so im gonna write this taking it straight from my journal that ive been keeping, it´ll make it seem more up to the minute and perhaps more interesting. i also tend to write as if im talking to someone so you might feel like this is directed straight at you... lucky you. it will be like a collection of different entries taken at different times... here goes.
the sun is shining, the weather is sweet. finlay the costa rica i was expecting. i have left san jose and am now on my way to montezuma. i am on a ferry from puntarenas to paquera on the peninsula de nicoya. there are some birds flying alongside us as we cruise through the sea. i have to be careful with my bald head not to get sunburnt as it is scorching. and so just to catch up... leaving cuba was very uneventful, i got to the airport about 3 hours early. in the end i really didn´t need to get there so early but i had been told that i should expect delays, but it was just smooth sailing. i spent the last of my convertable pesos and managed to change a whole lot of nationals into 3 peso notes as souvenirs. they are all red with che on them. i had half expected paul to be at the airport waiting when i arrived but this was false hope. i didn´t even have his umber on me to call him, very forward thinking of you there nico. so a taxi ride later and im at this huge hostel called pangea, which might have been a nice place if they weren´t so uptight about the rules and i wasn´t so completely planless. it might have also had a bit more charm if there were 50 less uninteresting americans staying there.
so when i finlay got my shit together and found pauls number i was frustrated again by it not working for 3 days. i started to despair that i would spend all my time in this crap hostel so started lokoing at couchsurfing options. couchsurfing never fails. so i had someone to show my round town and another who let me stay with them. i managed to develop the photos id taken with my disposable cameras in cuba (which dad now has if anyone is interested). not the best quality but better than nothing. dman i miss not having a camera. so the guy who said that i could stay with him was already hosting someone and said that i was fine with it i could stay on the couch. i had no problems with that. so i went to where we were suppoosed to meet up and there was this other couchsurfer, briana. this cool chick from southern california. so we got talking while waiting for couch surfing paul to show up and was telling her a little about the brigades in venezuela and cuba when she went one up on me and said that she´s been studying abroad in bolivia when the water uprisings were taking place. not only that but evo morales had come and spoken to her class as he knew their teacher. but then to add insult to injury, she said that while there she had also met subcommandante marcos. at that moment she was god. it was really nice to meet someone so clued on to alternative politics and especially here in costa rica, the gringo playground. she was heading to playa naranja on the nicoya peninsula for a 10 day silent meditation retreat. it took me a while to get my head around that concept as i think i would find it very difficult to spend 10 days inside my own head. ill have to get in contact with her afterwards to see how it went.
so we finaly met up with paul and we drove around san jose with him as he did some errands. we ate this fantastic cajun meal that was some of the ebst food id had in a very long time. cuba´s food is not really something ill miss about the place.
we dumped brianas stuff at his place and caught a bus back into town to meet up with the other couchsurfer id organised to meet to show me round. silvia took as all round town and to the national university where she studies medicine. it was really beautiful and nice to get away from all the cars for a while. we stopped off for a couple of hours in this little coffee shopped and solved all of the worlds problems. if only we had the power... it was really funny hanging out with briana, she had this real no nonsense approach to travel and life. like for example when guys that were just blatantly staring at her ´undressing her with their eyes´ as she would say, she would just look at them and buenas, come stas. it was always funny to see their reactions as they suddenly realised that this person they were oggling was reacting to them. she said that as a solo female traveller she had to be alot more careful and simple things like that would get her remembered if anything ever happened to her.
on our way back we had to grab my bags from my hostel where they promptly charged me $5 just for the privilage of holding my bags. dicks. we stopped for some beers with paul before heading back to his place.
i had already decided that i wanted to go to montezuma which i had been recommended by a few people. but when in the morning i foudn out that the bus was a 9 hours bus journey i had a minor freakout as i had completely misjudged the time. luckily both and paul and briana had their heads screwed on right and pointed out that there were multiple ways of getting there. damn brigades making me think there was only one way of doing things...
so me and briana bussed to puntarenas and went our seperate ways. just as i was getting off the bus i met these swiss girls who were also going to montezuma. it was very nice to have some travel companions for a time. we nicknamed them m and m. melanie and mirianne. we stayed in this bohemian 60s place where i slept outside in my hammock between two palms. the place was right on the beach so about a 20m stroll down to the water. and because we´d travelled togther i got to stash my stuff in their room instead of under my hammock which was extra cool. some crazy people there. it was also cool because just as i was rounding a corner i bumped into 2 guys who id studied spanish with in merida in venezuela. we´d both told each other we were coming to costa rica but hadn´t really been in contact and randomly met up in the same town, same hostel. small world. they had this awesome dinner there where it was like a family dinner right on the sand with vegetarian pasta and all you could eat. definately one of the better decisions ive made was going to montezuma. this was exactly the typw of weather iw as expecting in costa rica. i got to wake up just before the sunrise and peek out over the edge of my hammock and watch the sun rise out of the water bathing the water and the day in golden light and creating a road of light stretching from the waters edge to the horizon. until i fell back asleep only to be woken up again as the sun beat down on me. no sleepins there. it got really hot in my hammock and i kept trying to put the palm it was tied to between the sun and me but the shade kept moving as the sun rose and so finaly gave up and got up.
we have just walked to this beautiful waterfall on a really harsh rock track in barefeet. there are alot of tourists but it is still amazing, but i am sweating like nothing else just writing this. while we were there some of the others from the hostel turned up, a german guý; franz and an american guy michael. well i think he was called michael, well he´s michael for the purposes of this story. we climbed up this really steep path next to the waterfall needing all four limbs to climb and i still ha dmy plastic bag with my food in it so we made it up rather difficultly. up and up and up. man we climbed for ages, and just as we got above the waterfall and the other pools, we had to clamber down this really steep bit. it had a rope attached but when im doing this kind of thing i like to have solid roots to hold onto. i got the mad bout of vertigo so it took me a while to get down and i wa still barefeet. but in the end it actually gave me better grip as the others were lsiding all over the place. go the toe grip. the top pools were incredible, so nice to swim in. and people were jumping between the different pools. each was slightly higher than the other with its own waterfall. the main water fall we had climbed to the top of was about 50m high with a big pool at the top with a 10m waterfall with a pool above that with another 5m waterfall there. was awesome. the 10m wa too high for me, me and my vertigo. but other people were jumping, some of them really acrobatic, especially the local ticos. doing lips and turns. a couple climbed onto this overhanging branch that was about 10m up and flipped off. we stayed for a good few hours and took a different way home. we saw bellbirds and howler monkeys right over the road. as a jeep went past the monkeys started howling.
because we spent so long at the waterfall i didn´t get to spend much time at the beach. i missed the waterfal that fell into the sea that silvia had told me about but had some good dumping bodysurfing. we went out to the local club where they were playing a solid fare of reggae dancehall and of course regaton.
the next day i was headed back to san jose where i stayed at the same hostel as everyone was busy already. but met up with this group where we went to this bar where one of the guys was djing that night. but he was playing this kind of electro indie which was not so fantastic. but there was this bar just around the corner with a drum n bass night. haha. good times.
ok so thats about enough for now. ive got plenty more and will try and split the entries up a bit. so hopefully i can get some catching up done. i am currently in this place called jinotega in the north of nicaragua. killing a few days while i wait to head to laguna de apoyo where im taking some more spanish lessons at this eco lodge. we went there the other day and it was beautiful this massive crater lake. im really looking forward to it. so until next time. love you all.
peace
