Vamos a ir a Puerto Viejo.

We’re leaving for Puerto Viejo at 1:30 this afternoon, so I have class for one more hour and then we’ll be on a bus for five-ish hours, on our way to the Caribbean. I won’t have my laptop there, even though the hotel has free wi-fi – I just don’t want to risk leaving it in the room, since it’s a big tourist spot (basically: target) and they basically said don’t take anything valuable.

I’m more than a little excited. Obviously, I’ll be loading on the bug spray and sunscreen, but I’m not that worried about the malaria threat.

Here’s the link to the hotel:

http://www.totemsite.com/puerto_viejo_hotel/rooms_rates_totem.htm

And this is what it says about our suite:

We also offer you 6 big suites beach front, with private pool and an incomparable view of the ocean. The suites rooms include a separate living room with bamboo chairs, loveseat and a glass coffee table, all have various service, like: cable TV, coffee maker and mini bar.

Out of the 28 of us going, we got four of the six suites, so 16 of us will have private pools in addition to the beach…so it’s going to be nuts.

Last night was ridiculous. We found out there’s a bar within walking distance of our houses, 800 meters from the INCAE entrance. Not everyone went – a lot of the girls went to the library, so they could get access to the Internet and work on our first assignment. I finished my first assignment during class (it’s easy to do other things when your professor is only speaking Spanish, so it doesn’t take much effort to zone out) so there was no way I was staying in.

We started at Alex’s house, which is about 10 feet away and has become the party house, I guess. It was Andrea’s 21st and she’s not a big drinker at all, so she was pretty gone after about 2 shots. Ironic that she spent her 21st birthday where the drinking age is 18. It ended up being about 13 or 14 of us, and it took maybe 15 minutes to get to the bar.

We were walking on the road and one of the girls started screaming and running. We were all obviously like, what is going on, before we looked to the right and…there was a horse 5 feet from us, on the side of the road. A horse. Chilling on the side of the road. We also saw a rooster, a toad and a dog during those 15 minutes.

So we finally got to the bar, walked inside, and…it was like something out of a movie. It’s the student bar, and every single Costa Rican swiveled their chairs around and stared at us. The bar went dead silent. There was a dance floor and music, and it just stopped. We walked to the back of the bar, and everyone followed us with their eyes. Chairs swiveled to watch us walk to the back. It was insane.

It was a good time, though. I was craving pizza at about midnight, so Julio and I just split fajitas de pollo and papas fritas. I definitely could have used Pizza House right about then. They have a Pizza Hut here, actually, and some of the kids have already ordered delivery. I kind of want to order pizza here just once, but any more than that, I’d feel ashamed that I wasn’t eating the local food.

We all kind of left the bar in waves. Andrea ended up getting really sick, so her roommates took her home. There were about five of us left and we were the last ones in the bar…and it was, like, 12:30 in the morning. The bar had totally emptied out. Everything ends so early here, but we’re up so early and it gets dark so early that it feels totally normal to be tired by 8 p.m. We finally got back around 1 a.m., and it’s hilarious this morning in class…people keep getting up to go to the bathroom, Andrea is completely passed out at her desk, and one of the guys was curled up in the fetal position on a pool chair during our coffee break.

Well, this is it until Sunday night, or maybe Monday morning during class. I hope the weather is good for the beach…but regardless of that, there are 28 people going to the Caribbean and it’s going to feel like a high school spring break trip all over again.