2 weeks with my second family

Meet the Araya-Gonzalez family:
There's Nidia, the hard-headed politician who's constantly having to choose between her career and the husband she idolizes. There's Mari, the glamourous nurse and daughter of Oswaldo and a previous flame. Also Stephanie, the shy 14 year old obsessed with boys and shopping, and Karina - the reserved, stressed-out medical student with a talent for dance. Living on the farm, away from the capital city, are Oswaldo, a soft-spoken farmer who has a skin condition meaning that any more exposure to the sun will almost certainly lead to cancer, and Andrey, the girl-crazy 18 year old who thinks he's a player. Oh, and Felipe - the quasi-French poodle who's absolutely insane and unbearably cute.

I originally met all these characters three years ago on my first backpacking trip. I made great friends for life, and I also fell in love with their country. Karina has since visited me in the UK, but it was great to be back - to see all my old friends and familiar haunts. And needless to say, after 5 months of packing and re-packing my backpack, moving from hostel to hostel and being kept awake at night by couples going at it in my dorm, it's safe to say that I was getting a little tired from my travelling.

So, it's a little difficult (and a little dull) to cover 2 weeks day-by-day. So, here are the highlights:

Manuel Antonio - The Manuel Antonio National Park is situated very close to the city of Quepos, and is mainly comprised of stunning beaches. I mean really, truly stunning - the most beautiful I have seen on this trip, and only beaten in my life by the beaches I saw last time in Costa Rica, in Corcovado. We spent a few luxurious hours on a near-deserted shore, swimming in the warm water, catching some sun and watching monkeys scamper about. Having said that, this crazy family did go endure a 10 hour round trip for about 3 hours on the beach...

The food - Tico food is my favourite on the planet, without a doubt. Gallo pinto (rice, beans and herbs), platanos (plantains, very similar to bananas) in any shape or form, arroz con leche (a sort of Central American rice pudding) and the meat that Oswaldo smokes on his farm are all making me salivate just thinking about them. And that's before we even get to the gorgeous mangos you can pluck off a tree, the freshly-squeezed orange juice that gives freshly-squeezed a whole new meaning, and guavas - which are not what you or I would call guavas. These are fruits which look a lot like green boomerangs - you break open the hard case and inside are a line of scrummy, sweet furry fruits to enjoy.

Returning to Santa Cecilia - The family's move to San Jose is a relatively recent one, so that Nidia can attend the assembly and Karina can go to university. They still have their home in Santa Cecilia, a tiny village in the canton of Los Chiles, just south of the border of Nicaragua. It was here that I first made the majority of my Costa Rican friends. By pure chance, one of these, Johanny, was on the same bus as Karina and I from San Jose - it was great to see him. I also saw how many of the younger kids in the village had grown up; Jeremy was still as cool as ever, now a solid 13. His older brother, Byron, had been a nasty little 12 year old - and now is a charming 15 year old I actually get on with very well. This was also when I saw Andrey again, who had morphed from a shy 15 to an arrogant 18, whose pick-up lines included "I really want to sleep with you tonight, so I'm going to have to get you really drunk." Although I didn't take him up on his kind offer, he was a lot of fun to have around.

Going out in San Jose - Mari, Stephanie and Mari's friend Daniel took me out to Tiquicia for some dinner. This is a hill that overlooks the whole of the capital, and has a fantastic restaurant at the top. The view of all the city lights at night was breathtaking, and the food was pretty damn good too. We dropped Stephanie back at home, and then left to meet another friend, Mario, at a bar called Van Gogh. Now, don't ask me why a bar themed after a Dutch painter would have shishas on their menu, but they did - and our strawberry mint one was lovely. We sat and chatted whilst listening to a fantastic band playing lots of different Latin music - it was great. Which brings me onto...

The dancing - Like the rest of Latin America, the Costa Ricans LOVE to dance. I practised my salsa with Karina, and danced the night away with Johanny when we all went out to San Carlos - he's a phenomenal dancer - and Andrey taught me cumbia (Latin swing) which is bloody tiring but a hell of a lot of fun. On Father's Day, a couple of days before I was due to leave, I decided to teach Karina, Stephanie and Andrey some of my kind of dancing - Stepha and Andrey gave up right away, and Karina followed not long after...at least I wasn't the only one who had looked like a muppet on the dancefloor! I also watched one of Karina and Stepha's bellydance classes, which I'd never seen before. Very cool indeed!

