Bungee Jumping: “If you don't like something, change it. If you can't change it, change your attitude. Don't complain.” — Maya Angelou"

Costa Rican winter has finally hit! Thankfully, winter here is a little bit different than winter in the states. It is still 80°, it just rains all the time. Every day. For hours. They call the seasons summer and winter; but near the equator, they have two seasons that are defined in other parts of the world as the rainy and dry seasons. No doubt, we are currently in the rainy season.

In accordance with the seasons, as I stepped out on the tiny ledge last Friday afternoon, my bare toes sticking over the edge, the rain beat down on me. I took a quick glance back and made eye contact with my friend Pavel. What was I thinking? Was I really prepared to jump off a nearly 300 foot bridge? Before I had time to return my feet to solid ground, the countdown had begun. 5-4-3-2-1. And off I went. Arms spread wide, free-falling through the air, screaming my lungs out. Were the rain drops hitting me? Was I traveling as fast as they were. Those were the last of my thoughts as I plunged towards the river below, adrenaline pulsing quickly through my veins.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The rest of the weekend didn’t go as planned. But  in general doesn’t go as planned and I still had a great time. The weather for the beach looked terrible, it was supposed to rain all weekend. I opted to stay in San Jose and see what I could find. At ten o’clock Saturday morning, I was in my room, in my jammies, when I heard a knock on my door. Assuming it was my abuela, I went to open it. It was Pavel, my best friend here in Costa Rica. I will admit that he caught me in the middle of a little early packing. He gave me a hard time about it and we did some research about what we could do in San Jose, as well as watched an episode of friends and laughed together. Eventually, two of my other friends, Jason, who always has something funny to say, and Adam, showed up and we headed off to explore San Jose. We ended up at a coffee shop drinking strong black coffee and eating tiramisu.

Naturally, it rained the whole day. However,  we walked all over town and I found my tazas locas (crazy cups). They are actually aluminum coffee cups that are used with the traditional method of coffee making here. We headed to the mall to catch a movie, but apparently the mall is the place to be on Saturdays in San Jose. It was packed with people. The movies were sold out for the rest of the night. With our plan of watching a movie ruined, I wanted to get a pedicure. I had heard they were super cheap. The guys didn’t want us to separate, so I tried to get them to get one with me… but I wasn’t too successful. They opted to head back while I had the best pedicure of my life. They lady spent over an hour working on my tosies, and it costs me $10. I returned today and had a wonderful massage and a haircut. I am not opposed to spending a rainy weekend like that.

I may have never planned a weekend like this, but it sure turned out to be a fun and relaxing weekend on my Costa Rican journey.