It’s been quite a while since I’ve written to the journal so here is a short explanation as to why. Here at the Tucan Hotel is one computer that is shared by guests and us. It is open from 10am -12pm and 5pm – 10pm. If there are guests, I am usually working during these hours. And, as previously mentioned, it is 56k dialup, in other words, painfully slow. Today we are supposed to get high speed (i.e., a 128k modem) installed, so yippie, it will be faster. Also, we pay per minute for being connected, so technically we aren’t supposed to be online for more than 30 minutes per day. Up the road a new internet café opened yesterday, though it rains nearly every day (it is pouring buckets right now). (They are still working off of 56k dialup as well, and are waiting for a high-speed, 128k, installation.) The gist of it all is that it’s logistically difficult for me to be online. Today we have no guests, so I can sit on the computer for as long as I want (as I type this offline). I really don’t know where to begin…
Besides missing my computer, unlimited internet use, my film camera, friends and family, and a few other comforts of home, I absolutely love it here. We are still in the winter season (i.e., the rainy season) so it’s not so busy and the temperature is cool in the low to mid-80s because of the clouds and rain. The job is so much fun, it’s hardly work at all. In the mornings, I wake up around 8:30, reconcile the previous day’s sales, restock the bar, eat breakfast, and hang out with the morning guests and visitors. I usually have a break around 1pm – 4pm, and if it isn’t raining, I run some errands and explore the town on the bicycle. We have two 1-speed beach cruisers that I have access to. Sometimes I’ll go up the mountain and rent a movie at Video Scorpion (they have about 60 DVDs), grab a bite to eat, or take a ride to the beach. The beach here is soo beautiful, set against coconut palms and mountains, and it is usually desolate. Riding the bike around proves to be very difficult at times, it is very mountainous here so sometimes I end up walking it up or down steep inclines. And besides the paved highway and the first 200 meters of the road I am on, everything else is rock and dirt roads. It’s damn good exercise.
Uvita is a relatively small town. We are a few kilometers from the beach at the base of the mountains, 18km south of Dominical. There are three supermercados, an internet café, some small hotels/cabins, realty services, a few sodas and restaurants (including a Thai restaurant up the mountain and a local pizza/ chicken place that offers delivery), a hardware store, a laundry service, a general supply store (which sells shoes, notebooks, umbrellas, and some other things), an Episcopal church across the street, a bank, a gas station, and a video store. There is no post office, and I heard mail is delivered once a week (but I have yet to verify that). There are usually two police officers on duty. This is not a touristy town, it’s somewhat of a haven, though there is a good number of gringos that live here. Off the coast is the only marine national park in the country, Marino Ballena. There are whalewatching tours, snorkeling and diving tours, surf rentals and lessons, kayaking, waterfalls within walking distance, and horseback tours.
Here at the Tucan Hotel, there are 10 rooms, a central courtyard, 15 hammocks, 5 tables, a pool table, a bar, a kitchen, one cat (steve jr.) and one kitten (carlito). Also, there is Steve’s house and my wooden cabina. The cabina is “rustic” in every sense of the word. The walls are made of unfinished vertical slices of trees, with a few 2x4s holding up a corrugated metal roof. The roof is not flush with the walls (it’s about a 5-inch gap) and there are numerous holes in the walls. It has a “rustic” unfinished bathroom with a cold-water shower, a sink, two gas burners, and two large windows with swinging doors (only one with a screen). It reeks of mildew and mold in the walls, and everything in the room absorbs moisture and gets moldy. My sheets and pillows are not wet, but not quite dry, the hand soap in the bathroom has globules of water on it; photos are tacky to the touch and bow in one day… I think you get the point. Obviously, there is no AC. I keep my clothes in plastic bags (if I don’t, they smell nauseating), and try to light some nag champa as often as possible to cover up the odor. (A stick of nag champa is completely saturated in a day if not kept in plastic. In addition to the moisture, there is the wildlife that I cohabitate with including flying insects, geckos, and awesome spiders (including scorpion spiders). Thank Jack the chef for lending me a mosquito net, or else I would never sleep. There is usually a spider that hangs out on the wall next to my bed, about 6 inches from the mattress. I am still getting used to the noises when I sleep, the non-rhythmic drips onto the metal roof from the tree that hangs over, the barking dogs, the roosters, among others. All-in-all, it’s a jalopy of a home, but I don’t mind at all.
