When I grow up I want to be a world traveller.

embracing the sea, especially w/ my nose and eyes :)

kitcat — Thu, 24 Apr 2008 06:21:00 GMT

arrived in puerto viejo de talamanca two days ago. o my word, this place is something else. pura vida would be the best way to describe it...irie might do it too. it's just really caribbean here...and i absolutely LOVE it.

dropped my friend in san jose, after having seen the highest amount of car accidents ever. including a v exciting one nearly tilting over from a rock, and a v injured truckdriver hanging some decent metres above the ground. if you want to see truck accidents, costa rica is the place to go. in one day i could see why this is the second-best country for this strange phenomenon almost always including trucks.

so...pv de talamanca. decided to stay at this major thing called rocking j's. and it's...typical. phrases like 'niet poepen op de trap' can be found in abundancy, there's mosaic everywhere, everyone seems to be one with nature (i'm so not that it's hilarious), dorms are out of this time (w/ magic dormmates: disappearing and re-gendering in the blink of an eye), funny dormmate from the states who plays dutch songs like 'watskeburt' (and does a sweet sing-a-long - i should make a video of it), there's hammocks and major crabs - striking - everywhere and there's some awesome livemusic. i think i might agree that this place rocks (and smells, too, for that matter).

surfing is cool...tho no big waves or anything (not that i'd manage being a beginner). had some great lessons from topo, the lion instructor (no other way to describe it). he's managed to keep me on the board for an entire lesson (ok...to not not get up that means in my case). i apparently (geeeeee, WHAT a surprise for all of you!) have a bad case of a lack of upperbody strength, hence my aching at this very moment. have felt better in my life, but it's def worth it to finally get on the board. going in tom, again, to enjoy some waves en la manana, so hope learning goes faster from now on. i just cannot believe that surfing had been a major reason for me to come to cr, and that i've only just started. guess there's sooooo much to see here and a whole week left. tho, i would have loved to have done a bit of kitesurfing in lake arenal, too. boohooooo....guess i have to do that in coldy, rainy, freezing nl after all :).

now heading for lovely helado; hope it's worth the 'o-my-god-it's-so-hot-i-cannot-walk-another-step-in-the-freakin-burning-soleil' moment :). plus the hissing of the snakes here (=men. why on earth would u everrrrrr respond to someone making snakesounds in ur direction? once i have thought of the theory behind this thing, i'll get back to u).

for now: pura vida :D

Gallery: tortuguero and beyond

kitcat — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:26:00 GMT

caribbeannessssss

rafting - and being rafting rockstars- on the río pacuare

kitcat — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 10:02:00 GMT

finally got to cartago and chose the most ghetto hostel in town. please all go and stay in hotel dynastia and find out for urselves ;)....naaaahhh, i'll give you the info anyways...here we go: 1. there's deffo no windows. 2. walls are basically non-existent. 3. if you're wondering: the shower does indeed electrocute you. 4. this is where every tico goes to get some. no, not just some: a LOT. ok. so now u're in the know, too. checked out volcán irázu. sucked, don't go there. just a crater, look it up in ur little picture book!

hopped on a bus to turrialba, an area known for its great rafting possibilities. busride was - fortunately - relatively short, but, again, absolutely wonderful! i still cannot believe how every time we reach another area we get to enjoy a completely different landscape. got into hotel interamericano, again, being the only ones there (plus pretty much the only tourists in town, it's hilarious). us, the ticos and the terrential downpours...

today we went white-water rafting on the río pacuare. according to lonny p this is arguably the most scenic rafting in cr, if not central america. and i fully FULLY agree. o my word, it was one solid ride (tho too bad the beginner's one, i'm so excited about going again sometime from the upper pacuare): 28 km through rocky gorges and isolated canyons, past an indigenous village (and those little kids you read about in books - on their little treeboats in not so much clothing). it was amazing, even more so since we were adviced to take a local agency (tico's, don't go w/ any other organisation or u'll be punished sitting in a boat with 4 other tourists and at least 3 other boats floating nearby). it was just the two of us, two trainee-rafters and the first rafter. plus the photographer, who was constantly trying to pull stunts in his kayak and failed miserably trying..hehehe... anyways, we were pretty much the only ones on the river and made absolute SICK rafters according to our tico friends. all i can say is: i want to go again!!! we even got to witness some rafterstraining: bootcamp...the tico-way. who can say that? seriously, my trip in costa rica is sooooo cultural anthropology!!!!

