Pasajes de Costa Rica, viaje 2, día 9

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...

10/31/2010 Sunday

Happy Halloween from above what I would guess is Caribbean water owned by Honduras. Delta is once again carrying me back to native soil. The day started with a power outage at the hotel. Thankfully the coffee was already made. Breakfast was good, with toast, banana, pineapple and watermelon. After that my first hot water shower in probably 10 days. Brilliant!! Simple pleasures, I guess... After a slight cockroach incident I walked from 29th to 15th along Paseo Colon and caught the bus to the airport. The owner of the hotel gave me directions to the station on a map, and I said, "Ok, just just turn right at 15th street?" to which he replied, "Well, you won't find 15th street. The numbers are just for the maps... we don't use them. You'll know because the road gets narrow." No joke... my gringo brain still has trouble with the addresses here. For example, the official address of the Colombian restaurant I ate at last night is, seriously, San Jose de Costa Rica, 100 metros norte de KFC del paseo colon. What?!?! Anyways, the bus cost 450 colones (about 80 cents)... public transit is so cheap here it's unbelievable. A taxi would have been almost $20. In the airport I bought a chorreador... amazingly, it was a better price in the airport than anywhere else I traveled. A Canadian girl from Luna Llena (Montezuma) recognized me and we chatted for a bit. [I didn't remember much about her other than getting an ATV stuck in a river and a very personal conversation she was having with her friend rather openly. They were discussing very private psychological and sexual freedoms her and her boyfriend had talked about or done. It surprised me they didn't mind mind other people hearing them... I definitely wasn't eavesdropping; we couldn't help hearing them from our card game. I also remember this starting a conversation about how easy it is for an American to recognize a Canadian, but how difficult it is for the rest of the world to distinguish between American and Canadian English.] I also recognized several people from the ATL airport from the flight down... small world. Shopping for Cuban cigars I talked to a Tica who was working, dressed up as a witch and handing out candy. [We're now flying over a chain of islands surrounded by water so turquoise it looks fake. My guess is San Andrés, Colombia but who knows. That place is on my list... Also, the best part of flying Delta is still the Biscoff cookies.] She is apparently finishing college and then hopes to travel in the US; has a friend living in Colorado. She told me her favorite language is English, especially how it sounds when spoken by native speakers. That surprised me, given how so many people like the sound of Spanish more than English. Apparently along with electronics, it is also cheaper to buy running shoes (she was a runner) from online stores in the US and have them shipped to Costa Rica. Bizarre. This girl was so nice. All Ticos, really, are. Easy to talk to, genuine, with big and authentic smiles.

Overall, this was a good trip. I honestly wish it had rained less but regardless I got to see more of Costa Rica and relax. I don't think there were many major epiphanies but I think I proved to myself that I'm capable of travelling in other parts of Latin America where English is less prolific. Up next could be Peru, Colombia, Bolivia, Chile or Argentina. I obviously couldn't hide the fact that I wasn't local, so I was greeted with "hi" as often as "hola" but feel like I did well with Spanish. The exception to that rule is San José. Josefinos don't seem to speak much English and don't seem to care whether you speak Spanish (but typically not in a rude way). I also learned my next trip needs to be 2 weeks at a bare minimum. 1 is simply not enough. I learned some things about Tico Spanish:

• It is much more formal (usted) on the Pacific side than the Caribbean (tú)
• Conversationally, they end a large percentage of sentences with, ", ¿verdad?" or ", ¿cierto?"
• Young guys start and end sentences with "mae" (i.e. Dude, that wave was great dude!)
• They use vos / sos but it seems fairly rare... maybe mostly non-locals

I know a year ago I wouldn't have noticed these things. Progress. And speaking of, it seems now I'm ready for winter. I need to really crush it on the skis and keep up the cycling through the winter. I have a lot of goals... time to write 'em down and get crackin.

Pasajes de Costa Rica, viaje 2, día 8

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...

10/30/2010 Saturday

I am in about as different a position as is possible to be in after just 24 hours. No beach 100 meters down a gravel path... paved highway instead. Closed windows, a cool temperature, hot water readily available. Cable TV even. No bugs in the room to bite during the night. You get the idea.