At 4pm every day, we put on a movie (there are 10 hammocks in front of a television), make some air-popped popcorn with freshly melted butter and salt, and then at 5pm I re-open the bar. When the movie is over, I put on music, light some candles, and thus begins the evening’s festivities of dinner, serving drinks, playing pool, and chatting with the guests. Doesn’t it sound exhausting? I get to meet the most amazing people from all over the world, including England, Australia, Poland, France, Canada, Argentina, and the United States. In the two weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve met a UF graduate (graduated in 1961), a documentary filmmaker, some business owners (of surf schools, restaurants, marketing firms), contractors, photographers, environmental engineers, and others. Most of the guests are not from the United States. There are many local gringos that come by to eat Jack’s food and drink, some from California, New York, New Zealand, North Carolina, Florida. Jack is an amazing chef, he’s Canadian and has been here for 3 years. He went to culinary school, among my favorites of his are fresh fruit smoothies with any fruit I want for 75 cents, delicious pancakes served with fresh fruit (about two dollars), eggs rancheros to die for, chicken fajitas, freshly cut French fries, oh my. The next few days I have to eat elsewhere because he closed the kitchen for four days to renew his visa in Panama. Boohoo. At the bar I serve five types of bottled beer (all Costa Rican – Bavaria Gold, Bavaria Dark, Imperial, Pilsen, and Rock Ice), some bottled sodas and waters, coconuts with a straw, cocos locos (coconut with a shot of guaro poured in it), shots of vodka, rum, and guaro, and mixed drinks with those liquors (and of course with fresh lemon or lime slices).
So, bartending is the best job ever about 90% of the time, over the weekend I stayed up pretty late every night. Jamie and I went out to Coco Tico on Friday for her birthday (she’s 27), Saturday I hung out with Callum (from Australia), two self-described Pollocks, and an Argentinean woman, and Sunday I met some people from Omaha that were staying up the road, and I went with Callum up there and we jammed for a few hours. (I do not go out at night by myself, partly because I’m not sure how safe it is, and it is also pitch black if the electric happens to go out as it often does, and it’s scary!) The other 10% of bartending that is annoying involves the local ticos that call my attention as if I’m a domesticated pet (Tsssst! Tssst! or a whistle). And then they stare me down and ask if I have a boyfriend. When I tell them I’m married they say it doesn’t matter because my hubby isn’t here. Scummy chauvinistic pigs they are.
Well, I think that’s about long enough for today, I have to go cut some ginger flowers for the tables and bike to the bank in the rain to deposit some money for Steve. There is plenty more for me to write about, but I’ll have to do that some other time. I advise anyone with the means to come down here to come and visit me in this beautiful country (the rooms at the hotel are waaay different than my cabina), I wish I had the means to keep in touch more often, but it’s just the way it is. Hasta luego.
Besides missing my computer, unlimited internet use, my film camera, friends and family, and a few other comforts of home, I absolutely love it here. We are still in the winter season (i.e., the rainy season) so it’s not so busy and the temperature is cool in the low to mid-80s because of the clouds and rain. The job is so much fun, it’s hardly work at all. In the mornings, I wake up around 8:30, reconcile the previous day’s sales, restock the bar, eat breakfast, and hang out with the morning guests and visitors. I usually have a break around 1pm – 4pm, and if it isn’t raining, I run some errands and explore the town on the bicycle. We have two 1-speed beach cruisers that I have access to. Sometimes I’ll go up the mountain and rent a movie at Video Scorpion (they have about 60 DVDs), grab a bite to eat, or take a ride to the beach. The beach here is soo beautiful, set against coconut palms and mountains, and it is usually desolate. Riding the bike around proves to be very difficult at times, it is very mountainous here so sometimes I end up walking it up or down steep inclines. And besides the paved highway and the first 200 meters of the road I am on, everything else is rock and dirt roads. It’s damn good exercise.
Uvita is a relatively small town. We are a few kilometers from the beach at the base of the mountains, 18km south of Dominical. There are three supermercados, an internet café, some small hotels/cabins, realty services, a few sodas and restaurants (including a Thai restaurant up the mountain and a local pizza/ chicken place that offers delivery), a hardware store, a laundry service, a general supply store (which sells shoes, notebooks, umbrellas, and some other things), an Episcopal church across the street, a bank, a gas station, and a video store. There is no post office, and I heard mail is delivered once a week (but I have yet to verify that). There are usually two police officers on duty. This is not a touristy town, it’s somewhat of a haven, though there is a good number of gringos that live here. Off the coast is the only marine national park in the country, Marino Ballena. There are whalewatching tours, snorkeling and diving tours, surf rentals and lessons, kayaking, waterfalls within walking distance, and horseback tours.
