Welcome to the menagerie in my shower.

Hola a todos!
We´re still here in rainy Costa Rica.
Not a whole lot has really happened since we last updated. We realized that we live in the boondocks, and not in an actual recognizable city. (By recognizable, I mean that when you get on a bus, the name of Carillos isn´t in the window that tells you where you are going. You have to get on the bus that goes to the nearest largest city and hop off early.) Here are the things that people like to do in the Boondocks called Carillos Bajo:

• Taxistas like to say ´Hey baby! I love you!´when you walk past them.
• Guard dogs like to kill cats and leave their corpses in the yard as a warning to other cats.
• Host dads named Tito like to drive semi truck cabs that have pictures of American eagles in front of confederate flags on the door.
• EVERYONE (including us and some of our teachers and bus drivers) like to sing karaoke at the Pavo Real bar (which means Peacock in Spanish).

Also in Carillos Bajo, my host mom likes to teach me life lessons. Here are some:

• If you eat all of the food you normally eat plus a bowl of diet cereal, it will help you to not get fat.
  
• If you have a headache, take at least three different pills to cure it, even if the pills aren´t meant for headaches.
• Dogs who have fleas are healthier because it causes them to have stronger immune systems.
• If you wear sandals, you WILL get sick.
• It´s good to have bugs in the house because it teaches us that we need to learn to share our space will all of God´s living creatures.
• It´s good to have lizards in the house because they eat the bugs.

I hope that I have imparted a little bit of wisdom in this post, even though I´m sure it wasn´t that entertaining. Now I have to go do homework, so I will leave you with this quote which I have to write about for tomorrow. Let me know what you think of it.

´Es tan corto el amore y es tan largo el olvido.´ Neruda

"Don´t talk to the antisocials": Lessons from día uno in Costa Rica

¡Hola a todos! Today was our first full day in Costa Rica. I arrived here last night after a flight delay caused by "an accident" (which really did wonders for my flight anxiety) and was finally met by my host mom around 11. She is named Flora and she has a son named Juan Gabriel. She also has a husband named Tito and 2 other children, but they are working out of the country and married & living somewhere else, respectively (or was it the other way around?), so it is just the three of us in the house. (I´m having Peru flashbacks of my single mother/same aged son living situation...but I´m fairly certain this will be different since this mother seems to be overprotective instead of encouraging me to binge drink until 6 in the morning).

The Institute is nice. It seems to be HUGE and full of cats that pretend to be your friend until something in their head switches and says "¡Quiero probar su sangre!"and bites your thumb. And by "your"I mean "Ben´s."

I think I´ll like it here if I can get my mind around the fact that I have to speak Spanish instead of horrible Spanglish. (Por ejemplo, I can´t say "Vamos and hablar with otros people.")

That is really all I have to say for now. I´d love to write more, but it has taken me twenty minutes to write this, since this keyboard is NOT labeled with the actual characters that are created when you press the keys. I have been relying heavily on Microsoft Character Map. Also, the kids running the internet place are blasting Dragon Force, and while I do occasionally enjoy a little bit of soprano death metal, I have a little dolor in my cabeza, and I sort of want to go home to play with my host mom´s pregnant miniature pinscher.

¡Pura Vida!

The First Two Days!

So, I have been in Costa Rica for less than two days and already I have been talking in spanish so much. I pretty much hit the host family jackpot and will be reaping the rewards for a long time to come. I arrived at the airport at 5:30 in the morning, this is where I met my host sister. She is fully grown and lives with her husband, but she volunteered to take me to the airport because my host-parents do not have a car. They dropped me off and we all had breakfast, a hearty meal of pinto gallo(beans, onions, peppers, some sort of sauce, and rice), eggs, fruit(a huge plate which included papayas from a tree in our backyard, mangos, pinapples, and many more), coffee and juice. I took a nap and didnt wake up until lunch time. My room is rather large with a huge window looking onto the front porch, which is more like a giant covered patio. The whole house is surrounded with the bursting tropics. It is not located in Alajuela, but rather in a tiny town just a short ride from Alajuela It has a few rooms for relaxing, listening to music, a large kitchen, the other bedrooms and then it´s back outside, this time for an uncovered garden/patio. Here is my favorite item in the house, our hammock. Further back is a small pool, which unfortunately is yet to be tiled. Up a metal spiral staircase there is another bedroom and above that is an elevated large covered balcony. I dont believe that my host-parents have jobs other than taking care of the students and working on the house. My host father is a lively man who loves to talk and especially to joke. They were extatic to learn that I spoke spanish because their last student couldnt and hid in his room. My mom is a little bit of a gossiper, but she is kind and an excellent cook.