For the 2nd time this trip I woke up to catch a 6am bus. Last night after the movie ("Silence of the Lambs") I decided it was time and packed up. Ara gave me a hug and wished me safe travels. Then I walked into my room and saw a big spider... probably 1" x 2" with eyes reflecting green. I turned the lights on and the fan all the way up so she left. I kept the fan on just in case. Gabby also caught the San José bus to go back to school after visiting her dad, so we sat next to each other on the ferry. She's going through college 2 classes at a time while working about 60 hrs / week. Incredible. Once back on land, the bus stopped at the Coca Cola station. What a zoo! I will avoid that in the future if possible. I was so exhausted from riding in a bus for 6 hours that I took a cab all of 5 blocks (₡500 ~ 95 cents), checked in and laid down for a nap. I discovered college football on ABC from a Denver channel. (The same horrible political ads from home on TV all the way down here... uggh) After almost 3 hours of drifting in and out of sleep I got up and walked out for dinner. I had planned on going to Machu Picchu like last year (nearby, delicious, accepts credit cards...) but it was before 5pm so they weren't open. No problem; right across the street was a Colombian restaurant, Mi Parrilla Colombiana. Jackpot :) My waiter was Colombian and even showed me on a map where my aguardiente came from. My dinner was the bandeja paisa; rice, beans, a fried egg, ground beef, sausage, plantains and a platano tortilla, avacado and chicharrón (pork belly... when in Rome, don't ask, just eat) on all one plate. I also had a beer and a shot of aguardiente plus café con leche and vanilla flan for dessert, all for $17 with tip and tax. Very reasonable. My budding Colombia fascination was spurred on by this meal, so I think I have to go there next. The restaurant was very nice; Colombian MTV in the background (not over the top), with paintings, maps and photos celebrating the owner's homeland. [sidenote: based on the musicians on the TV, I have to say, Colombia has an immense wealth of talented musicians] I think I need to improve my aguardiente skills though; I overdid the salt. There were several kinds so I just told him to pick whichever he liked the most. I got a plate of limes, a pile of salt, and 1 chilled shot. My waiter told me to shoot, not sip, and watched with anticipation. That stuff goes down really easy. He seemed proud of his selection for me and was happy to hear I liked it.

Pasajes de Costa Rica, viaje 2, día 7

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...

10/29/2010 Friday

Finally a day without rain! It wasn't exactly clear skies all day but still, no torrential downpours. I did some reading in the morning and then surfed a bit. The tide was low and going out, so the waves were small, but that was good for me. It was my first time without an instructor so I was happy enough to be able to pick the right wave, stand up, and ride it all the way in. I did that several times. I was on a shorter board and it was very noticeable, but still not impossible.

Afterwards I walked the shops a bit and bought a painting of a scarlet macaw on banana paper... my 1 souvenir from the trip. The girl who owned the shop was born here and has lived in Santa Teresa all her life. She said her owning of the store was coming on 2 years next week. Hers, like all the others, had a pile of muddy flip flops outside. The road is so bad you honestly would just be mopping up mud all day long unless you made people go barefoot in your store. I would guess 30% of the road is potholes full of mud. It was re-done last December, brand new, but needs re-done again already. I have mud all up my legs and the back of my shorts just from walking on the road. After surfing yesterday my instructor and I were picked up by an ATV for a lift to the shop. I rode facing backwards, legs hanging off the back, behind the driver. When we got back, no more than 1/2 mile on the road, my legs looked like I had taken a mud bath. In the dry season it's dust instead.

There's a 6:30 and a 2:30 bus to San José from here. I'm not sure how long it takes. I don't want to get in really late but if I can spend more time on the coast, I will. Just doing nothing but watching the waves and listening to the palms sway is fine by me.

Pasajes de Costa Rica, viaje 2, día 6

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...

10/28/2010 Thursday

I slept pretty well but the room was really hot. Or humid. Both. I'll probably use the fan tonight. Shortly after waking up the power went out for several hours. Marta was quite upset in a joking way. She cracks me up. I went to the bank and they had power. I got really upset at myself for the bank teller having to use English to tell me where the pharmacy was. Our entire conversation had been in Spanish until I could not understand her saying, "frente de la calle" through the glass. She didn't speak English so she had to ask somebody how to say it in English. I was mad my mental ear didn't pick up on what she was saying. At any rate, the pharmacy did not have power, but I picked up some after-bite aloe stuff but actually now think my right hand has some kind of poison ivy. I was careful not to touch plants I didn't recognize on this trip so I don't know what happened. That and the bug bites seem to be improving. I read for a bit and decided to take the road north instead of the beach... walked almost to Manzanillo without rain. I walked the beach back to Casa Zen and walked up to check on surf lessons / rentals. I decided to do the lesson right then. The guy who I setup the lesson from was Israeli and thought I was too, so I had no idea what in the world he was saying until he switched to English. After about 90 minutes I had caught several waves, and I was exhausted. My instructor was from Santiago, Chile and was funny. We kept swapping back and forth between Spanish and English in the conversation, but his instructions were always in Spanish. ¡Eso, eso! I have the board for 24 hours so I should be able to surf again in the morning for a few hours.

