COSTA RICA
December 9-14
I arrived in San Jose, Costa Rica, and took a taxi to Costa Rican Backpackers, a hostel recommended by my Lonely Planet book, which I think was left in the taxi since I could not find it later that day. There were many people and the place had a nice feel to it. It had an outdoor patio with several hammocks, a small swimming pool and a few tables with chairs for sitting around and chatting. I was exhausted from the all night flight and I immediately took a nap. When I woke up, I walked around town for a little while. It felt nice to finally be out of the US and exploring! I visited El Mercado Central (The Central Market), and bought some cheap sandals and an inexpensive hat. I walked around town some more, and decided what I would like to do for the next few days by visiting some tour agencies and reading books about Costa Rica. I knew I didn’t want to just stay in San Jose.
I toured a coffee plantation, Café Britt. The tour was given by a group of actors and was very well done, with bits of humor thrown in here and there. In part of the tour/performance/story, volunteers were requested to come up and taste coffee. I of course raised my hand, claiming to be a coffee connoisseur. Our roles were coffee “tasters.” I received a free mug for my participation.
I soon ventured outside of San Jose to the beautiful and natural part of the country, although it was a tour. We first arrived at Volcan Poas (Volcano Poas), which supposedly has a crater with a beautiful unique shade for the water in the lagoon at the bottom. However, it was way too cloudy to even remotely see anything, so we remained there for only about 20 minutes, not even close to enough time to give the clouds a chance to clear up. I was pretty disappointed. Oh well! We then made our way to the real highlight, a boat tour of the Sarapiqui River. We also had a horseback ride after lunch, which was a lot of fun, and we saw some gorgeous cataratas (waterfalls), including catarata La Paz, as well as butterfly and hummingbird gardens.
Although it was only one day, I realized that organized tours were not going to be my usual way of exploring the country, since I much prefer to travel on my own time frame, staying at places for as long as I want. It’s funny that, although tours cost a lot more, I have a much better time when exploring on my own. I feel that there’s no urgency to see everything anyway. Relaxing is extremely important and the previous day touring was much too hectic. I sat in a café in central San Jose for a while, and in the afternoon, I visited the Jade Museum. I also walked past the National Theater (Teatro Nacional). Fortunately, there was an event that night, a modern dance performance, which was actually cheaper than a tour of the building. I bought a ticket for it. Eventually, after returning to Backpackers, I met a Japanese girl and she came with me to the theater. The performance turned out to be three independent acts, very sexual and sensual, and I really enjoyed it.
I then left San Jose again to visit Manuel Antonio National Park. I took an early bus to Quepos, then a cab to Manuel Antonio. I actually missed the normal express bus, because one had to buy tickets in advance, so I took the local bus, which was crowded and much slower. On the bus, I met Alan. He was in CR for business and had an idea of making a surfing video on the side. Alan’s hotel was really nice and out of my price range, so we departed with him saying he would meet me later. I guess the town was small enough that he was confident of finding me later. He eventually did locate me in time for dinner and we ate with several other guests at my hostel (Costa Linda). We drank a few beers and chatted into the night, deciding what to do the next day.
