Hello Friends...
We've tried a few times to add information to our site...without luck. Reading internet in other languages tied with funky internet connections makes for a few necessary trial and error sessions. Anyway...our adventures to date are as follows...first however, I must warn you...I might be long winded with this, but please bear with me as I just finished writing a thesis, so my typing fingers are in the best shape of their lives, and after a couple of days rest, they're itching to get going hahaha.
Arriving in New York was as it should be...busy, exciting, a little rude...but our canadian charm and politeness broke down even the stoniest of faces! We couldn't store our bags in the airport (damn 911)...so hauled them (nervously) through the subway system all the way to downtown Manhattan to see Julia's friend Scott Baxter. He's got a place in the middle of it all...6th ave and 13th street. So easy to get to, not to easy to leave from (for more than one reason to find out). Our fantastic host took us to dine like chinese kings at Sammy's...best bang for the buck in chinese food I've ever had in north america! Then, a LONG walk through the interesting streets...seeing bars with one way mirrored bathrooms (wathching people eat while you pee practically in their faces is a fun experience!)...TONS of night life, clubs, HUGELY expensive stores, etc. It's got quite the energy there...and was surprisingly clean. Even the rats looked clean and healthy! GOD BLESS AMERICAAAAA...ok...enough. The world trade site was a good remembrance...and easier to picture the shock of the event that happened already 4 years ago! Walks along the river, a distant glance of that statue of peace or whatever (kidding) and then, the necessary cabbie experience. Well...ours just so happened to get lost within 2 blocks...COME ON!!! That's like getting lost in Saskatoon. Well...I guess I've done that too, but I'm not a CABBIE!Manhattan is a tiny finger of an island with all gridded streets...1, 2, 3, 4...then what??!!! Anyway...we met a nice dude named Kingsley (I thought they introduced him as Paisley...noisy bar...typical Tyler mistake calling a big black dude in New York Paisley) who is the founder of a not yet released magazine called Night Life...pick it up if you find it, then we were off at around 2am to get to the airport in time for a 3 hour early arrival before departure (?). Welll...the subway just so happened to be undergoing major construction that night, and our 1 hour took us 3, and our 3 hours early became 1. Scolded by the airport guard in spanish, along with our tired stress wasn't much fun...but we made it over our first hurdle. Off to Costa Rica.
Costa Rica...immediately Julia smiled because of the heat and sun...I shuddered....although it wasn't too bad. We found our proper bus to downtown and decided to start skimping early in the trip and walk the 3-4 km to the next bus station. We grabbed a bag of local food (fried chicken...YUMMY....no KFC, but pretty damn good) and walked past face after bewildered face in seeing us so loaded up and hiking down some realatively back streets. Crazy canucks...Anyway...we did manage to finally get our bus to Cartago, then transferred to Orosi...a secluded town of 9000 where we were to study spanish. Arriving in good time on Sunday, we made it to our hostel, walked in ungreeted (except by the dog named Guapo) by all the other students...found a BIG pussy (cat) on our tiny, shitty bed, and had to laugh. What were we in for?? It turned out to be a strange first experience...a town in the bowl of several mountains...very few travellers...the only ones there seemed to focused on their spanish studies that they hardly had time to greet us...but a nice place too. A neat discovery, and more of a realistic rather than touristy discovery. I WOULD recommend that place to someone who wants to get away from their normal routine of life, who wants to study spanish, but not who wants to go see wonderful things. WEll...I suppose all things in life can be deemed as wonderful...and it really was quite a remarkable place too...I'll stop writing contradictory things now. The little differences were quite neat too...such as the damn roosters that crowed at 2am rather than when the sun came up! One would start in the distant mountains, ALL the roosters that ALL the town houses house would join in, and...well...we all woke up. Also, there are TONS of stray dogs and cats...many of whom walk on the steel rooves of the houses...many of whom FIGHT on the rooves screaming and running...and, waking us up. The bed was a good shocker too. Used to a luxury king sized...we knew that would be a challenge! Lucky me...I developed not ONLY a good bit of diarhea in my first day in Costa Rica...but a sinus cold too and a VERY sore sore on my tongue. YES...just the way I like it...a challenge to be positive haha. The weather however, was beautiful (I have good weather luck)! Another strange difference...toilet paper is not allowed in the toilets! I didn't REALLY take this that seriously, and so flushed a few small pieces (I thought they'd be thanking me for doing so)...but after clogging a few toilets, I'm now a believer, and I think I'll be leaving a string of sorry bathroom goers in the wake of our journey! It makes no sense that a HUGE log of mine will flush, but a tiny (2 squares of 1-ply is all I used) piece of paper wouldn't. Whatever...pura vida mae (which means PURE LIFE MAN...in spanish). SO...2 days of spanish classes and a relatively uneventful time in Orosi was all it took for us to need a change. The learning was interesting, but studying on holiday was too stressful, and we just didn't feel we were getting enough out of it. You really can do much of that studying on your own anyway...and although my teach was great with me (we had 1 on 1 sessions for 3 hours per day), Julia's didn't speak english, making her hours pass by VERY slowly and frustratingly. SO...after it rained ALL day on Julia's b-day, after our 2nd spanish class, and after a BIG walk in the mountains, we left on Wednesday morning towards MOntezuma.
MOntezuma...a hippy, surfer dude like place...but a good destination. We made all the busses to San Jose over to Puntarana, caught the ferry there...had a couple of beers on the way (1$ each), watched a Coata Rica versus France Soccer game (CR up 2-0 until the last 10 minutes...shitty...but made for an excited boat crew)...OH...if you ever get ROCK ICE beer here...DON'T get it with lemon flavour...I think they should advertise it as rotten lemon flavour with a dash of puke...anyway...we got to the bus station and took a VERY bumpy ride at 15km/hr over the mountains to monteverde. The hippies we met from BC (Julia had them pegged) didn't like the town, but we thought it was quite decent. Their long armpit hairs musn't have come with good attitudes haha. Anyway, we found a nice hole to crash in for 11$/night which we upgraded the next morning to 14$/night and much closer to the hub-ub. Fun sort of place to chill out, which we did, I recovered from my cold a bit, Julia caught it (but she's so quick to get over them it's only been with her for 1 day and she's doing well), we took a highly recommended hike up to some waterfall...not so spectacular...but we took an off route hike through the rainforest to try to find the trail leading to the upper waterfall. We almost found disaster, hiking up 60 degree inclines in mushy forest floor in our tevas...but all we got was a bit dirty, a short argument, and I got a BIG ant bite on my toe to teach me my lesson for the day. We swan in the warm ocean, ate some delicious food, toured the one street here, played some poker, drank a few drinks and CHILLAXED! THis morning we woke early (to bed early, up early), read, swam, got some fruit and ate, played frisbee and talked to a few strangers (another funny aside...when you talk to the locals in VERY broken spanish...the FLY through their soliloquy with words that ALL sound the same, and expec that you'll understand it all!!). Then we set off on a VERY cool hike down the beach. Saw some monkeys on the way, surfers, life in general...then came to a neat little fresh water stream/pool/rapids/falls things. Hiked and swam around there for an hour or so, loved life, and headed home. HOT and STEAMY always here...we just had to chill out again for a few hours before having an early meal (my original state of constant hunger has changed dramatically...and we eat very little now) and coming to write down our adventures (again).
SO...tomorrow, we're off to Monteverde...I hope you enjoy reading, we look forward to comments (if they're positive haha) and we'll be in touch soon.
Tyler and Julia out...
