Lisa | Wayra Spanish School and Tamarindo

You may not know it, but in between our outings, Mimi and I have been attending the Wayra Spanish School here in Tamarindo.  We study Spanish for four hours every morning, then hit the beach to unwind our brains.  Learning a foreign language is hard work!  But it's paid off by letting us be able to talk to people in Spanish while we're here, which is pretty fun.

The best part of Wayra is the interesting people attending the school.  It's based in Switzerland, so many students from Switzerland, also Germany and a few from the US.  There are two students from Switzerland in my class.  Patricia works in Lucern, Switzerland and Sebastian is a German who has been living and working in Switzerland for the past two years.  And he also looks just like Sting when he was 25 years old.  :)

Patricia decided to leave her accounting job to travel for several months. I find that amazing!  She doesn't have real specific plans, spend 2 months in Costa Rica learning Spanish, then off to South America to visit friends in different cities and finally meet up with her father and brother in Buenos Aires (I think).  How many Americans do you know who would or could do that?  Incredible!  Why don't we Americans feel free to do something as exciting as that?

I also want to describe the town of Tamarindo for you a little bit.  It's a small, sleepy beach town on the Pacific/western coast of Costa Rica.  The houses are very small with tin roofs, open windows and plastic furniture. The shops are small and run-down and no one has air conditioning.  And it's HOT here, I can't imagine trying to sleep in one of those houses.  The streets are all dirt with a little gravel, there is only one brief paved section of road in town.  As a result, cars do not have suspensions.  You can hear a Tico (nickname for Costa Rican natives) car coming a mile away by the noise of the muffler bumping along on the ground and who knows what else dragging and rattling along.  Many people have dogs as pets, and when they're not walking them, they wander the streets.  But they're very well behaved and don't bother anyone, they simply lay on the ground and pant and wait for their owner to return.  The people are very friendly and especially friendly when you let them know you're learning Spanish and want to to try your best to speak to them in Spanish.  They all look very tan and at ease in the heat, while I feel like an albino I'm white.  I hope to come back to Minnesota with at least a little bit of a tan.

Today we took a boat ride up an estuary to see the Mangroves, but I'll let Mimi tell you about that another time.  Tomorrow we hope to visit Playa Conchal (Shell Beach) for a beautiful white sand beach and possibly some good snorkeling.  Then Saturday we head up to Rincon de la Vieja volcano for a full-day adventure tour.  Should be fun!

Hasta luego!

Lisa