On Sunday, I stayed with my Servas host Margarita. Servas is a hospitality organization in which you can stay for 2 days with people in 130 countries around the world that are members. Margarita is 62 and has been a servas host for 29 years. Originally she wanted to do it so that here children could keep up their english, but now she loves it and has had well over 100 people from various countries stay with her over the years. Margarity is a widow, a retired ESL teacher and she is from Limon, the Caribbean side of Costa Rica. She LOVES limon and describes herself as being costa rican with a black heart. I have video of her talking about how much she loves it there, the culture and her childhood growing up.  You can tell she loves and/or was influenced by black caribbean culture because she has paintings of black people all throughout her house and also paintings for the beach. I think there is a painting on every wall in her house of  people, nature and many of the beach. She is a painter herself and so is Louis her boyfriend, whom she met at a painting class. Louis is doing a oceanic tile mural on her backyard wall, its great.  Margarita loves calypso music, she loves to dance and she loves some of the food native to Limon like aikee and salt fish, some type of tarts i forgot the name of and rice with coconut. It was a joy to have met her, I just wish i was able to stay more than one day and visit her hometown in Limon. She spoke so well of it and about it, i almost felt like i had been there.

While i am there we eat pinto gallo, arroz con pollo and drank tamarindo. Everything was soo good. I pretty much had my own suite while i was there. The upstairs had two rooms, a bathroom, living room with tv and a porch. I wish i had stayed longer. I felt so taken care of. We talked about her children (3) and grandchildren(4), how she met her husband, how he died, some of her joys and victories. I must say that although so much newness all the time is kind of hard to get used to, I love just getting to know people, their hospitality to me is priceless

Margarita

White skin, latina tongue and a black heart

Pinto gallo, coconut rice, calypso music and walls draped with sunsets on the coast

and ebony images are my works of art

Born by the carribean sea

the music, food and culture are dancing to merengue inside of me

Limon is where i am from

though I live in San Jose

Where I spent my childhood days will always have my affections under lock and key

Its who I am and who I will always be

A Costa Rican wave in the Caribbean sea

So then I was off to Peru, here are the  12 lesson I learned about Peru in my first 12 hours:

1. The child sex industry must be a problem because on the immigration form there is a warning that sex with children is a crime punishable by jail time.

1. Cab drivers drive absolutely crazy, we almost got into 3 accidents on my way to the airport and I just had to cover my eyes until we got to my hostel. This Swedish guy i met said his taxi scared him so bad that he did not leave the hostel for two days. They drove through some scary areas.

1. Peru must have a real speeding(from the cap ride, i can attest to that)  and traffic problem because speed humps are pervasive.

1. Its winter here (meaning its in the 60′s) and it gets pretty cold at night (40′s and 50′s), so my blanket and sheet, and jacket were barely enough while sleeping.

1. The beaches along the Pacific are not particularly impressive, they are kind of rocky looking.

1. Pico Sour is a great drink and they come in strawberry, ummm

1. Miraflores, where i am staying, is obviously the party area because even with ear plugs in, i heard music clearly and felt the beat pumping into the wee hours of the morning

1. Peruvian’s listen to alot of American Music. 80′s music is what i listened to while i waited 30 minutes in the customs line, the 70′s version of “Ladies Night” in the cab – by the way the cab driver turned it way up and started singing and swaying, at the hostel bar there was rap music – Puffy rapping “I need a girl”, on a commercial in which the speaking and writing was all in spanish, in the background in perfect english was the song “lean on me.”

1. KoKopelli, whom my hostel is named after, was apparently the first backpacker and he played a flute like instrument.

1. One dollar is equal to 2.76 Peruvian Sols

1. Peru is only one hour behind the US in time

1. At this hostel, free breakfast is actually a real prepared breakfast at a restaurant around the corner. I had waffles and fresh pineapple juice. In other places free breakfast meant make your own pancakes, we will leave out the mix or what we really mean is free coffee.

Now I am staying with another Servas Host – Margarita and her two girls Jessica and Melissa in Lima. We toured the city yesterday with another two servas members that were staying with her. They are a couple from Mexico. Today, I will relax and do normal things like wash my clothes, do my hair and read a new book.