Mar 30-Apr 5: Semana Santa with Friends

This week in Costa Rica marks “Semana Santa”, or Holy Week. As a culturally Catholic country, Semana Santa tends to be a much bigger deal in Costa Rica than in the US. Classes are out all week, and Thursday and Friday are considered federal holidays. Thus, Semana Santa is the biggest domestic travel week for Ticos. As a volunteer in Youth Development, I also had the entire week off of school, so this was an ideal week to travel. Fortunately, a lot of my friends and teammates took advantage of my week off to visit me in Costa Rica, and I had a blast showing them a small slice of my host country. 

My friends began arriving on Monday. Two of them came in a day earlier to spend some extra time in San Jose, the capital. We didn’t do a ton of activities, but I spent the day showing them around on a walking tour of sorts. We checked out coffee shops in Barrio Escalante and grabbed a casado for lunch at Mercado Central. On Tuesday, the remaining 3 friends arrived in San Jose. I started the morning running in Parque La Sabana with one of my teammates before we had lunch and cafecito at Cafeoteca, which was recently ranked in the top 100 coffee shops worldwide. 


Wednesday, we took off for Puerto Viejo, which is Costa Rica’s main beach town on the Caribbean coast. We took the earliest bus possible at 7am in order to maximize our time at the beach. Upon arrival, we grabbed the region’s famed Caribbean “Rice and Beans” dish at the iconic Tamara restaurant. Then, we checked in our airbnb, spent some time at the beach, and then headed to a bar/restaurant called Hot Rocks for dinner and open mic night where a couple of the guys got on stage and performed.




The following morning, a few guys in the group got up early and tried their hand at surfing. Having already scratched my surfing itch in August in Santa Teresa, I decided to save a few bucks and passed on another lesson in Puerto Viejo. For lunch, we tried a different restaurant for some more Rice and Beans and then spent the afternoon lounging at the beach and getting some vitamin D at Playa Cocles. 




On Friday, we spent some time at the beach off our back porch to start the day before Ubering to the nearby town of Cahuita. Once in Cahuita, we ate lunch at a little restaurant called Delrita Patty, which is known for their Jamaican-style “Pati”, another famous dish in the Limon region of Costa Rica. It was by far the best Pati I’ve had in Costa Rica. After lunch, we went on a guided nature hike in Cahuita National Park with a local who is part of the Bri Bri indigenous group. On the hike, we saw sloths, monkeys, snakes, and more while in the jungle and on the beach. That night, we tried even more Caribbean dishes as many of my friends ordered “Rondón” - a vegetable and seafood stew.




On Saturday, we soaked in as much beach time as possible before heading back on the bus to San Jose. What is normally a 3 or 4 hour trip turned into 6 hours because of all of the Semana Santa traffic. By the time we got back to San Jose, it was pretty late. My friends all fly out on Easter Sunday throughout the day, so we said our goodbyes at the bus station and I headed back to site. I’ll spend Easter Sunday hanging out with my girlfriend Keily and her family. I’m so grateful to have friends who are willing to visit me in a foreign country and to serve in a country that is accessible and fun to visit. I’m back in class tomorrow after a great Semana Santa.



Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Home for the Holidays: Christmas in MO, New Year's in CR

Image
It's been a busy couple of weeks! Normally I try to post my weekly recaps on Sundays, but I figured it may make more sense to lump everything related to the holidays together in one blog.  On Dec 23, I flew back to Southwest Missouri to be home for Christmas with my family. This was the first time I'd been back in the Ozarks since I began my Peace Corps Service a year and a half ago (roughly 18 months). I was really excited to spend time with family, get some comfort food, and enjoy some colder weather. All three of those things occurred eventually, thankfully, although the latter wasn't until the end of my trip due to a record-breaking warm Christmas Day.  My time at home, was fun and much-needed, although it wasn't particularly relaxing. We had a number of Christmas celebrations and activities, so my time back home went by pretty fast. Some highlights of the trip included celebrating my Dad's birthday sharing a tomahawk steak, eating some Springfield-style Cashew ...
Read more

Sidebar #58 - 2026 Costa Rican Presidential Election

Image
Note: These are my objective observations of Costa Rica’s upcoming election as a foreigner living here, not my personal opinions. Additionally, these observations are my own and don’t reflect those of the U.S. government or the Peace Corps. This is a big week for Costa Rica. On Sunday, February 1, Costa Ricans will cast ballots for their next President. There are other elections, namely legislative, that are also happening on Sunday, but for the purpose of this blog, I’ll keep it simple and focus on the Presidential election taking place. There are several differences between the Costa Rican presidential process and our elections in the US. One of these distinctions is the sheer number of political parties, and therefore, presidential candidates. The election is Sunday (I’m writing this on Thursday) and there are still roughly 20 candidates in the race (with varying degrees of viability). In Costa Rica, the President cannot serve consecutive terms, meaning that there will be a new Pres...
Read more

Feb 17-23: Settling in at School + a Weekend in Puerto Viejo

Image
My first three or four months at site were a bit chaotic as I finished my diagnostic report, or “CASA” report, about the community. Fortunately, counterparts at my respective academic institutions were in frequent contact and communicated to me on the onset of each week how I should divide my time between the schools. However, since classes resumed in February, a more formal schedule has begun to crystallize for me. I’ll spend Mondays and Wednesdays at the high school, or colegio , and Tuesdays and Thursdays at the escuela , or elementary school. Fridays will alternate between them so that I can ensure I split my time evenly at each institution. Although having that schedule seems like a small development, it feels like a bit of a breakthrough in my service to establish more day-to-day consistency. Being the first Peace Corps volunteer in my town’s history, all of this is still relatively new for everyone involved, so getting all parties on the same page feels like a win. And not only...
Read more