A few people showed up to stay here today, to the staff are happy about that. Speaking of the staff, they're hilarious, probably the most animated talkers and story tellers I've ever seen. I think Aracely takes the cake... she's tiny (about 5'2" and thin) but works tirelessly. Even if you put her on mute her stories would still make you laugh. She has a huge smile and talks with her whole body. Her voice sounds very young. I've heard she has 3 kids, 2 of them in Nicaragua. They must have been 3 lbs coming out... I'm not sure how she did it otherwise. Somebody keeps calling here and she's dealing with that... wrong number over and over.

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Tonight's movie was "Invasion" and the power went out. Afterwards I checked my email over the wifi at the cafe on the corner. The girl I ordered my chai from was Argentine... holy crap. Jaw meet floor. She had dark skin and dark hair, but very contrasting hazel eyes, skinny legs in designer jeans. Mi. a. freaking. mor. Did I mention that an Argentine accent with English is my favorite version of English? I only talked to her and her friend (an Israeli girl with some of the longest hair I've ever seen) for a minute but she used "vos" instead of "tú" with me and I was able to follow despite being a thrown off momentarily. My Spanish listening is definitely improving, despite the bank incident.

Pasajes de Costa Rica, viaje 2, día 5

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...

10/27/2010 Wednesday

Speaking of doing things alone, I have discovered that I am the only one with reservations at Casa Zen for the 3 nights I'll be here. This is bizarre considering this same week last year they were turning people away. It will just be the sound of the rain and me here tonight... a bit of a weird feeling about that. I should make progress on another book, to say the least. Me and the staff watched "Nightmare Before Christmas" tonight. (Also, several of the staff here recognized me when I got here, which surprised me.) But before that... I came by bus from Montezuma. The bus "stop" there is a gravel lot. Luckily there were buses and people standing around, or I would have walked right by it. I had to ask the driver which bus to get on... they weren't marked. On the 2nd bus (Cóbano > Santa Teresa) I talked to an Argentine guy for a while. He showed me photos of Chile and Argentina on his camera; one of Aconcagua (climbing it is a life goal) from what must have been near the first base camp. I showed him photos from the top of Mt. Democrat. When I got to Casa Zen it started raining. After a while it cleared so I walked the beach north a mile or so. I really hope it's sunny tomorrow. The beach was nice but a lot of wood and trees down. The storm that brought the tornado to Manuel Antonio must have torn apart a lot of the coast. I don't know if it's La Niña here as well or not. Either way, it seems everyone is tired of it. Tomorrow I'll get busy one was or another... feeling inactive and idle. Surfing should fix that. That reminds me, the only other person getting a ride to Montezuma on the speed boat was surfing here today. I guess the waves in Montezuma weren't ideal. [I thought they looked great, but all breaks seemed to have major consequences if you fell. Not so here.] He was from Israel, spoke pretty good English.

Pasajes de Costa Rica, viaje 2, día 4

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...

10/26/2010 Tuesday

The rain started last night (around 10pm, I would guess based on the moon... I put my watch away on purpose). The canopy is still ingesting this morning. The sky yawns and goes from emitting mist to (only barely more coagulated) rain, and back. It's going to rain a lot today. A big bushy-tailed red squirrel lazily eats berries in the treetop next to me. On the ground a raccoon / anteater mix thing walked by. In the distance I cannot distinguish the horizon. It was obvious yesterday. I didn't have a plan for today, and the weather has ensured I catch up on reading in wicker chairs from a second-floor balcony. It's a nice day for a hammock, which is fine because the book I'm reading is quite good. His descriptions of skiing epic days at Wolf Creek, and skiing in general, have me really excited for ski season. I know exactly what the dude is describing. It's one of the best feelings on earth. So is this... Costa Rica. I feel really spoiled that I can enjoy both. I'm not exactly sure what I should (or have to) do to get that feeling to go away. For starters, I'm going to walk into town when the rain stops.

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Night. It turned out a fairly uneventful day. I ended up going for a bit of a hike, though, when the sky cleared. The beaches north of Montezuma are beautiful ...but full of trash. Very disappointing. Pretty but in need of cleaning. I bought some groceries and stayed in, chatting with a newly married couple (an English guy learning Spanish from his Spanish wife) and then playing rummy with a girl from New York, a Canadian, and a Westminster, CO native. Later a German guy joined. He told stories of hiking snow-free 6,000m peaks in Bolivia. It sounds like a trip to Bolivia and Peru for mountaineering is in order. I also finished the book... a good read. The author reminded me of Darren, which made me think of traveling alone. I know that's looked down upon a bit, but then again I do a lot of things alone. More than I should. I'll get that figured out soon enough.