tortuguero...loving costa rican caribbeanness

kitcat — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 09:26:00 GMT

ok...so there's a bit of a gap in time between where i left off and where i am now! finally got to tortuguero village after our wet boat trippy and found cabiñas, again, in a more indigenous area. i keep on amazing myself how we end up in situations where we're the only (tourists) in the hotel in an area that is basically as local as it can get. too bad that when we went exploring the little village we ran into sooooo many germans and americans. white sneakers, zipp-off pants (i'll be dead before i will wear one of those...sorry if this sounds offensive) and a big, big camera hanging on the man's bulging beer belly. sounds like a pretty attractive sight in such a wonderful surrounding, not? well, we found a lovely place where we could get some great caribbean food and had such a brilliant view of the ocean (rightly called 'princesa' - hammocks hanging everywhere. if i could, i'd just live in one right there. ok...not in the rain we had there.... went off to see a football game on some field (apparently it was pretty professional), that rocked. ate some more (man, do i eat a LOT here!), hopped to bed for early morning waking. went on a canoe trip with a massive caribbean guy. he was wild: said...not much basically, gave us first class seats to look at this massive belly of his (this is really weird: men w/ the bulging stuff think it's highly necessary and seem to find it masculine to put up their t's and show off this huge part of their bodies...am not so sure if i like it, tho! anyways, saw lots of monkeys, butterflies, birds, small crocs, birdies and shitloads of tourists in boats with motors!! AND WHAT do you think is the best way to chase away all those things that i could've seen? a boat full of americans and germans with there giant camera's.

anyways, had a turtle tour in the evening (where i thought it wouldn't be too much of a hike, but turned out to be 2 hours worth of walking in the sand!!!) but with no luck since we just missed them....booohoooooo. no really not joking. the hike for nothing much was 'kak'. and that after the most amazing sunset on the river, with some reggaeton on the background....

got a boat to cariari. and may i tell you all: it was seriously exciting since there wasn't enough water for the boat to get through! you'd think u'd just cancel the ride, but nope: in costa rica, pura vida, they just do it. get out of the boat, drag it a couple of metres, get in again, drag it again...it was special, really!! just for the fun of it, y'all should take the public boat out of tortuguero :D, it's sick!

hot damn, that was one solid ride!

kitcat — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 10:30:00 GMT

and i dedicate the title of my new story to intercultura friends lisa and jessy...u guys are really something else!

have not had time nor the chance to write something since what feels like forever. i can now proudly call myself 'outback cat' (stop laughing there behind ur lil' laptop, i went to look for my wild side ;), having been to the less travelled region of costa rica.

first met up w/ make a wish bud pat to travel to the lonely part of the planet. it was freakin´ A....with some bumps in the road as can be expected. first got on a 4 hour bus to puerto viejo de sarapiqui...wow: saw some seriously beautiful costa rica (rainforest, palmtrees, waterfalls) and then some puking people on the bus. u´d think the costaricense could handle the bumpy rides, but no. consider not sitting to that not so fit local i would recommend! got out at puerto viejo and were welcomed by the soccer field plus players and supporters. apparently they´d not often seen tourists...or we just looked tha shit. the latter option seems to be the more interesting one, obviously. so had this total rip-off situation at the hotel, lonely mundo was completely wrong and we couldn´t make a reservation for this deserted hotel thing (duhhhh). but had amazing coffee for breakfast and visited a guide (alex martinez from posada andrea cristina hotel - amazing site) who gave us some info (FINALLY), coffee and showed off his tucan and parrot.

