San Jose and La Fortuna, Costa Rica

San Jose 8:54am 9/3/08

Hello Costa Rica!

Bea and I are on a bus headed towards La Fortuna right now. Getting out of San Jose.. yippee! San Jose is like Tijuana. Actually, I'm firmly convinced that I'm in a wetter, greener version of Tijuana.

Last night Bea and I went to sleep at 5pm-7pm Eastern time. Bea had some beans and rice for two dollars before bed. I figured I'd eat when I got up from the nap, but I didn't end up waking until 11pm. My left arm was asleep and hit me in the face when I lifted it up. That sure woke me up.

I went upstairs to the rooftop restaurant to use the internet and see if our friend Gordon was up there. Gordon is also an American, and from Chicago. He was on the same plane from Charlotte as us, and stayed in the same hostel- Hostel Pangea.

I didn't see him, so after chatting with Diego online about Dino'smores I went back to sleep.
We woke up around six thirty am and got our stuff together. Our plan was to go to the HOliday Inn to try and score some free continental breakfast. Turns out you have to pay for breakfast there, so we started walking the nine blocks or so to the bus station- speaking Spanish only, of course. We pass by a Best Western, look at each other, and waltz on in. We order, and the lady asks us what room we were staying in. Bea said "13".. she says "13? There is no 13. There's 113, 213, 313.." and we go "Oh yeah, 213." She then asks us for our names, and Bea says "Beatriz." She says "What name is the room under?" and we tell her we didn't know. She asks for the room key and Bea says her boyfriend had it and was wandering around town. She called the front desk and amusingly told them that we didn't know what name the room was under.

And so, voila! Free breakfast. Bea had fried plantains, beans and eggs, and I had fruit, cereal, and toast. I improvised and had cereal and banana toast, since they didn't have soymilk and I didn't want to munch on dry cereal alone. The Costa Rican coffee is amazing, btw.

When we got to the bus station Gordon was already there. See ya!
-S



La Fortuna 6:57 9/4/08

Today was AWESOME! Last night was pretty fun as well. Let's start then, shall we?

We arrive in La fortuna in the afternoon at around one pm, and find our hostel quite easily. It's a small town. Gringo Pete's is a quaint little hostel on the eastern side of town (town is no more than three miles wide). It is painted purple, and on the outside of the gate says "There are not such thing as strangers, only friends you haven't met yet." The woman who checked us in was really great and helpful and showed us around, etc. They've got a kitchen, free Costa Rican coffee (!!!), showers and a bbq pit in the back. We paid four dollars for a dorm room. So sweet!

So we got settled and then had a walk around town: Gordon, Bea and me. It's pretty touristy, although there aren't many tourists given it's nearing the end of tourist season, which was nice. We went in the little touristy shops with their hammocks and wooden statues. I kind of want to get a hammock, and I'm in the market for some hiking shoes (for here and for Bioko).

We stopped by this restaurant place and got casados- a plate of beans, rice, friend plantains, potatoes, cheese, and a main course of your choice: beef, veggies, lengua (toungue), etc. I got veggies of course, but was kind of disappointed when they came our with lettuce and tomatoes. Bea had beef and Gordon had toungue. They shared with each other. We also ordered fruit drinks- Bea had papaya juice with water (blended with ice), I had banana "water" and Gordon had strawberry "milk." The papaya drink was excellent.

After that we went back to the hostel to meet Gavin, a guy Gordon was sitting next to on the bus. We acquired four stray dogs on the way back and named them all: Nips (for her bulbous and swollen nipples), toast (he was the color of burnt toast), Chimichanga (the original follower), and a darker, squatter one whose name I forget. They were cute, but chased away by a small boy who evidentally lived next door to the hostel.

We walk in and this girl wrapped in a towel has a horrified look on her face, and is standing in the dorm. She says "there was a man watchng me take a shower through the windows!" Poor thing, she was mortified. And after that we kept seeing that little boy peeking through the windows to our room while we were changing and doing our girl thang.