Today we went to the institute. It is basically an exspansive and beautiful garden with many outdoor classrooms and auditoriums. The only complaint I have is that there are too many students. The great thing is that outside the school, I am mostly surrounded by ticos all of the time. I am speaking so much it feels as though my head will explode. As of now, Ive gone to both of the cities near our village. As is par for the course for Benjamin, I left my messenger bag in a restaurant, but it only had my notebook in it. I bought a new one emblazened with the words ¨fast cars¨on it. It is also covered in pictures of the new hummer. I figured Id step outside my comfort zone on this one.

This is fast turning into the first chapter of a novel, so Id best be off,

Much love,

Benjamin Scott Malichi Silverfox Roberts

P.S. Did I mention that my host parents are jewish.

P.S.S. Chandra just walked in. I bet she might blog, oh and incase you didnt notice, apostrophes do not exist in spanish.

The World is a book, and those who do not travel read only a page.

Now it's my turn to write!
This is Chandra, by the way.
I feel like I need to mention the fact that Ben and I have little to no money with which to make this trip. We are poor. Theoretically, I'll have a college degree by the time we leave, but that doesn't mean I'll have more money (unless my relatives feel generous and send me dolla dolla billz for a graduation present). Since I'm not above begging or accepting undeserved gifts from strangers, I invite you all to click the following:

Think of it as one of those "feed the children" campaigns, only in this case, Ben and I are the children, and "feed" really translates to "give a little bit of cashola for bus fare to". Give it some thought. If you donate just $1, we will probably be able to travel for a day on it.

Also, I want to mention that we want to include you in our travels! If you guys feel like commenting, DO IT. If you have suggestions as to funny pictures we should take (hanging upside down from a tree, petting a farm animal - no pigs, just to be safe -, or riding on a boat), go ahead and ask us. If you want a postcard, give us your address. I'm serious about the last one. I've been collecting addresses for a few weeks.

We are going to do our best to keep you updated on everything we are doing, and once I get better at figuring out how make this blog do what I want, I'll be posting our route and itinerary, if Ben doesn't beat me to it.

Also, while you're here, go ahead and bookmark this page. If you're our true friends, you'll make it your homepage.

That is all. Keep checking in with us!

Blog Numero Uno

So, This is a blog to document the travels and trials of Chandra Potter and Benjamin Roberts, who, as of May 17th, will be lost somewhere between Panama and Cancun, Mexico. This will be the place to keep updated about our life on the road. As many of you may remember, Connor Oburst once sang that, "There is nothing that the road cannot heal." With about a third of the angst, we agree with Mr. Oburst. We leave this country with one purpose. We want to see and experience as many things as is possible. 

Our trip starts in Alejuela, Costa Rica where we will be attending classes with the university. During this time, which lasts three weeks, we will be staying with host families. We hope to make it to Panama on one of our free weekends. After our stay in Costa Rica we will be headed to Nicaragua. First stop La Isla Ometepe, which is an island in Lake Nicaragua that has formed between two volcanoes. We will then head to the beautiful town of Granada. Next, we will hit up a few other towns before ultimately heading to Honduras, where we'll only be staying one night before continuing on to El Salvador. Our first stop in El Salvador will be the quaint village of Alegria. The, we will head to Santa Ana to visit a child that Chandra sponsors. Afterwards, we will cross back into Honduras and find ourselves in the PreColombian Mayan ruins at Copan.  After our venture through history, we will high-tail it to Guatemala City. For Benjamin's birthday, we will be staying at the Black Cat Inn in Antigua, Guatemala.  Next, we carry on to Lake Atitlan. We will be spending close to three weeks on and around the lake, before heading on to Tikal. After camping a few nights, we will jump the border into Belize. We will head into Belize City before hopping onto a boat and heading to the Ambergris Caye with one goal in mind: The Rum Punch II, a cocktail hour tour boat. We will head from this isla bonita straight into Mexico. Once in Mexico, we plan to relax on the various beaches of the Yucatan Peninsula before flying out of Cancun.

If we can manage to avoid swine flu and gang violence, we will be flying back towards the beginning of August to return to life as normal.