Matthew Amaral
After working hard in the Bay Area for the last few years, my wife and I have decided to take this next year off to travel before we have kids. We are going to live in Costa Rica from October to February, then we will move to Peru until June. While abroad, we are signed up to take Spanish language classes five days a week for the first three months in Costa Rica. After that, my wife plans on working with Midwives in Peru (she is a Labor and Delivery Nurse). While she helps new mothers in Peru, I will be focusing on my writing. I am just wrapping up my Master's Degree in Creative Writing, and plan on using this time to finish another novel, do some travel writing, keep a blog, and also tinker around with a few other projects I have in mind. We're looking forward to learning Spanish, and having an amazing, life-changing year abroad in Central and South America!Mateo Amaral
Travel Blog Posts
An Authentic American Experience Abroad
Published: April 12th 2010Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » San José » San José
April 12th 2010
Perusing travel websites, and travel blogs, and reading excerpts from travel books, there seems to be a recurring, inevitable theme. And every story starts the same way: So-and-so finally did what most people only dream about. He left behind the world of advertising and fifty-hour workweeks and followed his heart. With only three-hundred dollars in his pocket, so-and-so bought a one way ticket to (insert country full of brown people here). With a backpack and thirst for adventure, he set out in this unfamiliar land to find things he never dreamed possible. He made many friends along the way, had better experiences than you ever will, and finally discovered who he really was. This everyman traveler has a beard, is probably white, and has an oddly thick amount of forearm hair. When you read his book ... read more
Argentina-Ruining a Good Bottle of Wine
Published: March 15th 2010South America » Argentina » Buenos Aires » Buenos Aires
March 15th 2010
Argentina—Ruining a Good Bottle of Wine The only bad thing about Argentina is that you have to pay $130 to get into it. At first it seems ridiculous that anyone should have to pay so much just for the privilege of entering a country until we found out why they charge such a high fee. They call it a reciprocal fee, and charge it to Americans because we charge them even more. “But then you get to be in America,” I tried to tell them. They didn’t see my point. Unfortunately, as I opened my wallet to get my credit card, I found it was missing. Immediately I knew what had happened. It was something I had been trying to avoid doing through our entire trip: I had left my card in the ATM machine. Shit. ... read more
Men and Bulls: A Worldwide Idiocy
Published: February 23rd 2010Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Guanacaste » Playa FlamingoFebruary 23rd 2010
I was flipping through the 150 channels I get in my student residence in Flamingo, Costa Rica on a Saturday morning. I was hoping to pass the first few hours of the day laying in bed watching something mindless. A few days ago I had accomplished the same thing by watching the entirety of a movie I had never seen before, 12 Monkeys, and was hoping to have similar success. Costa Ricans are less prudish when it comes to the television and even newspaper. You might be reading about the effect of Barack Obama’s policy toward Cuba on the Costa Rican economy in the newspaper—and right next to it is a tit. Sometimes two of them. All of these distractions make the newspapers here much more difficult to read—even the ones in English. So there I ... read more
Dinners With Herman
Published: December 7th 2009Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Guanacaste » Samara
December 7th 2009
Four days after arriving in Playa Samara and moving into the house of our new Tica familia, our Tica mom bought four geese. After what they did to one of the pigs, I feared the worst. Alisa and I woke one morning to find the pig’s back legs splayed apart and tied to the roof of a lean-to on the beach; it was hanging upside down. Its innards had been cut out and removed, and my Tico brothers were trimming off the skin and making fresh chicarrones in a pot on a happy fire. The severed head stared at us from the sink. After that, our dinners were open to all kinds of speculation. So when Noilyn bought four geese, naturally Alisa and I pictured future dinners where for once the drumsticks didn’t really taste like ... read more
A Lesson in Culture Shock: Getting Used to the Wildlife in and Around the House
Published: November 7th 2009Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » Guanacaste » SamaraNovember 7th 2009
“There are no words to describe that paradise.” These were the words of my friend Jeff, who lives in San Jose, Costa Rica, when I asked him about Playa Samara. It is a beach town five hours west of San Jose, on the Pacific Coast. It is one of the last and best pure beach towns left whose coastline hasn’t become an advertisement for hotel chains. “You’re going to love it.” Our itinerary from the Language School told us we were to live on the beach with a mid-twenties Costa Rican couple with two kids and a dog. The short synopsis used delightful adjectives like “chatty” to describe the family, and promised it would be a short walk down the beach to get to school. It sounded like the epitome of Pura Vida. But when we ... read more
All Those Dangers You've Heard About Living Abroad
Published: November 2nd 2009Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » San José » San JoséNovember 2nd 2009
My wife and I were having lunch in the Central Mercado in downtown San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica. The market was at one time the sprawling outdoor heart of the city crammed with vendedoras and goods. Now the entire city block is covered with a roof, but is still the carazon of the city. Alisa ordered Olla de Carne (Pot of Meat), and was surprised at the heaping plate of vegetables and beef placed in front of her for a mere 2.200 colones, or 4 American dollars. I was more than happy with my seafood stew—giant crab claws sticking out of it—and was secretly pleased, looking at Alisa’s plate, that I would probably get half of that too. And I did. The subject of our conversation over lunch had to do with the Clinica ... read more
Speeding My Way Through Costa Rican Spanish
Published: October 19th 2009Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » San José » San José
October 19th 2009
On the first day of Spanish class in Zapote, Costa Rica, Alisa and I were supposed to arrive a half hour early. So even though we are on vacation, we got up at 6:30 to adequately prepare for our first day. Alisa spent an hour and a half putting on makeup. I actually showered. The mornings in Costa Rica are amazing. At 7 am it is an intensely sunny 75 degrees. Every morning. Our walk is so short we can hardly begin a conversation before entering COSI, which stands for Costa Rican Spanish Institute. My confusion in trying to figure out how that acronym works turned out to be some pretty heavy foreshadowing of things to come. Alisa and I were buzzed through the gate by unknown eyes observing us from who knows where, in a ... read more
Hella Stealing From Our Roommate's Ghost
Published: October 6th 2009Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » San José » San José
October 6th 2009
Getting off the plane Alisa and I couldn’t have been more relieved; we had 5 months of language learning to look forward to in the lush green land of the Ticos: Costa Rica. As bleary as our eyes were after Traveling Day, we were still able to flash grateful smiles to my friend Jeff, an American living in Costa Rica, who had agreed to pick us up at the airport and house us that first night. The humidity met as at the threshold as we left San Jose International Airport, walking through the double doors to a crescendo of cab drivers vying for attention. Ignoring them I found Jeff and gave the little man a big hug, our first in many years. “What’s up dawwwwggggg?” I said in my usual high-pitched crescendo. “Man, it’s good to ... read more
The Price of Living in Nicaragua
Published: October 6th 2009Central America Caribbean » Costa Rica » San José » San José
October 3rd 2009
We could tell right away something was horribly wrong by the way people were running toward the gate. The intense movements of every muscle, every arm and leg, bespoke catastrophe. We were a hundred yards away, on the shores of Isla de Ometepe, just getting out of the warm waters of Lake Nicaragua after an afternoon swim underneath the smoking backdrop of Volcano Concepcion. I thought to myself, You only see people move that quickly just before the paramedics show up. Therein lay the biggest problem. There aren't paramedics on Isla de Ometepe. Our small group of Americans warily jogged over to the metal bars that marked the entrance to the grounds where we were to stay that night. There were already half a dozen onlookers in a circle around a body on the ground, just ... read more
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