Nurse on the Run

Hey readers!  Yep, I’m still chronically my recent trip to SURF CAMP in Costa Rica!  Check out some of the beginning parts if you’re a little behind!

Part I:  planes, trains, and automobiles
Part II:  surf’s up!!
Part III:  becoming a yogi
Part IV:  fun odds ‘n ends

I had wayyy too much random odds and ends to post in the last part, so I’m hitting you up with another post of some of the random things we did when we weren’t surfing!  Let the fun continue. 

walking around town

Malpais, Costa Rica is known as a sleepy town…while there is some night life, it’s more of an early crowd since it’s a surfing town.  Surfers want to catch their tide!  We actually didn’t “go out” at all while on vacation…sure, we went out to dinner, but we never tore the house town.  Not everyone’s idea of a vacation, but I had a good time.  Anyway, one afternoon we walked around and checked out the different shops and art galleries.  The signs in Costa Rica are pretty funny, and yes, we had to avoid getting splashed from mud piles when cars drove past.  Ahhh, Costa Rica.

Dude!  No parking!

Yes, I found the bakery in Malpais.

I want this sign!!

 Jeri knows I can’t go a week without ice cream…

running…costa rica style

I took my running clothes and an old pair of running shoes to Costa Rica with me…I didn’t really have solid plans to run, but if I could squeeze in a run or two, that would be lovely.  After a little afternoon surf instruction, one of the other ladies mentioned that she was going for a run and wanted to know if anyone wanted to join her…I’m in!  She planned on running for about an hour, and I had no idea what her pace would be, but away we went.  She had a Garmin, so we could tell how far we were going…love it.  One of the other ladies joined us as well.  We headed out and the second lady turned back after two miles…I believe we were going around 8:45 pace.  We chugged along the muddy road…we talked about how she is planning to do a couple half marathons, and I talked about my marathoning.  She mentioned turning around at 3.33 miles, which was about 27-ish minutes.  On the way back, we were holding about an 8:15, which seemed fine to me.  After about a mile on the way back, she told me to go ahead, so away I went and finished off a muddy run in Costa Rica.

Some of our group the smarter part of the group was sitting in the restaurant sipping wine, so I stopped by one the way to my room, and they asked me if I happened to jump in the ocean before coming to say hi because I was that drenched with sweat.  It’s soooo humid in Costa Rica!  (Really…everything is ALWAYS moist and I don’t think my clothes ever dried out…)  A few minutes later the girl I was running with came in and proclaimed, “Don’t ever run with her!”  Maybe I was being too speedy…

Muddy Costa Rica run!

oh.  my.  goodness.  THE FOOD.

Let’s just say that surfing really works up an appetite.  And when the food is delicious, you can’t help but eat it.  Lots of it.  It’s a good thing surfing is quite the intense workout!

For breakfast, we always had scrambled eggs, rice and beans, yogurt with granola, some sort of grain like pancakes/French toast/etc, bacon, toast, coffee, and cut up mango, papaya, bananas, and watermelon.  I miss the cut up fruit like crazy!!  They also had some sort of juice/smoothie that was homemade every morning…it was usually some sort of papaya/banana/orange juice mixture.  Tasty!  We ate a lot every morning to fuel up for breakfast…so good. 

Lunch and dinner were either at the hotel or we were given vouchers to eat at some of the restaurants in town.  Food varied from salads to Greek food to pizza to pasta to FRESH FISH.  I ate an obscene amount of fresh fish while I was in Costa Rica, especially since some of the restaurants only serve fish that was caught that morning…doesn’t get any better than that!  My favorite fish was either snapper with mango salad, or an almond crusted snapper.  Soooo good.

One of the restaurants…you don’t see signs like this in America!

Trust me…it was about eight million times better than it looks.

Fried plantains…yum.

We did sooooo much in Costa Rica!  Go-go-go…not so much beach time, but I loved it!  I’ll do one more post with a little wrap-up, so stayed tuned!    And no worries, we’ll be back to your regularly scheduled Nurse on the Run posts soon…I’ve been running, that’s for sure!