Missy | February 25, 2002
What I Did on My Vacation: A Theme By Melissa S.
I got in to Pura Vida (a name which is also a slang phrase in Costa Rica, which loosely means “good vibes”) late on Saturday the 16th, and it already being dark, I had no grasp of what my surroundings held for me. So, as soon as I unpacked myself in my little tent (not a tent-tent as in roughing-it-camping-tent, but a sturdy-entire-room-with-a-comfortable-bed-tent) which happened to be around 9 pm (central time). As it turns out, 9 pm would be my chosen bedtime for the remainder of the week. Sunday I woke up to screeching exotic birds and very early-morning sunlight, thus starting my day by 6 am (which would also become a routine). Crawling out of my tent, my breath was taken by what I saw. (And if I owned a digital camera, you’d be seeing it too right now.) The clearest of clear blue skies, mountains in every direction, green green green, several varieties of flora……I made my way to breakfast, a building on top of a hill which overlooked a coffee plantation. Afterwards, I went on a hike through said coffee fields. You wouldn’t believe the terrain. It is so hilly, and the brush so dense, that the harvesting needs to be done by hand.
The rest of the week, when I wasn’t sunning myself, in yoga class (twice a day), or getting a massage, I went hiking through the Lapaz Waterfall Gardens, and the Poas Volcano (which features a brilliant turquoise green and highly acidic crater lake, the color of which I’ve never seen in nature). I also white water rafted 18 miles of the Pacuare River through Class III & IV rapids.
The Pura Vida property is amazing. They take meticulous care of the grounds and the landscaping. The yoga halls are perched on the side of a hill overlooking Alajuela, and they are beautiful, with fabuloius wood floors. (You can see photos here.) My favorite, Lila Hall, features a large adjacent cage housing three toucans. The toucans never try to escape, but one of them, pesky little Max, always tries to get into the hall (which he did once while I was there; it’s too funny to watch his little clawed feet skate across the wood floor) and if he’s not allowed in while there’s a class going on, he screams.
I ate like a king–mostly vegetarian gourmet organic meals, a constant stream of fresh fruit, the best coffee I’ve ever had, and I didn’t drink once. With all the clean living, I think I dropped a couple of pounds while I was there, and I felt fantastic. Of course, I pretty much undid all my good work within the past day & a half (pizza, beer, you get the picture).
Hey, I’ve got a question for anyone who’s flown from El Salvador. What is it with those people and fried chicken? Virtually every single Latin American on that flight (and there were many; I was one of only a handful of caucasians on board) were carrying cases of it. There was a little woman next to me with some (and I can assuredly say I sat there smelling this chicken the whole 4.5 hour flight). She didn’t speak any English, was about as old as Moses, and she needed help filling out her customs form and gave me Salvadoran candy as a thank-you. I later saw her carrying her enormous and undoubtedly heavy bag on her head. Smelly chicken or not, she was adorable.
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