Meeting the extended family - After meeting yet another aunt, I turned to Karina and said "I must be getting to know most of your family by now!". She looked at me, lips twitching, and said "Not really - I have 46 aunts and uncles and over 50 cousins..." Thereafter it became my mission to meet as many as possible, and I did a fair job. The cousins I'm closest to are probably Raquel, who I knew from my first trip here, and Marco, a really sweet 21 year old who developed a bit of a crush on me. I adored the mum of Jeremy and Byron, who was Karina's aunt - although I can't remember her name. I think this trip I probably saw 15 cousins and 10 aunts and uncles - not bad for 2 weeks!

Aguas Zarcas - One afternoon, Karina, Andrey, Marco and I travelled to the town of Aguas Zarcas to swim in the thermal waters. By the time we arrived it was dark, and we spent a great evening being virtually the only people in this stunning location - rainforest surrounding you whilst you sat in pools warmed by the earth's heat. Unfortunately, I forgot my camera. Sorry about that!

Learning the language - When I first came to Costa Rica, I fell in love with Spanish and kicked myself for having chosen to study German at school. That first trip enabled me to learn the very, very basics - and communication was a bit of a challenge because Karina spoke about as much English as I spoke Spanish, and nobody else understood a word. Fortunately, by this trip Karina's English was very good, Stepha's is improving (although she's often too self-conscious to use it) and my Spanish is getting better. If you want me to to talk in the past or future tenses, forget it, and my grammar is atrocious, but I can express most things I want to with my growing vocabulary. Nidia really wants to learn English, so I would speak to her in Spanish, and she would reply in English, with each of us correcting one another. This was great, and she probably taught me more than anyone else, but it was also a relief when Karina was around and I could just be lazy. There were a couple of things that slowed my progress - when I first arrived, the Spanish that I could remember or had picked up in Argentina had been sabotaged by the Portuguese I'd been speaking for the past month, and this had to be phased out. Along a similar vein, I once travelled to Cartago with Nidia and had lunch with some friends, one of whom had recently spent a year in Switzerland and was desperate to practise her French. At first, my French was awful, and I kept spouting Spanish. Then I eased into it and my French returned to me...leaving me thoroughly confused when it was time to switch back to Spanish!

The Quince Años - In Latin America, a girl's 15th birthday is her coming-of-age, and a big party is usually had to celebrate. Nidia, Karina, Stepha and I attended the party of a cousin, which was a sight to behold. However, before we got there, the initial problem was my wardrobe - it simply didn't stretch to providing me with suitable clothes for a posh event. Nidia surveyed what I had to offer, dismayed, and then called for Mari - who gave me the necessary makeover to end all makeovers. The party itself was great - a huge buffet, lots of dancing (how unusual to see a load of 15 year olds boys enthusiastically heading to the dancefloor!) and lots of music - after dinner, an 8-piece band came in and performed some traditional songs before, bizarrely, dirty dancing with Nicole in front of her parents! Then, a little while later, Carnaval started - which was just so cool. About 15 drummers and dancers with elaborate headresses came in and rocked the place for 15 minutes, with plenty of audience participation - we were all issued with hats, whistles, masks and bowties! Unfortunately, when I was dragged into the centre of the circle to do some hula hooping, I forgot that I was wearing a long skirt...and proceeded to flash the whole party!

There are many other memories and happy times, but that will do for now. It was difficult to say goodbye to everyone 3 years ago, but this time was a lot harder. Still, as sad as I was to leave, I was very excited to be going home - my family and friends awaited, not to mention a double bed, power shower and full wardrobe! I've had an absolutely fabulous trip, and seen some amazing things - but unfortunately (or, in my opinion, fortunately!) it's done nothing to decrease the length of my "Countries to visit" list - it has very definitely been increased, and I have at least 3 more trips in the pipeline! Stay tuned...

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Part of trip: The RTW Gap Year Extravaganza

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