7/1/2011

11:28pm

So where was I...

The band played some great music. The entire atmosphere of the club was different, with couples salsa dancing as well as your typical Western style club dancing.

I guess that depends on what you'd call typical. But I was fairly drunk and feeling the tequila kick in by this point, so I was busting out all the usual moves I'd do in the bars on Oxford Street. A couple of Latino ladies came up to me and thought I was amazing. "You're such a very good dancer. This will get you very far in Costa Rica." I don't know if its correct Spanish, but the words "soy hombre gusto hombre" seemed to get the point across. None-the-less, they were very liberal in sharing the Captain Morgan cocktail mix in a bottle that the male dancers handed down from the stage, so once again drinks became free!

Throughout the evening I met and danced with about six local Costa Rican women. I think the combination of my outrageous, uninhibited dancing combined with my blonde hair (a rarity around here) just really excited them. The highlight of the evening, however, was when the bartenders got up onto the bar and started pouring tequila straight from the bottles into peoples mouths. It definitely lived up to my preconceptions of the crazy Latin American partying, and any hating I had been doing on the area was long gone.

After we'd drunk so much we could barely walk, and I'd told the Latino ladies to add me on Facebook, we jumped into a cab with our host brother and stumbled home. It was a fun night out, reminding me of what I thought I'd be missing out on while I was over here in Costa Rica, and it was also a more liberating experience, and will hopefully allow me to be myself more too, on the remainder of the trip.

After a nice long sleep in (as I mentioned, mama tica left some breakfast out for me), I walked down to the school to attend the afternoon class in Spanish (that's when mine were scheduled, I'm not just being lazy). The school had arranged a trip away for the weekend, but instead I decided to go with the other girls in my home stay to spend two nights on the beach on the Pacific Coast. So I ran home afterwards, quickly threw a backpack together, kissed mama tica goodbye and headed out. There's a group of eleven of us, and we got a private mini-van (owned by the brother of the school's tour guide) to drive us. We paid about US$15 each, and after a four hour drive we finally arrived. We're staying at a relatively nice hotel for only $20 a night, and had my most Western meal so far, spaghetti bolognese. This town caters for tourists, so I decided to go with 'when in Rome'. I also sampled their margaritas: not the best I've ever had, but boy, do they like their drinks strong in this country.

Afterwards we went for a walk down to the beach to feel the water: it was pretty exciting to touch the Pacific Ocean from the other side of the world. I'm pretty excited to go to the beach tomorrow, hopefully I'll have more luck than I was having back in Australia.

It's been a long week learning Spanish at the school, this weekend away almost feels like a bit of a holiday. I had to remind myself that I actually am on a holiday already.

Well, more than just a holiday: a 'life experience', so I'd like to think.