The Farm

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Posted by Megan 12/22

Well, we are officially done with classes. We both passed with an A. And we got moved to the new place... which happens to be a much better place!!! That was the quickest move I've ever lived through. We packed all our stuff up and got it moved over to the new house in a grand total of maybe 2 hours.

The new place is on a farm on the outskirts of town. It is such a beautiful place. There are chickens running around everywhere, and there are cows, horses, iguanas, and a huge cage of really big, green parrots that talk and whistle back to you when you talk or whistle at them.

The showers are way better here at the new place (still cold), the fan works better, there is more room in the kitchen (and even a pantry to put stuff in!) and there is a lot of room to get comfortable... There are 6 rooms (all rented out) which surround a big central room that has some really comfortable chairs and even a TV. 4 of the other rooms are rented out to the some of the people that we went to class with, and one room is rented out to an Italian couple. And there is a huge wrap around porch with tables and chairs and hammocks and lots of places to sit. Oh, and Christina (the landlady) has hired help for the farm and they clean the house and change the sheets and stuff. We are truly living in the lap of luxury right now. We'd like to stay here, but unfortunately, we are moving to Heredia to teach at Intercultura in January.

We bought bikes to be able to get around easier and faster, especially since the new place is so far out of town (about a 15 minute walk) but right now they are both out of commission. John got a flat tire last night so we left it at the shop, and this morning (like dumbasses) we tried to both ride on the bike into town and we ended up bending the rim. They're supposed to have both of them fixed within the next hour or so. When we first got here, walking was just part of the norm and it was no big deal, but now when I have to walk somewhere it seems to take forever. I've gotten so spoiled with the bikes.

I'm going to buy a surfboard today if I can find one. I'm surfing almost everyday and I'm spending almost as much to rent it as I would to buy one... plus the fact that they're only open certain days and certain hours, and I can't rent a board and take it to another beach, etc, etc. I am going to just buy one and then resell it when we leave. There's always a market here for used boards. They're just hard to find so I'm hoping that I will be able to find one.

The waves in Samara are usually pretty small even at high tide... and there's almost nothing at low tide. So Saturday we went to Camaronal, which is a 40 minute drive (must have a 4WD to cross the river) and surfed. The day we went, the waves were supposedly small for Camaronal, but thank God for that! Some of them were 5-6 feet. It was pretty exciting, but had they been any bigger at all, I probably wouldn't have even tried. I did get up on a few of them and boy was it exhilarating! It was also very, very tiring to get back out there for another wave. And then yesterday, we went to Buena Vista beach, which is only about a 15 minute walk from the farm. That was nice too. The waves weren't near as high as at Camaronal, but they were still higher than Samara. Yesterday I tried a really small board (7', which is really small for me... the bigger the board, the easier it is) because I didn't have one with me (like I said, it's not easy to get one to take to another beach) and it worked out ok. I didn't think I'd be able to, but I was able to get up a few times.

Well, I guess I'm off on a surfboard hunt!

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