May 28 to June 5, 2009

yoga on the deck: me, Ang, Jilly, JP, Robin, Karla

The six friends arrived in two shifts and left in two stages for PeishkaPaloosa ’09. This is the fourth annual reunion us of girls who played ultimate together back in the day. When I proposed we meet in Costa Rica for 2009, the response was overwhelming. When the girls bought tickets and actually showed up, I was thrilled. (Previous PPs were in Taos, NM, Estes Park, CO, and Coeur d’Alene, ID.)

I’d tried to be the best tour guide ever, and settled on Sámara as having everything we could want and more, with options to do other activities if anyone wanted. We had the luxury of private transport from San José, and the driver stopped for us to eat along the way at a restaurant whose trees were conveniently filled with macaws and howler monkeys. The parrots were pets, more or less, but the monkeys were free to roam and just happened to be there.

It is rainy season and we enjoyed the first of several downpours while we ate lunch. Rain was never too big of an issue, since the storms only hit for brief periods usually. We did end up running along the beach for the short trip between the bar and Juanita’s house where we stayed one evening. And then it takes a good solid sun to dry the wet clothes since it’s just damp all the time. Robin even gave up her morning run since she’d start the day wet and stay wet all day long after that. I recommended several cold water showers.

pina coladas

I had prepared the peishkas for things like the food being real mediocre in CR and the mosquitoes being fierce, so when food was fairly tasty and bugs weren’t ALWAYS biting, no one was super disappointed. Since we’d bought groceries in Nicoya on the way into Sámara and cooked most meals in Juanita’s kitchen, the girls were real pleased with the food when we ate out a couple times.

As always, the kitchen was a gathering place, and everyone took turns cooking and cleaning up. I was dumping some papaya skin and seeds out in the yard one morning and heard Jill say, the stove’s on fire. I turned to see the flames as high as the top of the windows, hoping the curtains or Jen’s hair wasn’t catching fire too. I neglected to give everyone an in-service on the stove which only has two burners that function, and the oven doesn’t work at all. Juani said it blew up once and has never been the same since. (The microwave also doesn’t work these days, hopefully not because I turned it on when Juani had left peanuts in a metallic wrapper in there for storage. There were flames and explosions then, too.)

surf's up, shredders!

Fungenda
Some of the activities on the fungenda were beach walks and runs, surfing including JP’s lessons with Coco (“lie down now”), visits to the internets, shopping runs to Leo’s Dragonfly art studio, yoga on the deck, a hike to Buena Vista to see my friend Davina’s art and her property, and a trip to Camaronal to see turtles (no, we didn’t see them). We did get one car stuck in a muddy puddle along the way, in both directions, and then all crammed into Pablo’s jeep for the river crossing.

We also swam almost every evening, traded foot massages and pedicures, and shared in the now traditional family circle. We played ultimate on the beach where the local boys play soccer most days, and since we can’t stop our competitive selves, there were some injuries. JP and Karla got huge blisters and Ang laid it out, getting a tough raspberry on her hip. Later, after everyone was gone and I was talking with some of my friends from the surf shop near where we played, I was told about a bunch of “veteranas” playing with a disc. The boys were impressed with the skills, but mostly were commenting on how hot all the girls were, despite being over 30.

disc star Stacey on the playa

At Ang’s urging, we went out to the Tabanuco bar to watch Costa Rica’s soccer team beat the US handily on the big screen. We also danced at Las Olas bar the night of the big rain storm until a couple of drunk dudes moved into our space and we moved on.

Boating to Choro Island
The biggest activity I’d proposed was going out in the Pacific on my friend Motor’s boat. Although I tried to prepare for different scenarios, the thought didn’t cross my mind about seasickness. The day we set out, the ocean was pretty choppy and the sky was stormy. The girls who were suffering applied pressure to the anti-nausea point on the wrist, and tried to breathe through it. After seeing a smallish pod of dolphins, we stopped on Isla Choro. From there, some of us snorkeled over the shallow reef, even Robin who was especially brave because she’s scared of fish. JP almost missed all the yummy fruit Motor brought when she swam off into the unknown for a long enough time for the Safety Police to start getting nervous. Upon leaving the island, some of us saw a flash of a sea turtle. This is not to be confused with the “sea otter” buoy first spotted. We practiced a little eco tourism with Motor’s help and picked up floating trash that had washed down the rivers with the big rains into the sea.

on Isla Choro, Ang, KK, JP, Jill, Stacey, me, Robin

The more responsible peishkas left after a few days and the more delinquent of us rallied to see who would remain the voice of reason. We managed ok with more of the same activities, and even fulfilled our dictated tasks, like collecting shells and making a design for the traditional merkin adornment. I’m not sure about the status of this project now, but we felt like we did what we could here on the ground.

delinquent faction, being delinquent on Samara beach

Gueststar
We had a special guest star baby peishka with us: Venus, the little kitten who recently showed up at Juani’s. I’d been working on her for a week already to break her of her hissing and fear of every person, but the week with the girls here really tamed her. I think we all fell in love a little bit with that tiny flea bag. In an update, I used the shampoo for pulgas (fleas) on Venus, but she still has them, and the experience was less than pleasant for both of us. She and Romel are sleeping together in the kitchen by the lights now, and she seems otherwise content. She still hisses at me, but she also comes to me looking for attention and corn chips.

baby kitten yawning or hissing on top of Juani's open window in the kitchen

Dangers
I’d warned everyone to check her shoes for scorpions, and one day Ang found a good sized crab in the tennies. They’re really low on the intelligence scale and it fought to keep it’s snug new home, losing a couple limbs in the extraction.

Angela also had near-death experiences twice, first with a coconut barely missing falling on her noggin one day when we were walking to the beach, and not long after that, being almost clocked by a falling longboard at the surf boys’ shop on beach. The coconut incident freaked us all out a bit, and even inspired a ditty by JP sung to the tune of Raindrops Keep Falling on My Head. “Coconuts keep falling on my head, but like Cris said, it’s just not my day to be dead, dying’s not for me…”

And inevitably, one peishka got a stomach virus the last night, vomiting and pooing most of the night away. Early the next morning, Dr. Koch and I visited the pharmacist who encouraged all of us to take the yeast that seemed to settle the sicky’s stomach finally. I caught the private shuttle back to San José to wait for Elaine to come visit for a week. That’ll be the next blog entry, soon!

dead mackerel and Prof. Pierce on playa Buena Vista

Footnotes
None of the photos here were taken by me; a shout out to the girls for sharing their awesome photos, including those of pro photog Stacey Adams (see my Picasa.com site for more). Also, I wanted to thank you all for the fab magazines you left behind, even thought they do make me miss cycling, yoga and meditation at home in the US. Also thanks to the gluten-free goods and chocolate mules (Ang, JP, KK) and the taxes mules (Robin and Ang). I miss you all terribly and look forward to singing Sweet Caroline together soon!