Back to Teaching

The reason why I have not updated my blog in 2 weeks is because I spent the last week in Manuel Antonio/ Quepos at the beach.  I did have internet access there, but not enough to devote time to writing a blog post. Manuel Antonio is in the southern part of Costa Rica on the Pacific side.

Manuel Antonio has the beaches and the national park.  I actually stayed in Quepos, which is a town over the hill from Manuel Antonio.  Quepos is a cool little town with an interesting mix of plantation workers taking time off from work, expats, and tourists all mingling.  While not aesthetically the nicest place, it had great little cafes and interesting places to find. 

My time at the beach was a lot of fun.  I did a bunch of generic tourist things like wandering around the national park and lying on the beach.  The weather did not cooperate for the second half of the week so I spent less time on the beach than I had planned.  That was not that big a deal because I was more than happy to stay in and read the books I had bought at the used book store I found in Quepos.

I went white-water rafting for the second time in a month which I enjoyed immensely.  The river was running really high since they had had a lot of rain in the days before I went.  This meant that the guide was actually somewhat unsure of how some of the different parts would run which made parts a little hairier than they might have been otherwise. 

For example, La Boca del Diablo (the Devil's Mouth) ended up being really tame because of how high the water was.  On the flip side, just below la boca del diablo, the guide directed the boat directly into a large hole, unintentionally.  Luckily only the guide was tossed from the boat, but it was still pretty intense.

I also watched the final of the World Cup from a bar in Manuel Antonio.  The bar had one tiny television, but it was the only place I could find where I could sit down to watch the game.  I'm used to watching sports on a tiny television from college, so it was fine.  The entire game was really exciting, with plenty of chances and lots of yellow cards. (Nigel de Jong definitely should've gotten a red card). 

In the 131st minute, seconds before the end of the game, the power went out in all of Manuel Antonio.  The entire town ran outside of wherever they were watching to try to find somewhere else to see the end of the game.  The power came back on a few minutes later with the Spanish players celebrating in the middle of the field, so I didn't miss anything important.

Now I am back to teaching, which is proving tough.  I need to sit down and focus on what I need to be teaching.  Well, there are only a couple of weeks left in July, soon it will be August.  I will be back in the US in December, before too long.