On Sunday afternoon, after an arduous ride from the center of the country, I arrived at the sleepy, Pacific coast fishing village of Playa Potrero. There were three restuarants in town, one supermarket, a church, a communal salon and an abandoned police station surrounding the Potrero's centerpiece: its new soccer field. I immediately took a liking to the atmosphere of Potrero. Of course there were some drawbacks to the smalltown. Every Costa Rican in Potrero was a member of one of the three families that first established the town some time ago. Clearly the potential for vaguely incestuous relationships was pretty high: basically everyone in town was related to one another in some not so distant manner. Also the variety of food available to me was sharply limited: rice, beans, meat (some pretty good fish thankfully) greeted me for breakfast, lunch and dinner. I stayed in the home of one of the premiere families of Potrero, the Merinos, who owned an entire street of houses, a restaurant and the supermarket. Staying in a home was a fun experience and much more intimate than even a hostel. In just 5 days I became quite close with the mother and 2 year old son in the family. The 8 year old daughter was impossibly shy so I didn't get to know her very well and the father sat around in front of the TV much of the day, shirtless and immobile.
I couldn't really blame him though: each day in Potrero felt like it was 100 degrees. The roads were all dirt, the seabreeze was anemic and none of the houses had AC, it really was an incredibly hot climate. The only reprieve was a jump in the Pacific, which you could certainly do worse than. No, in fact, I loved the Pacific: the water was clear and warm, the beaches were picturesque and stunningly empty and the waves were big enough for surfing but not big enough to kill you.
A quick note: unfortunately I did not take many photos in Potrero because my digital camera succumbed to the tremendous amount of dust in the air and stopped working. I fixed it by the end of my stay but didn't want to push my luck.
3 minute walk from the place I slept.
My new homestay friend, the two year old Dylan.
My work in Potrero consisted of helping out at a program in the town that was dedicated to offering free English lessons to anyone who wanted them. The program was run by two great Americans, Drew and Meradith, both recently out of college, that had dropped everything to live in this town year round and teach English. Like everyone I saw in Potrero, they were happy, healthy and perfectly content with their lives. For the 5 days I was there, I joined them in their bliss. Every day I woke up early, went for a swim, returned for a homemade breakfast (rice and beans), went for another swim, ate lunch at a restaurant (rice, beans and meat), taught English for a few hours, went for a last swim Drew and Meradith (we went surfing a few times too), had a homemade dinner (take a guess), and then hung out with D&M, watching movies/The Wire/BBC Life (check it out, the sequel to Planet Earth but even cooler) until around 9:30 at which point I was exhausted and fell asleep. The early to bed/early to rise routine was really nice to get into and felt very energizing. The children I taught were fun, able learners. The adults were a different story, really like speaking to brick walls, but luckily my exposure to them was limited. Also, Drew and Meradith were really fun to hang out with both in the class and outside of it. In short, I loved the time I spent in Potrero.
Pelicans fishing in a BBC Life/Planet Earth esque scene that I witnessed.
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