This is part of 8 posts where I will, with minor edits and omissions, put my journal from days in Costa Rica online. There is no real grammar structure, but hopefully it makes sense...
10/24/2009 Saturday
My upcoming night's sleep feels like one of the hardest earned in my life. Here's to sleeping like a baby! I write this from a situation my dad would find a personal hell. Tonight stands alone as the most humid in my life, and the fan isn't quite keeping up to say the least. I am in room #3 at the Exotica Lodge in Puerto Viejo de Talamanca approx. 100m from the Atlantic Ocean in southern Costa Rica. I was too tired to care upon arrival, but in the morning will try to do the American thing and buy myself into a more comfortable situation. The fridge and the fan work, and the cold water is nice, so it could be far worse... camping in Moab in August, for example... Anyways, this story really begins yesterday around lunch time. I was trail running on a stunning fall day in Boulder at the base of the Flatirons. No surprise I didn't keep up with coworkers Darren and Tim, but it was really the perfect use of a lunch hour given the weather, setting, etc. I really love the fall. After trail running I finished the work day and headed to happy hour to celebrate several coworkers birthdays. A few hours later I made my way to DIA for the 1am flight to ATL. (By the way, I found it especially tough to leave Tacoma this time. I know he's fine but I feel kinda bad leaving my little buddy for so long. He's a good kid...) I didn't really sleep on the flight, and didn't really sleep on my 4 hr layover in ATL, so I was ready for sleep when I got on the plane to San Jose. That didn't really happen either. (I met a girl from Jersey who lives in Aspen that slept soundly though. I told her I was jealous when she woke up and we talked for a while. Molly... she was definitely a Molly based on previous experience... reminded me a lot of Kendra too. Sidenote: all of the girls I've ever met living in Aspen have proven especially intriguing. Rad chicas. I might have to move there.) Sleep was in short supply then too. I was excited to see the Atlantic. Flying over Florida, however, was shameful. There is no more green, no more swamp... only roads and vacation homes. It was depressing. 3 minutes after Florida disappeared, Cuba came into view. Unspoiled white sand beaches... much better! Our pilot seemed to agree. After Cuba came the dark blue ocean. So dark, it seemed fake, like a bluebird day on the slopes in April where I would almost swear the sky has switched to purple, but I digress...
I really believe it was love at first sight for Costa Rica and I. I had a window seat and finally saw land again. Unspoiled jungle led right up to the coast where white wave breaks met white sand. A muddy brown river flowed slowly into the Atlantic... maybe the Parismina. The Canal del Tortuguero was also in plain sight, but otherwise nothing but rainforest jungle blanketing gentle mountain slopes. As we neared SJO you could see crops, but it was much more pure than Florida a few hours prior.
SJO took me by surprise, as did the humidity. The airport was so small, much smaller than Cancun, for example, which supports a smaller town. I changed into a t-shirt while waiting for the checked baggage to start and regretted not also carrying on shorts. I forgot that 70*F in Boulder feels nothing like 70*F in the topics. Oh well. I took a taxi to the Caribeño bus station... the driver spoke almost no English. It was put up or shut up time for my Spanish lessons. When he dropped me off, he complimented my Spanish, so I guess I did OK. He asked me where I was going, for how long, whether I'd been to CR before... simple stuff. When we got to the bus station I thought it was a joke. No tourism here... la gente in the true colors. Complete culture shock. I questioned this whole trip; I was scared and alone. No English. Period. 4200 colones (~$8) bought me a seat for 4 hours on a bus with no AC and no bathroom. Again, still exhausted, I wanted to sleep but couldn't. As we descended from San Jose to the Atlantic I was in awe at how beautiful the country is. My eyes were huge for the first half hour. The jungle is in command, and only a tiny strip of pavement slices through it. Viva la selva. Waterfalls, mudslides, clouds like Gorillas in the Mist... very captivating. The my neighbor with the window seat woke up. This was a true answered prayer. For 3.5 hours we talked in mostly Spanish... again, almost no English. We talked about interests, music, movies, jazz, the towns we drove through... He was 23, from Nicaragua, 1/4 Italian, had an ex-girlfriend in Spain whose dad was African and mom Swiss. Trying to explain bluegrass proved unsuccessful aside from explaining the state my brother lives in has grass called bluegrass. We talked about being single, my plans in CR, religion. He is Presbyterian and in seminary helping a remote village on the Panama border. We talked about missionaries, favorite foods, etc. I was in disbelief that I could understand him and vise versa. My brain hurt but spirits very high as the sun set. Too tired to walk or think, I took a cab to my hotel. 45 seconds later I was here... unpacked a bit and then sat down on the bed. The linens are clean. I'm not sure what the pillow is made of. It will do. A spider and centipede crawl across the floor. Thinking I should put up my mosquito net, I eat an apple and fall asleep. I woke up 2 hrs later. I need more rest. It's 11:30pm. Almost 2 days with little more than a nap. Tomorrow will be low stress! Until then, insects, birds (and the occasional monkey) sing me to sleep. Pura vida.
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