Alan met me at my hostel for breakfast. He had decided to rent a car for the day to check out a surfing spot he remembered from a previous visit, in a nearby town named Dominical. Traveling by bus would be a tedious journey, but by car, especially the one he rented, the drive took only an hour. We checked out the surfing beach and then visited a waterfall. The waterfall wasn’t listed in any of the guidebooks and was sort of difficult to find, being completely isolated, but we eventually located it. The weather was perfect and we jumped right into the water - a small pond at the base of the fall. It was great just lying on the incline beneath the waterfall as the water massaged me. There was also a tree with a rope over the water, which we could swing on. It seemed kind of scary and I was saying “No way.” Alan didn’t pressure me too much to do it, and perhaps that is why I eventually decided to do it. So I climbed the tree, but the rope was out of reach, not even close. But, conveniently, there was a loose branch or stick that one could use to reach out and get the rope, which I succeeded in doing. I also noticed that if somehow I slipped and fell before reaching the water, I would be over a bunch of rocks and would probably die. I grabbed the rope and jumped, and fortunately the rope didn’t slip through my hands. After a delicious red snapper for lunch, we returned to Manuel Antonio. On the return drive, the police stopped us at some checkpoint. I think that since the beach in Dominical is primarily a surfing beach, and surfers have a reputation of smoking pot, part of the reason they stopped us was to look inside the car and ask us some questions. The police also asked us if we could drive 3 girls into Quepos. Since this was not out of our way, we said sure and they hopped into the back. For some reason, they asked Alan if he was my father, which was kind of funny, since our age difference really was not that great. I found it funny. Alan didn’t at all. Perhaps since Alan was driving, they could have been a little more thoughtful in their commentary. We spoke the entire ride, all in Spanish. Alan’s Spanish was very good, so the conversations were fun. I took the 5 PM bus back because I had to meet up with Dash, who was arriving at approximately 9 PM. I arrived at the bus station in San Jose and saw a ton of people a couple of blocks away, where I had intended to cross the street. I walked a few blocks away to cross in a different spot, but there were still tons of people in the way. It turned out that there was a huge parade in progress and people were acting a little loco (crazy). I eventually wove my way through the parade and made it back to Backpackers. I promptly found out that there would be no double rooms available and Dash and I would have to stay in a dorm room. This was fine with me and I hoped that Dash would feel the same way.
December 14-22
Before leaving New York, I had planned to rendezvous with Dash in Costa Rica. The following few paragraphs present a detailed summary, written primarily by Dash, although I did change some things around. Perhaps it will often leave you thinking, “Guess you had to be there.” It includes some attempts at humor interspersed with the text, as Dash and I found many random things funny and we wanted to remember them. We’ve done our best to make it readable for a general audience, without removing many details.
Dashiell Hammock arrived at the airport on Saturday evening. After meandering in circles through the labyrinth that is Costa Rica’s Airport, he found the taxi stand and he was off to meet me at Backpackers. He took the taxi despite my telling him that he could take a bus into the center of San Jose for a mere fifty cents. Instead, he spent an outrageous sum of $12 on a taxi. Dash is a rich Gentile anyway, so it’s no big deal. After growing up in a maple syrup loving town in Vermont, Montpellier, which happens to be the only state capital without a McDonalds, Dash had never been to a non-westernized country. Fascinating, I know. Dash soon arrived at Costa Rican Backpackers. He had attempted to speak with the taxi driver along the way, but no real communication actually occurred. The taxi driver kept asking Dash if he enjoyed dancing, but his motivation for this line of questioning is entirely unclear. I was waiting anxiously and, upon seeing Dash from an overlooking spot, began yelling “Hola.” I showed Dash around the hostel, which was bustling with people. Several conversations took place, but Dash had disappeared to lie down on a hammock (like his last name) and wasn’t interested in engaging the strange people. First, we spoke with a Dutch guy. I asked where he was from, and his reply was something like, “You know where I’m from,” as he was brushing his hair back, as if that made it easier to determine his origins. I guessed Israel, thinking that the guy knew I was Jewish, but he said he wasn’t from Israel, as he poured about 1/3 of a bottle of rum into some warm Coke. Eventually it came out that the guy was Dutch. The second conversation was with a kid named Leor, who was from Canada, just across the border from Niagara Falls. For some reason, he didn’t like Niagara Falls at all. So what if it’s the biggest waterfall in the world? What’s so impressive about that anyway? We slept in a room with eight other people. Both of us had top bunks. The room wasn’t very hot but, according to Dash, the blankets smelled bad. I didn’t notice, perhaps because I had already been in Costa Rica for a week and was used to the style of living.
We awoke early the next day and took a cab to the bus station. Our plan was to take a bus to La Fortuna, a popular tourist destination - the primary attractions being the Arenal volcano and the hot springs. We arrived at the bus station in plenty of time. After buying our bus tickets, we went to grab a bite of breakfast. First, we bought two loaves of bread, but they weren’t tasty at all. After a few small bites, I decided to leave the loaves for someone more appreciative, so I left them on top of a garbage can. Dash wasn’t satisfied with this feeding, so he purchased a breakfast of eggs and gallo pinto (rice and beans mixed up).
