Voulnteers invade Mal Pais!

This last weekend 6 of the volunteers, including Jason and myself, went to Mal Pais. A surf beach town that blends together with Santa Teresa and Playa Carmen. Danielle, Brad, Jason and I all walked. It's about a 7 kilometer hike on the road. We were going to take a short cut but Simon who was to be our guide had to deal with some other matters. At 8:30 in the morning we came across this lovely home at the top of our first mountain. With an Imperial (beer of Costa Rican chose) sign hanging on the side. We decided it was the perfect time for a cold refreshment. The owner of the home spoke English and was quite happy to serve us. We decide to do a bar crawl on the way to Mal Pais but didn't run into anymore places. Though we did pass Mel Gibson's Costa Rican hideaway, or at least the front gate.

The lost boys,Edwin and Joesph, are working over there while enjoying the scene. They are working where we stayed, at this place that a friend of our host, Mary, is fixing up. Nil's, the friend, is a pretty awesome guy who put us up for $5 a person a night. The hotel is run down but it has a lot of potential and I'm sure it used to be a really cool place. There is a large Hontei statue at the front and a platform in the back which could have been a stage or a yoga platform among other things. There is a tree house like structure. You climb a ladder about 10 ft and reach a triangle shape d little room that could be a crow's nest or a dj booth. Anyways, Jason and I are discussing the idea of working for Nil's a bit because we loved Mal Pais so much. And we would like to have the connection of coming back for a job at this hotel once it is up and running.

We walked through the town. There are surf shops, clubs, tourist rental places and many different restaurants. We stopped at an organic salad bar for some fresh juice. Jason and I also ate at a new age type restaurant with raw foods and all vegetarian. It's call Natura Mia, and if you're in Mal Pais you should go. It's mostly imported food items but the owners are super friendly and it's really delicious place to find fresh veggie dishes that just don't exist down here. Even the grocery store was exciting. It had real soy milk (we found some powdered stuff that we later realize the second ingredient was sweet milk), imported beer, tahini, sushi fixings, and I could go on and on about the stuff they had that you can't find in Costa Rica. Of course, it's all very expensive. Costa Rica is actually very expensive, mostly in food cost. We may dip out and head to Nicaragua because it's so much cheaper.

The first day we spent shopping and checking out the town. We ended up a the cool coffee shop that night where the lost boys hang out. They play their music and the owners of the coffee shop also played some great music. Nick Drake set the mood for me that evening.

Saturday Jason and I got up to catch a yoga class but got distracted collecting shells on the beach and missed it. So we got a surf board a The Shit Hole. Take note, The Shit Hole is amazing! The guy who runs it is Italian and the nicest guy. He knocked the price down for us. We lost a fin in the first hour and he apologized and gave us a new board. We went back the next day before our 24 hours was up and asked if we could keep it for longer for a couple bucks and he just told us not to worry about it. We could keep it as long as we wanted. The ankle strap broke that morning and he once again didn't seem to care and offered to replace it. We could have ended up paying a couple hundred dollars in damages if he wanted to charge us but nothing at all. A totally awesome deal. Go to The Shit Hole in Mal Pais.

Surfing is so much fun. I never got into skateboarding or bmx when I was a kid and I
kind of relate surfing to those sports but man, surfing is so much fun. Even if you just catch a wave and ride in our your belly, which is mostly what I did. I did stand up quite a few times which is really cool for it being my first time. The hardest part is getting out far enough. I think if I got to the area where the waves first begin to break I wouldn't want to catch one back because it's so hard to get out there. But it was a blast. I'm totally taking up surfing now guys.

Mal Pais is a really fun place. Everyone is friendly, everyone speaks English (though that's not really a plus when you're trying to learn Spanish) the hostels are all really nice and there are a ton of them. There are sports bars, night clubs, coffee shops, lots of hand made souvenir shops (I got me a bathing suit) but you should be there for the beach. The water is warm and inviting, and you have the jungle right behind you. In fact, there was a wild anteater where we stayed on Saturday. It was really hard to come back to Rainsong.

Saturday night we listened to the lost boys perform. I hoped to hear them solo but two locals sat in with them. I wanted to record but there is too much background noise. I took a walk on the beach back home. There was heat lighting over the ocean and I thought about how far I am away from my friends and home but I'm still doing the same thing. I'm completely satisfied and really happy here and now.

When we got home from Mal Pais, Gabbi and Siri were waiting for us. They had cleaned the volunteer house and cooked us dinner. It was really awesome. Thank you ladies for being so wonderful and fun. It's going to be hard to leave!

The boys drove us back to Rainsong Sunday evening. This was our last ride with them and our goodbye. It's my first rough goodbye of the trip. I really enjoy their presence and their music. They gave us a shell that we had been looking for as a gift and I almost cried. I know there is always facebook, but they want to travel is similar places, so maybe we will see them in South America or India some day. Edwin is writing a book so that's another thing I'll have to remember. Goodbye lost boys, take care of yourselves on your journey!