I originally wrote this for the Volunteer Experiences section of the SCLC website at work, which is a blog describing the various events and experiences living here in Sarapiqui Costa Rica, but I wanted to share it here too. So I have changed and added a few photos for here, but unfortunately many funny, sometimes hilarious, but always incriminating details and moments of our trip had to be omitted from the original article. Such as, the many people passed out drunk on the beach when we arrived, or how delicious Coconut rum was drunk with coconut water, or Cena throwing her hot dog and Chinese food on to the hood of the car for me to watch so she could get pulled up on stage to dance, or later handing me all of her possessions in a cowboy hat so she could run off in to the ocean after dancing up a sweaty storm, or the very drunk people on the bus scarfing down boxes of fried chicken with a beer still in hand.
Much to our surprise, when we got there at 2:50am, everyone was already there. In fact, we were the last 2 to arrive. Mental note, when it comes to the beach, Ticos are extremely punctual. Everyone was already in beach wear, sipping coffee, coolers and bags by the door, patiently waiting for the bus to arrive. 3am on the dot the bus arrived, everyone piled in, and we took off on the 3 hour sleepy bus ride through the biological corridor, through Northern affluent San Jose, to the Pacific coast and the peninsula of Puntarenas.
Shortly after 6am we arrived. Passing small groups of drunk people still returning home from the night before ,we found a place to park among the empty stands and booths of the Carnaval and unloaded the van and all the coolers and bags Ana had brought to feed us all. Within minutes we found a table and she had set up her ‘kitchen’ and started making coffee, pulling out enough containers of sweet bread so that we would still have leftovers on the ride home 14 hours later.Once we had absorbed enough of the magical healing powers of coffee, we soaked up our surroundings, taking in the beauty that is the early morning beach. Complete of course with tents, people waking up, and people still sleeping off the night before.
The next 6 hours passed like any other day in a beach town. People laying on the beach, swimming in the ocean, playing cards at a table in the shade, checking out the stands, listening to drummers, and then music from the grandstand. Not to mention the downsides of beach towns that include paying 1$ to go to the bathroom, 2$ for every bottle of water, 3$ for every coconut water, 4$ for hats to protect from the sun, and 10$ to rent a plastic table and chairs to move in to the shade.
About 3-4 o’clock is when things started heating up. The music started pumping from not only the grandstand, but several other booths, bars, and huts. People started drying themselves off from the ocean one last time, changing out of swimsuits in 1$ change rooms (or quickly for free in the sweltering bus), and wandering off in to the crowds of el Carnaval.
Shortly before the vaguely discussed time to go, everyone from Ana and her husband, to Yazmin and Jasmin, to Elena and Caitlin who had been on the ferry and at a separate beach, found themselves around the same place on the street near the bus either listening to or dancing to the intense beat of the drum group that first appeared earlier in the day.
Later around 8pm, after much dancing, the drum group finally disbanded and wandered off to find their own fiesta, and everyone slowly made their way back to the bus for the 3-4 hour trip back. As the bus managed to break itself free from the party that had surrounded it and we departed Puntarenas for Sarapiqui, some were already soundly sleeping in their seats, some still wet from the ocean, some eating fried chicken and passing around the leftover sweet bread from the morning, and some still chattering away about the excitement of the night.
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