The bus ride to La Fortuna was interminable. We were traveling through small towns in extremely hilly countryside, which is characteristic of Costa Rica. Dash told me that if the bus went off the road, it would be a catastrophe because the hillsides were so steep. The bus seemed to stop every quarter mile or so, so the ride lasted 3 or 4 hours while the distance traveled was only about 150 km. Upon arriving in La Fortuna, we were accosted as we disembarked from the bus, by innkeepers who wanted us to take a room. The first guy told us that he had recently lost a finger, and the part of his finger that remained was swollen and somewhat bloody. We ended the conversation with him because the finger made us uncomfortable. A 13 or 14-year old boy began talking to us about Cabinas Jerry, which had been recommended to me by some Israeli girls. His uncle Mario ran the place, and Mario showed up to convince us to stay with him. We agreed to take the room for $11. It was a meager place with two small beds, but it had a private bathroom and the price was right. We spoke with Mario about tours around La Fortuna. After much discussion, we agreed to take a tour to the waterfall, a trip to the hot springs and a hike to see the Arenal Volcano. We were scheduled to do all three tours during that afternoon. At around 2:30 we went to the waterfall. The guide was Jeremy, the boy that had met us coming off the bus. Joining us was a Spanish girl named Adriadna. She was very nice, but for some reason Dash kept thinking her name was Adriana. We hiked down a steep hill to reach the waterfall. The hike was not long, perhaps 10 minutes, but it was a steep grade and the terrain was slippery. We were hiking through jungle, and this was Dash’s first jungle experience, so it was noteworthy for that reason. The waterfall was magnificent. It was incredibly high and powerful, with a nice pool at the base, but it was difficult to traverse the rocks to get to the pool. We swam in the pool and tried to swim out underneath the waterfall (despite being warned not to do this), but the waterfall was too powerful and we were unable to reach the cascading water. The only other noteworthy moment at the waterfall was a conversation with Adriadna about whether men are inherently more confident than women, and whether it results from cultural influences, etc. I found out that Adriadna’s field of expertise was psychology, so the debate went on a little longer than expected.
We got back to La Fortuna a little late, but with plenty of time to go to the hot springs. The people arranging our tour (Mario, Jeremy and Mario’s brother Luis) really had no concept of time and how long it took to do things. They thought we would need to rush back from the waterfall, but we arrived back in town with about 90 minutes to spare. We had questioned the timing before we started the hike to the waterfall, but Jeremy insisted that we had to be back in town by 3:30 even though we weren’t leaving for the hot springs until 5:00. It was a little weird actually. I spoke with Mario to make sure that we were going to the nice hot springs in the evening, since there are several hot springs, and one of them is more expensive, and nicer, than the others. I wanted to be certain that we were going to the preferred hot springs, named Tabacon. Mario said yes, we are going to Tabaconcito, which I interpreted as Tabacon. The other hot springs were named Baldi, and he definitely didn’t say that, so I thought we were fine. Luis (Mario’s brother, Jeremy’s father) took us (me, Dash, Adriadna, and two other people who say virtually nothing the entire time) to the hot springs. It looked quite nice, with about 7 or 8 different pools, each with different water temperatures. The pools were circular in shape and about the size of small swimming pools. While the place looked nice, it was apparent that these were not the preferred hot springs. I immediately said something to Luis and insisted on going to the other ones. Luis claimed he didn’t know what arrangement his brother made with us and he then used the telephone to call him. It was clear that they have a relationship with the resort and taking us here would leave them a much greater profit. Luis called his brother and we overheard much yelling and screaming, although I was not sure if it was real. Either way, after about half an hour, during which numerous phone calls were made, Luis agreed that we could go to Tabacon, about 10 minutes away. We arrived at Tabacon and it was very different from Baldi. It was extremely fancy, with a wide variety of pools and a lovely dining room. The food looked delicious, and Dash was extremely hungry, but we decided not to eat so that we could maximize our time in the pools. We spent some time looking for the hottest pool because some of the pools weren’t hot enough. The hottest pool was also the biggest, with a bar right in the pool that you could swim up to. It also had a water slide that was great fun, and I slid down the water slide about 5 or 6 times. Dash only did it twice. We also saw a girl that would rate as a perfect 10. While in the pool, we talked to some people from NJ, but they didn’t turn out to be all that interesting. We had a specific time when we were supposed to be picked up from Tabacon, so we waited outside by the entrance to be picked up. The van was 20 minutes late, but that didn’t bother us too much.
