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 MondayYesterday 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.
