¡Pura Vida!: Semana Santa

This past week was the ever needing, yet longest week of my life. Like I am so exhausted,, it´s still sinking in how much I did in one week.

First a little lesson about Semana Santa which in english means Holy Week. This is a national holiday that lasts all week. Everyone is off of school and most are off of work, it is like Christmas when some people are required to work, but the majority don´t. At the church, everyday was the story of the final days of Jesus on Earth. It is very decorated with flowers and scenes of the life of Jesus. On Good Friday, in the morning we went to a procession of the last day of Jesus. Even though I was so tired and just wanted to sleep all day, I went to watch, because what kind of exchange student would I be if I wasn´t learning the culture, especially on one of the most important weeks in the culture. When we were leaving, I was told we were going to the church for a mass. We did not. We went to town and parked on the street where many other people were crowded on. Turns out we were going to walk for an hour. And it was hot. Thank goodness we had umbrellas to protect us from the sun, the little shade from umbrellas made a huge difference in the temperature. During the procession, it was many people following around someone representing Jesus and carrying a cross. Like an actual 10 foot wooden cross, in the heat, for an hour. That takes a lot of faith and determination. Others dressed as the women who found Jesus followed and a few men as the followers of Jesus were behind the man representing Jesus. We stopped at 13 memorial crosses throughout the town and the pastor would give a short speech about what happened at each spot, while we walked, people sang a song that was one verse and repeated a few times. When we finished, we made it just in time before it started to down pour. And it was sunny out still while it was raining.

And now a little view of the longest week of my life. The week before was super chill because we had no school Monday, school Tuesday, half day Wednesday, and no school Thursday or Friday. I have no idea why but I´m okay with it.

Friday to Tuesday I went backpacking which was so beyond cool and in another post.
Wednesday we did some spring cleaning, my family has never heard of it because they just wanted to clean because everyone was home. And it was really tiring, or everyone was just tired of the days before, either way everyone fell asleep for a few hours in the afternoon which was super nice because I was so tired from travelling.

Thursday we had a long day of burning a field. It was a lot one of Cesar´s sisters owns and needed to be cleaned out. So we set out to burn the lot. It was surrounded by sugar cane fields, but the lot itself was grassy and jungly and had a lot of trees which was hard to start the fire. My sister, Katy, and I went to the middle to help spread the fire faster so we could be out of there sooner but on the outside where everyone else was, it was very windy by the way, the sugar cane caught the fire. This was so stressful to put out before too much sugar burned. We had little water and one plastic rake and then just bamboo sticks to beat out the fire. It was hot weather, and then on top of the blazing fire, it was so hard. Like just coming within 5 feet was hard enough, but my stick was only like 3. Everyone worked hard to put it out and save the sugar cane, but it was just so hard because a lot of the sugar cane was dry and on the ground which made it easy to catch more fire. But we got it out. It was 6 hours of burning because then afterwards, just before we thought we were going to leave, there was more smoke, another part of the lot caught fire so we had to wait longer while the lot burned some more. But at least when we got home, we had pizza.

Friday was the Semana Santa procession of the final days of Jesus, and more cleaning, and cooking lunch, and then we went to a lot my family here owns in the mountain. The mountains here have zero snow. It is way too hot and they are not that tall. The lot was from Marcia´s grandparents and was excavated for a house but then they found out there is no water so those plans were canceled. So we went to go explore the lot and plant some trees to make it look nicer. There was an excated part and the woods. The woods was part of the side of the mountain, and where we were was more like a bluff than a mountian but they still call it mountain. We climbed down through the very thick and steep woods to get to the other side because there was a prarie there. Just has we were almost down, like you could see the light from the prarie, GIANT bees came out. I didn´t know at first what happened and I just heard screaming and yelling and my sister told me to run so we booked it out of there. Marcia, on the other hand wasn´t so fortunate, David, my younger brother was clinging to her because he was so scared so to get away, Marcia grabbed his arms and swung him down the steep hill to get out faster. They were everywhere around them and Marcia kept getting stung and rolled in the grass to get away. It was so funny but sad because those things had huge stingers and Marcia got stung a lot. I guess they didn´t hurt too bad for Marcia and David because after the stingers were pulled out, they were fine. Needless to say, we hiked back up a different way. Afterwards we went to mass.

Saturday we headed out for Cartago to drop off my sister, Katy, at her university there. It´s a 3.5 drive through the winding roads of Costa Rica. If you get motion sick easily and are planning to go to Costa Rica, prep yourself. You really build an immunity here with the roads though. We made a stop in the capital of Costa Rica- San Jose to go grocery shopping for Katy. And it was just like Costco in the States. yay. Everything was sold in bulk and there was plenty of food to sample. We got to Cartago and moved in the food for Katy and our bags because we were spending the night. Katy lives in an apartment, most students choose to live in apartments. Afterwards, we walked around some of Cartago and went to Easter mass in the Basilica there. It was so cool. And lasts from 8 till midnight but we left early because David was getting too tired and no one wanted to carry him all the way back.

Sunday we left bright and early for the Irazu volcano. Whoo more volcanoes. But this time we didn´t have to hike almost 10 hours to see it. We got to drive all the way up because it´s so touristy. And it was cloudy. and cold. Like 40° and misting and windy. The view, you were supposed to see the giant crater of the center which was supposed to be a bright green-blue. But all we could see was the foggy clouds in front. It was flat on top so we could walk around and check out other craters as well. Eventually the clouds lifted some so we got to see the crater, but it was dry so all we saw was plants and dirt. How exciting. There was another area where we could view more volcano from above and above the cloud line but under another. It was crazy cool. On the way back down, we stopped at a Sanitorium. This was a place used in the 1900s for people who had tuberculosis or other contaminating diseases. It was sort of like with the Typhoid epidemic when people were sent to the island to keep it from spreading, except this on the volcano. It´s said to be haunted by the people who lived there and died there. And it is open for the public to walk through and see the giant empty house and other areas on the property. Then we finally headed home. What a week.