We were then driven to the volcano. During the ride, we asked Luis whether we would see any lava coming out of the volcano, and he said that we definitely would. Dash didn’t think so but he had no basis for that. We arrived at the head of the trail at 9:30, and it was completely dark and raining. We used our flashlights to hike through the rainforest to reach the base of the volcano. The hike was not much fun since we were getting wet, but it was not that bad. The hike took about 40 minutes, with Dash and Luis hiking way ahead of the rest of the group and having to wait for the rest of us to catch up. We arrived at a huge pile of hardened lava from past eruptions, and hiked for about 5 more minutes up the pile of lava to a viewing spot. At first, there was quite a bit of cloud cover, so it was hard to see the peak of the volcano. However, as the night went on, the clouds cleared up and we could see the entire volcano. We saw a lot of lava. There were several impressive eruptions. Of course, we hadn’t brought our cameras so we couldn’t record any of them, but we remember them fondly. Luis told us that he would tell us a lot of the volcano’s history, but he told us only one thing and I forget what it was, so it couldn’t have been that interesting. I made a joke about “That’s the history of the volcano, one trivial friggin fact.” People laughed, but not Dash. We stayed at the volcano for about 65 minutes, and Dash was extremely hungry by this point and wanted to leave after only 25 minutes had passed. I didn’t really care about eating and wanted to stay even longer. One interesting thing was when I let Luis wear my disgusting Reebok jacket (it wasn’t actually mine) and Luis thought it was great just because it was Reebok. Why are people so fucking materialistic? Must be the imperialist’s brainwashing.
It was late when we finally got back to La Fortuna. Dash was starving, so we went to eat at a disgusting café. The food was terrible, and Dash ordered a meat dish, which turned out to be some of the worst meat that he had ever eaten. We then went back to our room to find the fan unplugged (we had left it on), and Dash’s clothes, which he had foolishly left on the floor, wet. Someone had obviously been in the room and the clothes had somehow gotten wet. Dash was really angry (muy enjojado) because it was just one more thing that had gone wrong and was related to Mario. At this point, we decided that, instead of the tour the next day that we had partly paid for, we would just go on to Monteverde first thing in the morning and do the canopy tour there rather than with Mario. Our rationale was that Mario had caused us a lot of aggravation at the hot springs, and now the room had flooded, so we didn’t want to deal with him anymore.
We got up the next morning at around 7. I tried to work out a deal with Mario that should have made everyone happy. We ended up structuring a deal for us to pay for the transportation to Monteverde, and for Mario to cover the canopy tour in Monteverde. This seemed suspicious, but we agreed anyway. We set off on the trip to Monteverde - a jeep trip followed by a boat trip followed by another jeep trip. The first jeep trip was fine - it didn’t take very long and the roads were good. We then took a pretty boat trip across the lake, with a great view of the Arenal volcano. After that, we took another jeep trip to Monteverde. This was awful in every sense of the word. The roads were the worst that I had ever been on by a wide margin. They were incredibly bumpy and uncomfortable. Upon not making it up a hill, the van (they call it a jeep for no apparent reason - maybe it sounds cooler?) reversed and then built up some speed again, and this time, fortunately, we made it over the ridge.
We arrived at Monteverde (or was it Santa Elena), the trip taking considerably longer than advertised. The town itself was pretty, with one main tourist street with all the tour operators. We went inside the office of the canopy tour that Mario had told us about, but of course, they had no idea what we were talking about when we told them that Mario had already paid for us. They knew Mario, but I think they had experienced problems with him in the past. After a lot of discussion, we worked it out to first do the canopy tour and then figure out the finances upon returning. We took a short bus ride into the rain forest to start the canopy tour, which involved riding ziplines from tree to tree in the rainforest. The lines were high above the ground, and one slides from tree to tree on a thick wire. It was great fun, but not for those who are scared of heights. We saw some monkeys while hanging out on one of the platforms, and I slid back on the line to get a closer view. When we got back from the canopy tour we had to settle with the operator. We worked it out and he allowed us to only pay a small amount, which was a truly nice gesture on his part. We were willing to pay that because we realized that he was definitely going to have a hard time recouping any money from Mario.