finally got on a boat to trinidad (near the nicaraguan border). well...that was a different experience. boat was as stable as they get here, but the captain had too much fun trying to outspeed this other boat. ha! (i was scared shitless at the time). but we arrived, after 2 hours of boating, safely in our little paraíso: trinidad lodge! were welcomed by the abuela w/ lovely coffee in her 'made in china' cups: absolutely amazing and gave us a moment to take in the beauty of our home for the next couple of days. our cabiñas were sick: made out of bamboo, every now and then forgetting a stick or two (imagine that this is a place where there´s lots and lots of animals). it was a ghetto but in a 'i'm-gonna-go-on-my-honeymoon' kinda way. after a lovely dinner we got to experience some real 'you tarzan, me jane' flava. first massive bug evacuation from my mosquito net (got the other tourist out of his cabiña to do that). then, at 4 a.m. we got woken by this ridiculous hawling by a yet unknown species. if i could have jumped into the bed of my fellow traveller, i would def have done so! o my word. in the morning, however, we found out that what gave us this huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge fright was a ridiculously small hawler monkey, which had decided to be on our roof. joy! anyways, enjoyed a bit of a hike with a real tarzan next morning, saw the bugger monkeys plus a toothbrush hanging from a tree. serious business in trinidad...ok. there was this part where we saw what the unrest in this border area had left behind: burned down church, area where a school had been. it must have been quite scary to the costa rican inhabitants of this area to have to deal with this violence when you don´t have a prompt reaction from your own non-existent defence force. but all seems well now...on the surface at least. for the rest of the day talked spanish with the little girl from the hotel, heidy. seriously cute. actually went on an EGGHUNT (my easter wish came true after all) and saw their fruit trees and veggies. so cute! she must be pretty bored out there, and doesn´t quite seem up to the same educational level (but what can u expect) as her age group. we had a serious session of mirror writing, where she thought it was the correct way of writing! this serious session was followed by one where we mismatched animal parts. it was a wicked way to spend the last day in trinidad!

had good last night and then left the next day by private speedboat...accompanied by some terrential downpoors. in a boat w/out a roof that slightly sucks....but...i guess we saw a big croc!?

Gallery: me jane

kitcat — Sun, 13 Apr 2008 09:25:00 GMT

riding the rio san juan

Gallery: last week con mi familia costaricense y amigos de intercultura

kitcat — Sat, 12 Apr 2008 10:37:00 GMT

heredia y san josé

¡pura vida! en heredia

kitcat — Sun, 6 Apr 2008 01:29:00 GMT

you all know i can be slightly overexcited about my little thingies, be it food, restaurants, shops, words, books, etc. i can proudly announce i have another item to be added to my long lists: ¡pura vida! this costa rican expression totally rocks. awesome doesn´t quite catch its brilliance, since it´s awesome, lovely, rockstar, amazing, sweet, thank you AND pure life ALL IN ONE!!!

ok...so that´s keeping me busy, but also the fact that from sunday onwards i´m travelling to tortuguero up north. not sure what to expect of the area, but it is supposedly amazingly beautiful and home to the most diverse population of turtles. can´t wait to get there, even tho my time in heredia was lovely! will def miss my new friends from school here now i graduated (yes, we had a lil ceremony), plus these restaurants called fresas, mambo and vishnu. plus i feel (like everyone else prob does when visiting an area) that i haven´t seen enough by far!

my host family still keeps feeding me as if i am underfed, but i´ve been much more able to have proper conversations with them. the latter adds to my experience in costa rica than i first anticipated. it is such a beautiful and peaceful country, but it obviously still has a lot of things to improve on. my host mum, for example, has a somewhat darker skin than what is apparently approved of (i honestly don´t see as much of a difference, but i know that tiny color differences are defined pretty strictly here and in other latin american countries). she apparently is black in costa rica and is therefore not as beautiful (and less worthy? appears to feel like that) than her family with a brighter skin color. her granddaughter has african features, making her (and i cannot interpret the host mum any differently unfortunately) and her hair and character much different and not as nice as that of ´normal costa ricans´, whatever that may be...

i would love to know much more about their ideas of what kind of country costa rica is supposed to be and what costa ricans are supposed to look like. it says so much about the social structure of a society, how it draws its social and cultural lines and how it discriminates between its people. how does this affect the chances people get (my costa rican sisters are all of lighter skin tone and really succesful, but that could be because of government policy wanting to develop through education and economic sustainable development). i am happy to have had a chance to get to know a costa rican family and would very much go back here or to a less developed country in latin america to experience more the peoples of a country. i sincerely hope that during my travels i will not only see the amazing sightings of this country, but will encounter more costa ricans off the tourist path. let´s wait and see...

