Back in town

It's back to city life for my last week in Costa Rica. Gone are the pleasant breezes, calming waves and empty streets of Sámara; and in their place are the noisy buses, bustling shops, jam-packed avenues and diesel fumes of Heredia. It's drier in Heredia than it was three weeks ago. The afternoon rains are either lighter or non-existent as Costa Rica transitions from its wet season to its dry season. The mornings are warmer but the evenings seem cooler, though I don't know if that's due to me getting accustomed to Sámara or to an actual lack of humidity. As much as I loved Sámara and its enchanting beauty, it was nice to return to the milder temperatures and find-anything-you-need convenience of Heredia – not to mention Zeneida's cooking and the freedom from bugs bigger than my thumb. I've been at the very least a high-density suburbanite (and at the most a wannabe city dweller) ever since my days in college, and I'll probably be that way until I at least start a family.

For my final week of class, I'm taking Advanced 4 with Jesús, the substitute who covered for Silvia the first Wednesday I was here. He's a lively character and, as you may remember, spoke a bit faster than Silvia. I don't know if he's speaking slower or if my listening comprehension has improved, because I can understand him a lot better than I did three weeks ago. We are studying the really hardcore Spanish tenses this week – the compound subjunctive and conditional, which are used to express things like, "The party would've been more fun if you'd invited more people." There were a couple of familiar faces – Tara from Ohio, Emily from San Francisco and Alison from Oregon – as well as a lot of new students as well. Melissa is here from Arizona and she's the model image of a globetrotting ecotraveler – travels light and casual with Mac Airbook in hand. She loves to talk about outdoor adventures and is itching to go straight into the rainforest and make her way to Sámara next week. Of course, Silvia was here and it was fun to catch up with her. She's a supremely busy Tica who spends her afternoons at the university, studying for her Master's in teaching Spanish as a second language.

This afternoon I went to La Paz Waterfall Gardens with Mireilla and Nanda, two new students from Holland. La Paz is a beautifully tended section of the rainforest with bird, monkey and butterfly exhibits – and of course some spectacular waterfalls. It was an interesting place to visit, although after getting down and dirty for two weeks in the more remote parts of Costa Rica, it was a bit of a letdown to see this "sanitized" version of Tico country with metal stairs, stone-tiled walking paths and wooden balconies overlooking the waterfalls. I would've enjoyed it more if I'd gone there my first week, but it still afforded me the opportunity to see some of the animals I didn't encounter during my more adventurous trips.