A site for sore eyes?

I have been in my site for a week now, and I feel as though I am finally settling into the rhythms of life here. Above all, it is hot. A cold shower feels refreshing at seven in the morning. Merely reading in the shade can provoke rivulets of sweat down my cheeks. Incidentally, reading in the shade has been my favorite pastime, I downed five books this week (not counting manuals on teaching English).
On Christmas we went to a long sandy beach, and had a barbecue. The tides here feel far too drastic, the mermaid statue which was 15 feet tall and surrounded by as much dry land when we arrived was only five feet fall and standing in the middle of ocean by the time we left. Also we went kayaking a deceptively long distance, and started to paddle out over what has been called the third deepest trench on the planet. I have been unable to corroborate this, but I love the story that always accompanies it: Jacques Cousteau came and lowered a sounding rope, but he ran out of rope before he touched bottom! Its really anticlimactic and fails to prove anything. I have heard this story about seven times from about five different people. The really good news though, is that whales apparently come here to give birth, and there are fantastic places nearby with sweeping vistas of the entire gulf (Golfo Dulce).
In Puerto Jimenez I finally saw Basilisk lizards (and Caimans). We tried to make them run on top of the water, but they were having none of it until suddenly one jumped off a log and ran all the way to the shore (three feet) along the surface of the water. It was incredible.
P.J. is the nearest large town to my site, and it is also 'the portal to Corcovado' a prime backpacking/ecotourist location. This means that the supermarket there is tailored to far different tastes than most Costa Rican markets. They have almost a full complement of spices, bamboo chutes, curry paste, and SPAM. I know it cannot get much more exciting than SPAM, but they also have amazing ice cream, including the amazing flavor 'Ron y Pasas'.
I'll be teaching an English class to some community members the second week of January, so I'm now deeply ensconced in planning and reading on how to teach community based classes. Hopefully it will be successful!
[This picture is of my friends from the training community when we went Christmas Caroling a few days before we headed to our sites. It was both fun and surprising for all the Costa Rican host families we visited.]