This weekend was our first weekend trip. All 11 students packed up and left San Jose Friday at 2 pm to head to Puerto Viejo for a relaxing weekend on the Caribbean coast. A resident and medical student that have been in San Jose for a couple weeks went to the coast early and met us for dinner when we arrived Friday night. We went to a cute place called Flip Flop owned by a German hippie. After dinner we headed to the bar! We stumbled upon a nice outdoor bar with pool tables and a hand full of pot smokers, and about every five minutes you were reminded they were there. We had a few drinks and some of us played a few games of pool. Somehow my team kept winning because my partner, the resident, hit all our balls in and I was only good for sinking the 8 ball to win the game (this happened consistently throughout the evening...kinda weird). Most people weren't feeling the bar scene, so after a few hours everyone was ready to head back to our place. Not to worry...Katie from OSU and I each bought a six pack and we all ended up playing drinking games outside our room. It was very intertaining to say the least.
The next day we all headed to the beach. Puerto Viejo has a playa negra (black beach) with a "normal" beach right next to it. I'm not really sure what makes it black. I didn't really look into it. Old volcano maybe?? We spend most of the morning and early afternoon there and then split up in different directions to explore the town. It's a very small beach town with very few shops. I spent most of my exploring trying to excape the sun. By that point my pastey winter skin had had enough. But I must say I fared well compared to most people. Thanks Mom for teaching me the tricks! :) That night we all met for a seafood dinner. Somone had heard that this particular restaraunt was great for seafood. I think, or at least I hope, that everyone learned that it's not worth trying to all sit together! I'm so over the big group thing! It took well over an hour to get our food. And the most disappointing thing is that I completely struck out in my dinner choice. Katie and I decided to share the "mariscos mixtos" platter that included a variety of different tastey seafood. We both had ceviche for an appetizer, which was very delicious, but our seafood sampler was terrible. It had one muscle, 3 shrimp, a whole fish with the head on (yuck), half a lobster tail, and a fish filet. It was not pleasing at all. Everyone else really enjoyed their dishes. I guess you can't win them all.
On Sunday Katie and I decided split from the group. We rented bikes and rode down to another beach called Punta Uva. It is supposed to be the prettiest beach in the area and we wanted to check it out. It was well worth the $8 rental and a very sore bum from the "paved" road. On the way we stopped at a beach called Cocles that is the big surf spot in the area. It was fun watching all the surfers do things I could only dream of. I was even able to get a short video of one of the more talented surfers. Maybe I'll have enough time to wait for it to upload on here one day. When we arrived to Punta Uva we parked our bikes and walked along the beach until we found the perfect shaded area. The beach was beautiful, despite the overcast sky, and there were hardly any people!! After a few hours we headed back for a quick rinse and change into dry clothes, a late lunch, and then back to San Jose. It was a great way to start the month! I look forward to next weekend's trip.
It takes so long to load pics and they aren't loading in the order I want, so I will be posting pics in random order over a this next week.
At the bar a sloth decided to popped in for a bit. It had just started raining. Maybe he wanted to be dry too.
Katie and me at our stop in Limon on the way to Puerto Viejo. We were only an hour away so a road-pop, as my brother would say, was in order. Actually we weren't sure if we could have this on the bus or not. An inspector hopped on the bus a few minutes outside of town and promptly told us we weren't, in fact, allowed to have them. So we finished them and solved the problem. :)
Our group of 4th year med students. We represent Penn State, Ohio State, Vanderbilt, Arkansas, and MUSC in South Carolina.
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