Pasajes de Costa Rica, viaje 2, día 3

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...

10/25/2010 Monday
Yesterday was quite a day. It's hard to believe it was just my first full day in the country... an extreme variety of experiences, starting at 6am. I woke up at first light even with all the curtains closed. I believe the temperature also played a role there. At any rate, I was met at the hotel at 8am by a guide for Manuel Antonio National Park and was paired with a Canadian couple for a "3 hour tour." Our guide's English was very good. He encouraged me in my Spanish while we walked ("and, Brett, how do you say that in Spanish?..."). Right out of the gate, we saw lots of lizards, monkeys, sloths, etc. The beaches were also beautiful. At the end of the tour my guide walked me back to the hotel.
I already had decent photos of Capuchin and 3-toed sloths but wanted to try to find some Howlers and go for a swim, so I went back to the park in the afternoon. I had some great luck and ended up finding some Howlers and a 2-toed sloth, which I took a ton of photos of. After the sloth sighting I spotted a big lizard on a volcanic rock a bit further down the beach. It looked like a great photo so I walked closer. I got within 20 feet and mistakenly walked into a swarm of big black flies that seemed to have stingers. They didn't seem to notice for a minute, but once they decided I was worth paying attention to it was as if I had kicked a hornet's nest. I didn't get stung but dozens landed on my shirt, legs, backpack, in my hair... I must have been quite a sight for everybody else on Third Beach, flailing and running away. Humbled and confused as to what just happened, I decided some beach time was necessary. I stayed at Third Beach for a while but ended up swimming at Second Beach. Not for long though... After diving into/under several sets of waves I got caught off guard and made a fool for the second time in as many hours. I dove under a head high wave which had a twin right behind it. The first one lifted me directly into the second one (I didn't dive deep enough) so I literally got put through the wash, extreme rinse cycle... First a full back flip under water then thrown around to the point where I didn't know which way was up, honestly. It was about the same experience as getting flipped in a tiny kayak in class 3 rapids, from my recollection, but the kayak memory seems less chaotic. At least nobody saw the beach disaster, but still, I decided 2 strikes was enough and I didn't need a third.
For dinner I walked next door to Backpacker Hostel Costa Linda, the same place I saw people feeding a group of Squirrel Monkeys earlier... bananas. Better than french fries, but still not good. I had the chicken curry, which was awesome. Pineapple, paprika, chicken, rice - I need to try to reproduce when I get home. The 3 brothers from the van to Manuel Antonio walked up to my table and ate dinner with me. A girl from Georgia (Elizabeth) joined. I recognized her from the beach / park earlier in the day. She has an interesting story, traveling from farm to farm as an organic farmer (in the WWOOF program), hoping to learn Spanish. A Dutch girl (Mareshka from Amsterdam) joined us. She had come up from Corcovado where she was the only person stay at her hotel... apparently saw jaguar prints on the beach frequently. I must visit there. We got a deck of cards and started playing drinking games. Long story short, we lined up a row up empty bottles about 7 feet long, and Elizabeth wasn't even drinking. We actually drank the bar out of Pilsen so we switched to Imperial. Amazingly my bill was $21. That's a lot for Costa Rica, but not bad for a huge plate of food and about 7 beers. After beer 4 or 5 I switched to coffee (free all the time there). As if mixing depressants and stimulants wasn't bad enough, I actually got a craving for a cigarette (?!) and acted on it. Twice. Mareshka was smoking and it smelled really good. Considering I have only smoked maybe 2 cigarettes in my life before, this was bizarre. The wheels pretty much came off.
Needless to say, I was shocked that I got up and caught the 6:30 bus to Quepos > Jacó. Jacó does not seem like my kind of town. I caught a van to Playa Herradura and the speed boat to Montezuma from there. (The speed boat is not for the faint of heart.) I'm at Luna Llena now. I think I could stay here for a long time. It's a steep hill up from town and basically build into the canopy. Howler and Capuchin monkeys are in the trees literally 5 steps out my door. The capuchins in particular jump with reckless abandon from the roof into the almond, palm and banana trees. Pura vida. There are tons of wildflowers in bloom, butterflies, etc. A bizarre reddish rodent just walked by. The tide comes in, the tide goes out. There's not a lot going on here.
I just learned the use of the deep gutters/ditches next to all the roads are. Not only would it be impossible to lay pipes in the ground where landslides obliterate roads on a consistent basis, but also, and this is fairly common, the drains from the sinks run directly into the ground. I feel kinda bad for the soil for all that, and hope that improves in the future. All the frogs drowning in soap are probably not happy... but with all the rain we're having now, it probably isn't their biggest concern.
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I forgot to mention where we got the cards for drinking games last night. A British guy at the table next to us loaned them. He and his girlfriend were on their way back to San José for surgery follow-up. He had stitches that day from a surfing accident. Apparently he had (used to have?) a deviated (until today?) septum and was able to finally breathe out of both nostrils for the first time in years after getting whacked right between the eyes by his board.
The moon is coming up now. It's really dark here so the stars should be great if the clouds break. I've noticed a few things... This is a very different crowd than everywhere else I've ever stayed in Costa Rica. People are making dinners from scratch with groceries from the super down the hill. I think I'm the only American - the Europeans are all (most, not all) chain smoking and drinking wine. It's a more mature crowd... mostly older too. More independent. Nag Champa has been burning a long time and seems to help with the mosquitoes. I've never seen this kind before... it's burning in a coil that looks like it belongs on a stove top. A very slow burn (about 1/2 a rotation - 180 degrees in an hour). The radio is on, blaring 20 year old American music. It's horrible. The van driver to Manuel Antonio was playing similar stuff on Saturday, by choice. All the worst USA break-up songs of all time. I pray everybody knows this isn't actually what we listen to anymore. I have a strange desire to apologize at a yell for Richard Marx, Hall & Oates, and the Bengals. We've moved on. I admit to owning a Richard Marx CD. I sold it 20 years ago. I also just realized the Asian theme here; Nepalese prayer flags, Buddha statues and paintings, incense.
Even after the hour-long speed boat and multiple showers I still have sand in my hair from yesterday's disaster in the waves. I need another shower now. In need of a cleansing after last night. I had a vegetarian dinner, without alcohol (500ml of Gatorade and several liters of water instead today), right on the beach. I just watched the bats fly around and the sun set. I might run some hills tomorrow. The hill down to the beach probably averages 15% and would be nice on a bike. Yep, a cleansing is in order.

