What's red and white with stripes all over?

A zebra with a sunburn!

Ha ha ha ha ha. I just remembered that joke. Coincidentally, I am also red all over - ridiculously sunburnt. We're in Mal Pais right now, which is this great beach town, and are staying at a really relaxed (and appropriately named) hostel, the Tranquilo Backpackers Hostel. It's got hammocks everywhere, tons of mango trees, free pancake breakfasts, free internet, and is right across the street from the beach (although separated by a mini forest). I actually just picked a mango off the ground right now. I might regret this decision later, but someone told me they were fine to eat as long as they weren't already split open. So we'll see how it goes.

I spent a good majority of the morning trying to clean my cooking oil-stained pack. It exploded in the taxi yesterday from Montezuma to Mal Pais. Oh gosh, I just realized I have so much to update you all on. I left my passport in our really awful hostel in Montezuma (Pension Jenny - don't stay there! It's just as expensive as a hostel on the beach but is incredibly dirty and bad.) and didn't realize it until we drove the 45-min passage to Mal Pais, so I had to go back to Montezuma, retrieve my passport (luckily Pension Jenny is honest even if it's not clean), and wait two hours for the next transportation to Mal Pais to arrive.

Now that we're here though, it's great. We were thoroughly disappointed with Montezuma, which was disappointing in itself since a lot of other people really enjoyed it. Sorry to everyone out there who's been and who liked it - I think we were expecting a real beach town and were surprised to find it so developed and so focused on tourism. Montezuma is this hippie town with yoga classes, wheat grass shots and organic ice cream stores, and vendors sporting rasta dreads. All of this seems to be for tourists, though. The signs were all in English and almost everyone working in the tourist industry speaks the language, which is really interesting considering that the majority of Costa Ricans don't know English.

So we left Montezuma for Mal Pais and have been really happy with it. I rented a boogie board today and went to the beach with some friends here. They rented a surf board and let me try it, and it was actually really fun! So I think tomorrow I'm going to swap my boogie board for a surf board and try it for reals. It's strange coming from Southern California and having this be the first time I've ever tried to surf. But after today's adventure, I'm pretty badly sunburnt on my legs.

The tropics have not been too good to Shai or me. In addition to our burns, we're also getting eaten alive by the mosquitos. Shai just doused herself in DEET, this miracle potion that protects us from these awful bugs. Last night, in bed, as I was blindly grabbing into the air with the hopes of killing the mosquitos that buzzed in my ear, I considered that the people sharing our hostel dorm would think I was crazy. I hit my face a few times, slapped my ear, and eventually retreated under my bed covers. I'm sure the battle will wage on when we cross the border for Nicaragua in a few days. Until then, I think we'll have to figure out a way to make peace here in Mal Pais with both the mosquitos and the sun.