A day at the Beach

This Friday my folks, my boyfriend and I went to the beach. Our plans for Kari's stay (particularly mine) didn't come out as I would have expected, mainly due to the lack of time for preparation, and because my next week vacations are pretty much tinted with the parole status or probation, meaning that I can't really leave the GAM (Gran Área Metropolitana, or Great Metropolitan Area) since I'm on call at any time my boss needs me, in relation with the CE project. It is giving me a royal headache. Kari isn't quite pleased about this, since he's already used to us always hitting the road, staying at some nice hotel and having loads of fun, taking a dive in the ocean (him taking a dive, I'm simply swimming in the safe parts), eating "exotic foods" and talking about plans for the future and stuff like that. Yeah, that totally sounds like postcard lovers, which I hope we are not. Ewwww! Nothing more disgusting that being lovey-dovey Love is postcard lovers.

On Thursday I washed my hair, and I was a bit wary because, well, everybody knows what Ocean air and water can do to hair, right? Well, mine didn't got saved from the "treatment".

The program for Friday was to go to Bajamar, so that Dad could proudly show off around the 1800 m2 lot of weed and nothing at the beach, where he pretends to build his ten cabins next year and blah, blah, blah. That's so lordlandish from him! In any case Kari was impressed, and liked the lot. I don't like itr much because there's nothing there. There's this beautiful beach, but not a bench, not a hut to change, no nothing, There's just nothing there. On the neighbouring lots there are already little huts or houses built, and here and there some signs of civilization We have a fence, a tree and something looking like a path, that's now walkable, so we can make it from the road to the shore, but there's not one scrap of shadow. That's death to me.

Dad and Kari

Me, Kari and Mom

This is the Beach at Bajamar

We took there a few pictures and I was sorry we couldn't get into the ocean there, since it looked so cool, but we were supposed to go to Parrita and meet there with my brother, his wife, kids and in-laws. We had to stop, though, at Jacó for breakfast, since we left home around 6 am (Dad's idea) and nobody had eaten decently since. Kari also wanted to have Gallo Pinto for breakfast, with salsa Lizano, and well, who are we to deny him a simple pleasure, right?

The Family at the Beach

Ati's wife and in-laws at the back, with his younger son, and our folks and his older son at the front

We met with my brother close to his in-laws' place, and then we went to some beach where they like to go. It was, interesting, to say the least. They had so much furniture out there, rocking chairs, plastic chairs, a table, a grill, Fernando's crib, and LOADS of food. To Kari's delight, there were coconuts, which they collected from the shore, and swiftly him, then my brother started opening for everybody to drink. I didn't get one, because I don't like them. Dani, my older nephew don't like them either, and yet he insisted I had one. Dani is a serious piece of work.

Kari and the Coconut

Ati opening an coconut and Dani checking on his Dad.

Do this really needs captions?

Kari, Dani and I. Dani purposefully closed his eyes.

The visiting was interesting, and a bit awkward. Kari asked me to present him around, but I couldn't since I barely knew anyone. I believe it should have been Ati's or Yuly's place to present us. Dani, my older nephew and my favorite, was running around the beach, playing in the Ocean, which he loves to madness. Him, who has always been wary about Kari, started to come closer to him, speaking his name for the first time, and showing interest in him, though he was still very shy. It's hard for them, since Kari doesn't speak Spanish, and Dani hasn't never really spoken Hungarian, and whatever knowledge he has is deeply burried and he's not comfortable showing it (though he has surprised us a couple of times).

Kari got a headache from the sun, so at the end, though he was dying to go bathe in the Ocean, I was the one pulling on my swimsuit and getting into it. There why my hair ended up like the rough end of a broom, and why today I'm doing the full treatment with keratine masks and the whole shebang.

We went after with the in-laws to their place, where we were offered a cup of coffee before leaving back to the GAM. Now this is when things get interesting.

When we went we took the new highway, a highway that makes the usually 2 hour trip last only 45 minutes, but which is, all in all, over 20 times more expensive, in toll fees. You see, in Costa Rica, the highways that are privately managed charge a max of $0,19, and this one, known also as Autopistas del Sol (the constructor) charges in several segments, and costs around $4,10. The trip wasn't as short as it was supposed to be, but it was a bit shorter.

On the way back we took the same road thinking it would be shorter and that we would be home quicker. Well, as it turned out to be, nothing was farther from the truth. Naturally, the road had the same cost, but, as it turned out, the newly build highway, given in concession from the Costa Rican Government to Autopistas del Sol was collapsed. There were other privatelly owned highways give you two to three lanes for $0,19, Autopistas del Sol gives you one line in each direction for $4,10. From tollbooth to tollbooth the cars barely moved, turning the whole thing into a parking lot. If this happens twenty years after building it, I would understand, saying that the highway's capacity has already been surpassed, but this highways has less than a month, two months top since finished and it can't take the amount of cars taht would circulate through it.

It took us over three hours to get home, seeing in the way many cars turn and take the old routes.

There was no lesson there to learn, none at least that we wouldn't already known: corruption has consumed the country. Why to spend so much money in a highways that offers basically nothing to the people, for an overly inflated rate? To pay favors and let private corporations milk money out of the population. It is shameful.