i heart bus rides to quepos y manuel antonio

kitcat — Wed, 2 Apr 2008 06:48:00 GMT

last weekend was amazing; my friend nadja and I took a bus to quepos to enjoy the beachside for the weekend. The trip to quepos was not exactly w/out some necessary bumps in the road and pretty exciting in itself. And we totally have ourselves to blame for that, since one should probably not get up at 4 in the morning anyways, then be a female lone wanderer in a costa rican city, take the wrong bus to san jose, get into a cab w/ a driver who obviously had had a good night out somewhere around town, wander around the most criminal bus station of CR: coca-cola (wouldn’t it be great if every bus station would carry a soda brand’s name?), drink coffee w/ potential to kill (and this is an achievement in “coffee rica”) then drive for over 4 hours in an overfull bus. However, the ride to quepos was beautiful: mountains, fields of palmtrees (w/ the exception of commercial fishing and tourism, the oil palm plantations serve as the primary source of employment in the quepos area)… but the way there wasn’t quite as interesting as the way back, with the bus driver taking the occasional shortcut when he felt like avoiding the weekend traffic. and this involves tiny TINY roads and even tinier bridges. they should def take their example in the west: we got home in a tick! clever, really, those ticos!

we then had to go through the torture of spending the entire day on the tropical(ly hot) beach of manuel antonio, surrounded by iguanas and little crabs (the latter paying waaaaay to many visits to my towel for my likening. i was having some serious talks to those little buggars, but somehow the towel and them were like lil’ magnets…we then moved to another spot underneath some trees where we were introduced by locals how to call monkeys and trace down and open up almonds. it was soooooo cultural anthropology all over again!!

met up w/ some intercultural buddies and went to this amazing bar (barba roja) in the evening to see the sunset. It had the most amazing viewing deck, consequently calling for some serious kodak action. think of how many pictures u can take of a sunset. then just double that and that’s what I’m stuck w/ now (ok…the other reason for taking so many photos being that lisa and i were ecstatic about the functions on our new cameras). not only did we take photos of the sunset and ourselves, but also of this random person totally fit enough to be on a photo. he was rather shocked at first, but turned out to be a very good model indeed.

had a fun night at the hostel. Lovely night too, w/ winds blowing in my ear w/ 50km/h. next morning we decided (whilst sitting in our hammocks enjoying some lovely CR coffee) to go to makanda by the sea, which has the most amazing infinity pool and view EVER. had a seriously killing hike up/down the mountain, but then got pampered like hotel guests. the infinity pool and view were stunning. and it was just us there. true torture…totally adding an infinity pool in CR to my wish list: ¡pura vida!

Gallery: my first week in costa rica

kitcat — Tue, 1 Apr 2008 09:03:00 GMT

¡pura vida!

¡Hola!

kitcat — Fri, 28 Mar 2008 02:51:00 GMT

¡Hola!

i know….it took a while to put a story up, but there’s only so much you can do on a computer in Costa Rica!

arrived safe and sound after the longest flight ever. try sitting next to (and not be annoyed by) a combo of 5 very spoiled lebanese girls and their mum plus 30 years (and over) dutch guys strangely obsessed w/ these 10-16 year olds. bizar in an unhealthy kinda way... when i finally got to juán santamaria international airport i got picked up by my host family (mother and daughter, the 3rd family member – the tellie – was still at home) and apparently was not told i speak many language, but that spanish was not one of them. didn't get much (if anything of what they were saying), but what i DID get was that the girl had a very peculiar way of steering the car. APPARENTLY, in CR you drive from the outer right side of the lane to the outer left side. touching the sides of other cars doing the exact same thing is definitely not something to worry about! at the time, i was way too tired to even be slightly scared and aaaaall i could think was that at least i got to spend the last moments of my life in a european car :). a detour and 4 gates further, i could finally jump in my very spartan bed in my cute, mosquito-free bedroom (the latter is awesome, but i´m sure i´ll get my share over the next few weeks...).

