and you could see thousands of little fish swimming around fairly close to shore. Preying on them were larger fish which attracted at least 15 ticos. These guys were cleaning up. They were walking out with backpacks full of fish as big as 2 ft. As we were sitting on the beach we heard a loud crash. One of the trees fell all of the sudden on top of an SUV parked just to the side of our house
(Please note Mrs. Hacienda Pinilla 2008 in the right of the picture wearing the black tank top. This was the unofficial title we gave to the most attractive woman on the beach). No one was in the car when the tree fell and they simply let some air out of the tires and backed out from under the tree. Ballsy move, but it worked!

It was time for us to start moseying over to the Sabanera festival. Every Friday around sunset they put on a show of riding horses and dancing for the guests.


The show was great and included a band that played some festive musica. The howler monkeys started making some of there own noise in an attempt to steal the show or maybe they were just taunting Jay.

Day 11 (March 22nd)

It was our last full day so a few people, myself included, decided to take a katamaran tour of the bay in Tamarindo. We rode around and dropped the anchor where we could swim, snorkel, kayak, or just hang out on the boat and enjoy the open bar and good food. I found out pretty quickly that the water was not very clear so Mark and I took a quick trip in the kayak and got bacak on the boat to get some grub. On the way back we were enjoying a nice sunset when we heard a ruckus coming from the back of the boat. One of the crew members was reeling in a line they had cast out. I am still trying to find the picture, but after some intense fighting he reeled in a 3+ ft red snapper. Probably the biggest fish I have ever been in the same boat with. This was pretty much the end of our trip so I had to make the final cut of my jeans and needless to say the jorts were getting a little dicey:

Thank goodness there were only 10 travel days, I was starting to run out of fabric.
Day 12 (March 23rd)
4:00am - Lito "Apache Stone Face" came to pick up me, Yoshi, Pasha, and Hinman to take us to the airport for our 8am flight. Lito drives pretty slow, so we wanted to make sure we made it with plenty of time to get our Japanese and Ukrainian friends through security. Now I could just sit back and enjoy the movie Enchanted on the flight home.