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.