Here at the Tucan Hotel, there are 10 rooms, a central courtyard, 15 hammocks, 5 tables, a pool table, a bar, a kitchen, one cat (steve jr.) and one kitten (carlito). Also, there is Steve’s house and my wooden cabina. The cabina is “rustic” in every sense of the word. The walls are made of unfinished vertical slices of trees, with a few 2x4s holding up a corrugated metal roof. The roof is not flush with the walls (it’s about a 5-inch gap) and there are numerous holes in the walls. It has a “rustic” unfinished bathroom with a cold-water shower, a sink, two gas burners, and two large windows with swinging doors (only one with a screen). It reeks of mildew and mold in the walls, and everything in the room absorbs moisture and gets moldy. My sheets and pillows are not wet, but not quite dry, the hand soap in the bathroom has globules of water on it; photos are tacky to the touch and bow in one day… I think you get the point. Obviously, there is no AC. I keep my clothes in plastic bags (if I don’t, they smell nauseating), and try to light some nag champa as often as possible to cover up the odor. (A stick of nag champa is completely saturated in a day if not kept in plastic. In addition to the moisture, there is the wildlife that I cohabitate with including flying insects, geckos, and awesome spiders (including scorpion spiders). Thank Jack the chef for lending me a mosquito net, or else I would never sleep. There is usually a spider that hangs out on the wall next to my bed, about 6 inches from the mattress. I am still getting used to the noises when I sleep, the non-rhythmic drips onto the metal roof from the tree that hangs over, the barking dogs, the roosters, among others. All-in-all, it’s a jalopy of a home, but I don’t mind at all.
At 4pm every day, we put on a movie (there are 10 hammocks in front of a television), make some air-popped popcorn with freshly melted butter and salt, and then at 5pm I re-open the bar. When the movie is over, I put on music, light some candles, and thus begins the evening’s festivities of dinner, serving drinks, playing pool, and chatting with the guests. Doesn’t it sound exhausting? I get to meet the most amazing people from all over the world, including England, Australia, Poland, France, Canada, Argentina, and the United States. In the two weeks that I’ve been here, I’ve met a UF graduate (graduated in 1961), a documentary filmmaker, some business owners (of surf schools, restaurants, marketing firms), contractors, photographers, environmental engineers, and others. Most of the guests are not from the United States. There are many local gringos that come by to eat Jack’s food and drink, some from California, New York, New Zealand, North Carolina, Florida. Jack is an amazing chef, he’s Canadian and has been here for 3 years. He went to culinary school, among my favorites of his are fresh fruit smoothies with any fruit I want for 75 cents, delicious pancakes served with fresh fruit (about two dollars), eggs rancheros to die for, chicken fajitas, freshly cut French fries, oh my. The next few days I have to eat elsewhere because he closed the kitchen for four days to renew his visa in Panama. Boohoo. At the bar I serve five types of bottled beer (all Costa Rican – Bavaria Gold, Bavaria Dark, Imperial, Pilsen, and Rock Ice), some bottled sodas and waters, coconuts with a straw, cocos locos (coconut with a shot of guaro poured in it), shots of vodka, rum, and guaro, and mixed drinks with those liquors (and of course with fresh lemon or lime slices).
So, bartending is the best job ever about 90% of the time, over the weekend I stayed up pretty late every night. Jamie and I went out to Coco Tico on Friday for her birthday (she’s 27), Saturday I hung out with Callum (from Australia), two self-described Pollocks, and an Argentinean woman, and Sunday I met some people from Omaha that were staying up the road, and I went with Callum up there and we jammed for a few hours. (I do not go out at night by myself, partly because I’m not sure how safe it is, and it is also pitch black if the electric happens to go out as it often does, and it’s scary!) The other 10% of bartending that is annoying involves the local ticos that call my attention as if I’m a domesticated pet (Tsssst! Tssst! or a whistle). And then they stare me down and ask if I have a boyfriend. When I tell them I’m married they say it doesn’t matter because my hubby isn’t here. Scummy chauvinistic pigs they are.
Well, I think that’s about long enough for today, I have to go cut some ginger flowers for the tables and bike to the bank in the rain to deposit some money for Steve. There is plenty more for me to write about, but I’ll have to do that some other time. I advise anyone with the means to come down here to come and visit me in this beautiful country (the rooms at the hotel are waaay different than my cabina), I wish I had the means to keep in touch more often, but it’s just the way it is. Hasta luego.
posted by Jennifer at 2:20 PM
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