June 6-12: MEP Vacation in Guanacaste

Starting on Monday, public school students and teachers in Costa Rica began a two-week long break from classes in-between semesters. For Peace Corps Volunteers in my cohort, this is the last time in our service that we’re permitted to take our annual leave vacation. That means that most volunteers (including me) took this opportunity to squeeze in one more domestic or international trip while we’re here.

I didn’t do much Monday-Wednesday. I mainly just took the opportunity to catch up on some computer work, went to the gym, and did some running. And then on Thursday morning, I took off for the western, coastal province of Guanacaste, which was the lone province of the 7 in Costa Rica that my girlfriend, Keily, hadn’t been to prior. Because of this, visiting Guanacaste with her has been a priority for us, and we settled on the charming beach town of Sámara to make that happen.

Although there are direct buses from San José to Sámara, the timing didn’t work out great for Keily and I, so we elected to change buses each way in a town called Nicoya. Nicoya, also located in Guanacaste, is one of the oldest cities in Costa Rica and it made for a really nice stop. We saw the oldest church in Costa Rica and enjoyed an authentic Tico lunch - a casado plate with pour over coffee. Eventually, after around 7 hours of total travel, we pulled into Sámara, enjoyed the afternoon on the beach, and had a really nice Italian dinner sponsored by my parents.

 


The next day, Friday, was a particularly special one. One of my friends in my Peace Corps cohort, Patrick, has one of the most remote and unique site placements in all of Costa Rica. He serves a seaside community of around 100 called Corozalito as an economic development volunteer. One of the community’s main industries (and claim to fame) is that it hosts some of the most frequent mass turtle nesting and hatching events, or arribadas, in the world. The closest town to his with more robust infrastructure (buses, banks, supermarkets, etc) is Sámara, so we really wanted to make the trip to his site while we were there. Fortunately, Patrick was able to use his community integration skills to negotiate transportation for us from someone in his community (about an hour each way on dirt roads). After arriving there, he gave us a walking tour of the town, took us to the beach, and later led us on a turtle tour where we were able to watch a mother turtle create a nest and lay eggs before returning to the ocean. It was a super cool experience to see the turtle nesting as well as to witness Patrick's service in action in another Peace Corps community which couldn’t be more different from my own.


Saturday was much more low key. After making the trek out to Corozalito the day before and rolling back into Sámara late, Keily and I slept in and enjoyed a relaxing day on the beach. We found an Italian-owned sandwich shop for lunch and later had pizza for dinner while watching some World Cup matches. On Sunday, it was time to say goodbye. We left Sámara, and after a much longer layover in a Subway in Nicoya, we eventually made it back to San José on Sunday night. This was such a great trip, and it was special to accompany Keily for her first time in Guanacaste.




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