This weekend we visited el Parque Nacional Manuel Antonio. The fuzzy animals in the terrible video above (apologies for the cinematography) are called pizotes, and I actually didn't see them at the park--this is at the restaurant of the hotel we stayed at. As you can see, they love people food--a little girl fed them until they came all the way into the restaurant.
On Saturday night, we went on a night hike and saw tarantulas, a coral snake, poisonous centipedes, a scorpion, and a huge hill of ants. Very intense!
I think the highlight of the trip for me, though, was a stop at the touristy strip of beach outside the park, where dozens of vendors were peddling postcards, sundresses, jewelry, and other souvenir trinkets. Most vendors shouted at me in English: "Hello, my pretty! Look, my friend! Good price! Very nice!" I mostly just smiled and walked past, but one booth caught my eye. As I knelt down to look at the jewelry, the woman behind the table said, "Hola. Usted habla espanol?" When I said yes, she started to tell me quietly about the jewelry in Spanish. She asked me where I was from and how long I had been in Costa Rica, and she told me she was from Uruguay and had been here 8 months. I talked to her for about 15 minutes, and it was one of the most satisfying conversations I've had in Spanish. Mostly, I appreciated her respect for me as a human being (rather than a potential buyer/naive tourist) and the opportunity she gave me to prove and improve my skills.
3 comments:
Awesome story.
I'm interested to hear about this dream you had and what it entailed... :)
Tarantula, as in, you could wake up and find one in your bedroom? I would freak out.
What gems you witnessed in nature! Very few experience them, so I am glad your appreciation is enough to write about them and share them with us. The part about the little girl baiting the pizote into the restaurant is cute. And while you are grateful for the willingness of the vendor to speak with you at length in her native, I think the vendor must feel that you honored her language; and you helped put her at ease, especially because she need not clutz around in a second language.
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