School of the World (Escuela del Mundo) – Playa Jaco, Costa Rica.
March 14 - April 11, 2010
Jaco has earned a bad reputation as being overdeveloped and very Americanised. However it is nothing on the scale of Cancun and other developed surf towns around the world. I would say it is more of a cross between Hawks Nest and Surfers Paradise, if you could imagine that. It is really a one street town but full to the brim of bars, restaurants, souvenir shops and a side serve of sleaziness.
The school for travellers to learn Spanish, Surf, Photography and practice yoga. My selection included Spanish and Yoga. It really was an eclectic group for the first two weeks, about 15 people representing ten nationalities and every decade of birth represented from the 1940’s through to the 1990’s.
While the days were busy with Spanish class for two hours, one hour of Spanish lab in the afternoon and 90 minutes of yoga each day, it was an easy existence for a traveller. Patience was only tested when a visit to the bank was required. It is not unusual to wait two hours to be served. Then being served can take the best part of an hour. This is just to change some travellers cheques. The upside however is that the banks are heavily air conditioned.
The second two weeks witnessed a considerable shift in the culture of the school with many nationalities and age groups leaving and Americans in their 20s and 30s arriving.
I was spoiled at the school as I had one-on-one Spanish tuition for the entire month with the wonderful Laura. One would think this would have a dramatic effect on my ability to speak the language, particularly as corporal punishment was administered if ever I spoke English in class. (You can imagine the first week was tops!) While I now have a sizeable vocabulary and am getting down with conjugating verbs, preferably in the present tense, I still struggle with full sentences. But it will take time and I have time, and patience.
Week three was Semana Santa, or Easter Week. That week the beach filled with ticos, all camping out for the weekend. It was quite amazing seeing hundreds of tents lining the beach. I’m not sure where everyone went for comfort stops but they all looked happy and the local council cleaned up well afterwards. Easter Thursday and Good Friday are the main religious days observed in Costa Rica so most things were shut those days and alcohol could not be sold anywhere in the country. By Saturday morning many were going home.
In the final two weeks Oana and I met at 6am each morning to walk along the beach for 1-2 hours. It was still pretty hot even at this hour but it was nice to get some more exercise in as the heat makes you very lazy. Often we were escorted by a local dog who would feel like coming along with us – never the same dog. On the final day of walking we came across what I thought was a snake on the beach. No, I said, its just a bit of black plastic with a yellow strip. Alas, a tica girl came and told us it indeed was a snake and it didn’t take long to work out it was alive. The tica girl was lovely, pointing out all the other snakes as we walked along the beach. Then we saw one coated in dry sand, barely visible. I asked the girl, Es peligroso? Si, muy peligroso. Feeling quite uneasy now we decided to walk up to the road and continue on to the French bakery that way. Our canine escort that morning was no use at all, she just ran away and caught up with us when we were on the road. Later in the day I mentioned the snakes to Zach, the guy who owns the school and has lived here for 13 years. He couldn’t quite believe it. He has never seen or heard anything like all those snakes being washed up but he did tell me they were deadly should they bite you. Now you can see why that was our last day walking on the beach.
After four weeks I was ready to push on with my adventure.
