Echar las entrañas

This Spanish phrase means “to throw out the entrails,” a much less euphemistic version of the English idiom “to toss your cookies.” This post title starts out metaphorical, but then sadly proceeds into the literal. Tim and I finally got organized enough to actually go away for a long weekend, mainly meaning we found a kennel for the dog (Incidentally, this was the most stress-free part of the weekend; the taxi ride was cheap, and Sage seemed to enjoy his Dog Whisperer pack experience at Perrodise). We badly needed this weekend because both of us had been so stressed and frustrated by work that we wanted to "echar las entrañas." In other words, incidents at school were at least making us want to puke -- or perhaps even commit hari kari in protest.

So for our first overnight trip, we chose a beach where development is limited because of the leatherback turtles that lay their eggs there. Playa Grande's seclusion seemed just the ticket, and the "one night free" offer sold us on the hotel. But this isolation turned out to be a blessing and a curse. From Tamarindo, where we rode the bus to, you can either take a half-hour taxi ride or cross an estuary in five minutes. To get away from our cares and to our hotel, we opted to walk about 2 kilometers after taking a $1 water-taxi ride:
But indeed, the sojourn was worth it. The enormous stretch of sand was sparsely spotted with only a few surfers and sun-bathers:
The solitude allowed us to spend most of the morning relaxing on the beach, catching up on some required reading:
And as the sun got hotter, we braved the riptides of the Pacific reef to cool off:
I had felt a little queasy all morning, but after some down time, I felt strong enough to take a hot hike north to Playa Carbon, a black-sand beach where the swimming wasn't great but the tranquility was:
After so much sun, and maybe some bad fish from the night before, I needed a break in the hotel before we walked to Tamarindo to buy our return bus tickets, which strangely enough cannot be bought at the transportation office in San Jose. This, of course, meant retracing our steps. We managed to walk part of the 2 kilometers back in the shade, but as you can tell from my expression, this wasn't enough to quell my aching head and belly:
This expression hardly rivals Tim's (which unfortunately I did not get a photo of) when about 20 minutes later, I left a puddle of Tampico along the main road in Tamarindo. All the hydration I thought I had been giving myself apparently had been just idling in my stomach, waiting for a chance to reveal its ineffectiveness.

Now devoid of any nourishment, I tried to avoid passing out while Tim bought the bus tickets, groceries, and a falafel sandwich (seriously) for lunch. The former effort was fruitless as the ticket office was closing, and besides, the departure times were 3:30 and 5 a.m., much too early for the recovery I could tell I would need, and 2 p.m., much too late for when we hoped to get back to collect Sage. I was hardly concerned about this, or the $20 we paid a taxi driver to get us back to the hotel, where I promptly curled up in bed, waking only to eat some quesadillas Tim bought at the hotel restaurant and watch the first 10 minutes of Don't Mess with Zohan.

The next morning, I managed the walk back to Tamarindo. It was much better in the early morning, a time frame we chose to take our chances on making a faster bus connection through Santa Cruz or Liberia. We sat around at bus stops for about two hours, until the bus to Liberia finally came by. We didn't have any more luck in Liberia, where we had to wait an hour to catch the next bus to San Jose. The traffic from the long weekend ended up with us getting back perhaps even later than if we had just stuck around for the 2 p.m. direct bus from Tamarindo. We skipped picking up the dog and made it back home just before 11 p.m., time to go to bed to prepare for the next day at school.

So the weekend didn't exactly turn out to be the respite we were after. But at least for a little while we were frustrated with something other than work. And we are more than motivated to find traveling redemption during our next long weekend, only a month away for Thanksgiving in November.