SUP-er fun!

Sometime last summer I heard about a new sport called paddleboarding for the first time.  Basically, you stand up on a surfboard and paddle around, hence its proper name stand up paddleboarding or “SUP” as it’s commonly known.  I wanted to try it immediately.  Unfortunately, since paddleboards run about $1300 and there aren’t a lot of places to rent them around Grand Rapids, I had to wait until today.  It was definitely worth the wait.

Paddle, Paddle

Before leaving, I found out about Del Mar Extreme, a company that is located in Jacó.  They offer kickboxing, yoga, pilates, surf coaching, mountain biking tours and of course, SUP.  After emailing with Giannina, one of the owners, a few times I told Todd that we had to go to Jacó while we in Costa Rica so I could try it.  Naturally, our first weekend in San José was the perfect time to come and give it a try since Jacó is the nearest beach town to San José.

Future Pro Paddleboarder?

This morning, Giannina and her boyfriend, Michael, picked us up from our hotel (Hotel Mar de Luz – it’s very nice and very comfortable and, even better, it’s Dutch!) at 7:30am.  We headed to Punta Leona beach which is just outside of Jacó.  It’s buried behind a private, gated community but since all of Costa Rica’s beaches are public, there’s access to the beach if you know how to find it.  The beach was virtually deserted when we got there and Giannina gave us a quick run down of how to paddleboard and then we hit the water.

Todd and I paddling around

I was worried that it would be hard but I got up right away and just started paddling.  Balance is key so I found a comfortable stance and didn’t move from it except to occasionally cool off in the ocean.  We went all over the place, along one coast then across the little bay and around a rocky point that led to another beach.  It was so beautiful and we even saw a sea turtle just a few feet away from us in the water.  Towards the end, I started getting tired and my legs got a little shaky from working so hard to balance but it was totally worth the soreness that I’m sure I’ll wake up with tomorrow.

After two hours of paddling around the water we were definitely tired.  Thankfully, Giannina had brought along water and fresh, cut fruit – watermelon and pineapple, my favorites!  It was the perfect way to top off the morning of paddleboarding.

Relaxing Post-SUP

SUP is definitively a full-body workout but a full-body workout that is so much more fun than going to the gym.  I loved it!  I wish we had year-round summer at home so I could justify the purchase of a paddleboard.  Trying paddleboarding was definitely my favorite activity that we’ve done in Costa Rica, by far.  If you ever have the chance to try it, you most definitely should.  It’s not that hard to do, it’s good for your body and it’s really, really fun!

Getting Out of San José.

After our first week in San Jose, Kate and I are spending the weekend in Jaco, a beach town about 2 and a half hours southwest of the Capitol.  By all accounts, Jaco is the kind of place I normally hate: it is extreme tourism, Costa Rica version. What that means is: 90% of the people on the street are American, the place is lined with “surf shops”, the one-man Mariachi band doesn’t play for tips: if he plays at your table, it will cost you 1000 colones (~$2.00), and a least half of the tourists think they are in the middle of spring break, despite the fact that they appear to have last been properly on Spring Break 10 years (and 20 pounds) ago.

With that said, I could NOT be happier to be here.

As I said to Kate at dinner, there is a lot you’ll put up with in exchange for space, comfort, and good food, three things we have here that are in seriously short supply in San Jose.

This week was rough. After a wonderful experience in Potrero, we knew San Jose was not going to be as good. We did not expect this.

In a nutshell, we are working at a glorified day care center with poorly-behaved children, trapped (note: we moved out today and are staying in a hostel next week) in a truly awful apartment that we cannot leave because the neighborhood is unsafe after dark.  After going to a nice grocery store a 15-minute bus ride away, I felt like a real person again…only to witness a knife fight while waiting for the return bus.  As an added bonus, I learned that if your neighbor’s bass is loud enough, even concrete walls will rattle, and that 5 nights is not enough time to learn how to sleep through roosters crowing every 2-3 minutes from 4:00 a.m. on.

After much deliberation, Kate and I have decided to work in San Jose next week (while living at a hostel), before returning to Potrero next Friday, where we will spend a week running the Abriendo Mentes program ourselves while Drew and Meradith are back in the U.S.  We’re really excited to be heading back there, and still debating how to share our opinions with the organization in San Jose.

Have any of you had a bad experience while volunteering/interning?  We want to give honest feedback to the founders of the program in San Jose, who now live and work in the U.S., and explain to them that the program isn’t exactly the “after school arts and literacy program” they bill it as, while not sounding ungrateful/snobbish.   Thoughts?