Pasajes de Costa Rica, viaje 2, día 1

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...

10/23/2010 Saturday
This trip caught me off guard. Two weeks ago I had no reservations. Ideas but no plans set. I thought about winging the whole thing but now am happy I have the plans I do. I'm not sure what I'm expecting from the trip, but I'm excited. On the flight from DIA to ATL I sat next to the lady who read and crunched sunflower seeds all flight... no sleep. From ATL to SJO I read 1/3 of a biography about a ski bum from Wolf Creek. It was a bit confusing flying through a tropical storm reading about neck-deep powder. I think this trip signifies the end of fall for me. A little bit of summer before winter in November. My Spanish is definitely better. On the SJO flight I talked to a Tico in Spanish. He was returning from Boston... loaded up on electronics. Apparently it's much cheaper to buy that stuff in the US. Good chat with the taxi driver too. I'm not en route to Manuel Antonio. I'm really pumped for the park tomorrow. I got a text that OSU beat Purdue (49-0, exactly as I like to see) so now the phone is off.

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8pm. Just wrapped up a funny dinner that has me wishing I had a whole week booked at Vela Bar. My room is awesome. A fridge, A/C, fan, attached bathroom, tons of windows. I booked a guide for tomorrow and discovered with WiFi during dinner... not to mention experienced probably the hardest sustained rainfall of my life. Horrific waves of clouds are sweeping in off the Pacific. We're in a lull right now. But seriously, on the drive in, it was raining so hard that the windshield wipers on full blast weren't really helping visibility. Streams gushed across the road. Every trough/lane of the Spanish tile roof here seems as if somebody has turned a faucet on at the top of it... curtains of rain. It's a refreshing change from Boulder. And speaking of small worlds, on the bus ride in, one group was from Austin and the other were from San Diego with ties to Active and RegOnline.
Once I was established, I ate. The theme of dinner became, "well, I've never had that before..." Rainy season is 2 for 1 happy hour, so I got 2 blackberry coladas (I thought it would just be half price but actually was given 2). The sailfish casado was excellent. My waitor was extremely nice; asked me where I'd been already, where I was going, commented on my Spanish and asked how I had learned, etc. The room and staff here are great. I hope tomorrow is too. This trip went from backburner to "pick up right where we left off last Halloween" in about 6 hours.