Gavin comes and tells us that the hostel he's staying at (for ten dollars more)has a nice pool. It's hot and humid and we want to go for a swim. So I get this great idea to cut out strips of red paper from flyers to mimic the red wristband Gavin was wearing. It works! And we go swimming. We're sure they noticed, but didn't say anything since all we were doing was using their pool. It was loads of fun.

Afterwards, we bought some Costa Rican beer (40's, hah) at the supermarket and got a taxi to these hot springs about 13km down the road towards the volcano. Oh yeah- I forgot to mention the volcano Arenal. It's freaking enormous and spews lava down the west side of the volcano. We are on the eastern side, so we can't see it from the town, but the volcano itself is enormous!!

So we each pay about a dollar and are taxied to this hot springs resort area. Across from the $60 resort is the "run off" where all the locals go and chill fo free. It's dark at this point and we don't have flashlights. Hah. We pick our way down to the springs, shed our clothing, and sit down on this waterfallish thing. (we are wearing bathing suits of course.) It was like a really large slab of concrete, and the water flowed over, forming a waterfall where it droped off. There were some guys from San Jose, CA there with their cool teenage tourguide and we talked for a little bit.

The tourguide kid asked me if I wanted to go under the waterfall into a cave. I said "sure" and we plunged into the waterfall. Once we got inot the cave, which was the little space under the slab of concrete, he asked me if I was having fun and if that was my boyfriend outside. Hah. He totally wanted to get some. I told him my boyfriend was in the US and went back out of the cave :). We stayed there for about two and a half hours- the taxi driver said he'd pick us up at 9pm. It gets dark before 6pm here. So Gordon and I have a tipsy heart to heart conversation while Bea and Gavin talk, and we headed back up to the main road at 9.

Guess what? Taxi driver wasn't there. Prolly didn't even plan on cmoing back to pick us up.

We walk over to the $60 resort, throw away our empty bottles, help ourselves to some food, get kicked out, and ask for a taxi. Who shows up but our good 'ol flaker driver? Great. He comes, not looking happy at all. We seriously thought he was going to do something shady like drive us to the middle of the rainforest and strand us. Buttt he drove us back to the city where we walk back to our hostels and crash for the night.

The hot springs were pretty neat, though. Not too hot, very relaxing, and the stars weren't covered by tons of light pollution.

I had a good night's sleep and we woke up at around 7am the next morning. I'd say we kind of wandered around for the rest of today. We stopped by a supermarket and got some food for breakfast. I got some great vegan whole wheat cookies and beans and hips. In hindsight, cookies for breakfast is not a good idea.

Anyways, we kind of wandered around town a little bit, sat at the niternet cafe for a half hour each, I looked for shoes. Gordon went to get a massage and Bea and I took a nap.

I was sleeping great until the town's school band started playing really loudly outside Gringo Pete's. By band I mean a dozen or so drummers, some cymbals, and half a dozen large xylophones. It was quite a racket. I got up and went outside and watcehd them do their thang. It was real cute and they were havnig tons of fun.

I'm typing fast, bc I'm at a hostel right now and people look like they want to use the internet. Pardon the errors. Also, I left the connecting cable for my camera at Rob's so no pics until I get back!

When Gordon got back we made plans to walk to this river where the local kids al go swimming. It was about a half an hour walk, but it was great! THere was a great little waterfall and a rope swimng. THe water temp wasn't freexing, and it was great to hang out, jumping off rocks and flying off rope swings into the water- surrounded by rainforest with a massive volcano looming in the background.

We were the only people there, and started heading back at around six, when it got dark. I didn't bring my camera, but Bea and I are planning on going back tomorrow before our jeep-boat-jeep leaves at 8:30am for Monte Verde. FUn, fun, fun!

I also ate a big bag of fresh lychee and a bat flew into Gringo Pete's while we were eating dinner. Ciao!
-S