Addresses

This weekend, I registered myself online with the US Embassies in Costa Rica and Panama, a process that involves telling them the addresses of the places I will be staying while in the country.  So prompted, I began gathering the addresses of where I'd be.

Addresses in Costa Rica are not as, let's say, numeric as those in the U.S.  For example, the address of the school I'm attending in Flamingo Beach is:

Centro Panamericano de Idiomas - CPI Flamingo
Al frente de la marina en Flamingo
Flamingo, Guanacaste

Translation: "In front of the marina at Flamingo Beach." 

And the address of the campus in Monteverde is:

Centro Panamericano de Idiomas – CPI Monteverde
25 metros antes de llegar a la bomba
Monteverde, Puntarenas

Translation:  "25 meters before arriving at the gas station."  Hmm, does it depend on which direction you are coming from?!  And what street are we talking about?  I guess there's only one gas station.

When I am in Guanacaste, I am hoping to go visit the family my friend Laura lived with when she lived in Costa Rica; they live in a nearby town.  Said town, Laura tells me, has only one street.  Thus, the family's address is simply their name, and the town.  "Anyone in the town will be able to tell you where their house is," Laura says.  How great!

Perhaps my favorite address is the one of the WIDECAST (turtle conservation organization) office in San Jose:
Tibas, 200 metros norte y 25 metros oeste de la Municipalidad de Tibas, casa a mana izqierda, con rotulos de tortugas

Translation: "200 meters north and 25 meters west of the municipality of Tibas, on the left side, with signs of turtles" :)

I now understand why the word for 'address' in Spanish is "dirección"!

Blog... check!

Sixteen days from now, I'll be on a plane to Costa Rica, on what I'm calling my self-imposed sabbatical.  I'll spend four weeks in Spanish school, do some volunteering with a sea turtle conservation organization, and then travel a bit through Costa Rica and Panama.

First, I'll spend three weeks here, in Flamingo Beach, Guanacaste:


My last week of school will be spent, along with my brother, in Monteverde, haven of eco-tourism (and wildlife!) in Costa Rica.  Here's the school:

Then, I'll travel to over to the Caribbean coast where I'll help patrol the beach at night for a week looking for sea turtle nests.  I'll be doing something similar to what these people did (love their honesty!):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HRVZz9ZQ8K0

Then, I'll head back to San Jose to meet Dan and join a tour back down the Caribbean coast of Costa Rica and into Panama.  Here's our planned journey:



We will spend our last couple of days in Panama City fully exploring the Panama Canal.  Dan is, of course, an engineer.  He's also a history buff.  He will happily spend hours perusing the museums, staring at the locks, and contemplating their design.  I, meantime, will be happily speaking Spanish with any random person I meet nearby, or photographing monkeys in the trees.  (Or talking to the people nearby in Spanish about the monkeys.)  We'll both be quite content.

I'll blog periodically once I get to Central America!  Y voy a tratar a escribir todo yo escribo in ingles, tambien en espanol. (We'll see... :) )