what’s heredia like?? well...it’s colorful, ridiculously busy, DEF not into pedestrians, infrastructurally completely messed up (w/ today being the highlight of my stay; almost falling into a 2m deep hole in the sidewalk), sunny but – fortunately – not overwhelmingly hot, there’s cute lil’ parks and amazing views on the surrounding mountains. intercultura, the school, is only a block away from my house and is so cute with its orange walls, lovely floorings and a this perfect little garden w/ big, bright pink flowers. even better: each day dancing classes, so chicos: cumbia, salsa y merengue: bring it on!!!

my stay at my host family is fab; i get fed like i’m underfed (absolutely no problem since it includes lots of fresh fruits and juices), they live ridiculously close to the spanish school, have their home decorated w/ cows (i mean EVERYTHING - from accessories to plates and glasses to alarmclocks) and tune their tv with a cut off wire and some keys (hilarious, really. after a day i finally got the purpose of all the cut off wires in the house: they’re there for a purpose - the possibility of electrocuting yourself is SO not big a deal here). two days ago the granddaughter of my host mum was visiting. i had little clue what the little 3-year old was saying, but it was pretty fun meeting her. she was 1. obsessed with the mirror (never have i seen such a long session of posing in front of a mirror by an adult, let alone by this tiny, tiny lil’ girl) 2. obsessed w/ combing her hair 3. busy sticking out her blue chup-a-chup tongue, which was no problema until she chews on the thing and drops everything (AND MORE) right at my feet…. situations like this make me understand why some insects eat their young….

i love the language classes and it’s amazing how much you can learn in such a short time when staying at a host family! not sure if i’ll take my spanish to another level after my stay, but for now it’s definitely adding to me experiencing CR to its max. already heared the entire life story of my host mum - marriage characterized by alcohol, violence, abuse and prayer (fiek y pollie: i need a virtual shoulderclap here, that conversation lasted the entire morning when only having started spanish a day earlier!).anyways, for now it´s really convenient to get around and get to now the real costaricans better. read; before i´m plunging into the gringo joy that is called costa rica beach life!!

am now off to do some planning for the weekend: should be some major beach/surfing fun and then off to salsa!! photos i’ll put up later (forgot my little wire). there’s some amazing ones of my trip to las cataratas de los chorros; two of the many, MANY waterfalls in CR.

anyways, let me know how y'all are doing (serious lack of gossip here, so i'm expecting some juicy emails ;))!! much love xxxx

o yeah! i'm heading off to costa rica on sunday :)

kitcat — Wed, 19 Mar 2008 22:25:00 GMT

just a lil' intro before i leave, cause i'm pretty sure i'll be too freakin' busy taking care of preparations to write at the end of this week! plus i need to help my lil' sis move into her new condo....

why i'm keeping a travelblog when going away for 5 weeks only? well, i'm pretty sure i won't live if i don't. somehow people start to worry just thinking about the fact that i'm leaving for costa rica, all by myself and ready for some action/adventure (ok. i admit, i'm probably the last person on earth to be mentioning the need for action since i have the gift of getting into adventures anytime anyday anyways ;)).

i'll be flying from Schiphol Airport on Easter day (i hope we get to go on an egghunt on the plane - otherwise i'm organizing one ;)) 13:40 GMT+1 and will be arriving in San Jose, CR at 21:20 that same night. i'm already mentally preparing for the heat there: it's freezing here! i'll be fine w/ the heat in about a week i think, but one thing that will be a REAL challenge are the bugs that are part of the garden of north america... more on that when i'm there.

and i'm planning on doing...what? learning spanish in heredia, staying at a guest family (hope i don't get beans for dinner..but that's not really possible i heard...), cruuuuiiising the carribean side, couchsurfing (this i'm currently obsessed w/...but i'll prob be too scared to actually do that), canopy tour, check out rainforests, do some surfing, get a panama stamp (or just go there for a few days - heard it's absolutely amazing there), meet up w/ my friend Roosje and have a week of birthday celebrations at the pacific coast!!! and then the usual stuff: getting a tan and scratching my butt off w/ all those mosquito bites...but have that in dutchieland too, so...

so here you go: this is my 'plan' (you all know i don't/cannot plan, but i do make lists ;)). i'm absolutely ecstatic about my trip and will def keep you all posted on my whereabouts and observations!!