We had dinner in Monteverde. It was really tasty, but it was American style. I think that we both had burgers. We thought about returning that evening to San Jose so that we could leave from there to Manuel Antonio the next day. However, someone in an army uniform told us that this would take us far out of our way, and we should instead go to Puntarenas to spend the night, and then continue on to Manuel Antonio. This sounded like a good idea, so we hired a taxi to take us to Puntarenas. Dash bought cigars to smoke on the drive, so that was fun. We arrived at Puntarenas after a couple of hour drive. The town is on the ocean, but it’s not a big tourist town. I think it’s mostly a place where Costa Ricans come to take vacations. We checked out a couple of hotels, but they all seemed really expensive considering the quality level. We finally found a place with a restaurant in front and a couple of rooms in the back. It wasn’t expensive, so we took it.
"That bathroom was disgusting."
We told the proprietor that we needed to be awakened at 5 the next morning because we had a bus to catch to Manuel Antonio. The woman said that it would be no problem because there would be a guy watching TV all night and he could wake us up. It sounded kind of weird, but we agreed. Neither of us had a watch, so we were depending on the wake-up call. The next morning, I heard the birds chirping really loudly, but figured that it was not 5 yet because they hadn’t awakened us yet. I went back to sleep but eventually went outside. I found the guy who was supposed to wake us sleeping on a mattress in the hallway. I woke him up and the guy was really frightened. The guy woke up and slowly made his way to a brighter area so he could see his watch. It was 5:30. We were already 30 minutes late for the bus. For some reason, the guy told us we could still make it. I’m not sure why I believed him, but for some reason we decided to try and catch it. I woke Dash up and we packed in about 3 minutes. We then proceeded to run down the street to the bus station, which was about half a mile away. Of course, by the time that we arrived at the station, the bus was long gone. I was furious, and started throwing my shoes and screaming obscenities. We got back to the hotel and I started yelling at the guy who had forgotten to wake us up. In the end, we went back to sleep to wait for the next bus, scheduled for 11 AM. We slept for a long time, and Dash said that it was probably at least 10 so we should wake up to assure that we don’t miss this bus. We got up again and left the hotel, but it turned out to be only 8 AM, so we had 3 hours to kill. We went to a café and got some really tasty fruit drinks. Then we sat on the beach for a while, which was actually really nice. We took a dip in the water, not realizing how disgustingly polluted it was.
 |
 |
 |
 |
The bus ride to Manuel Antonio was not fun at all. It took forever, and we arrived in town at 3. We actually arrived at Quepos, which is a bigger town and very dirty. Dash ate some fresh oranges that were sold on the street. They were delicious. We then took a cab to Manuel Antonio. I had visited this town the week before, so we tried to stay at the same place, Costa Linda, but it was full and we had to stay at a nicer place, Hotel Villabosque.
 |
 |
I managed to get us a pretty good deal, about $50 a night. It was a nice hotel, so we didn’t really mind paying the extra money. Dash was especially grateful to have proper accommodations after two nights in modest rooms. Despite our best efforts to avoid more confrontations with hotel operators, we had a small problem after checking in to the hotel. The manager, who was a very nice man, gave me a key to the room safe. We had valuables and needed a place to store them. I argued that the $20 deposit for the safe key was a ridiculous amount, but we ended up paying it anyway. We walked about 20 feet from the front desk to our room and unpacked our stuff, but we couldn’t find the safe key after unpacking. We searched our room for about 20 minutes, but still couldn’t find it. Dash was sweating profusely because it was an incredibly annoying situation. We had been given the key literally 5 minutes earlier, and now it was lost. After we’d searched through all our stuff, we went back to the manager. I said that he had probably not given us the key, but Dash knew that he had. The manager came to help us look for the key. We looked in bushes, under chairs, under beds, everywhere, but no key. The manager left and Dash asked me if I had checked my backpack. Dash had assumed that I had checked the backpack, but for some as yet still undetermined reason, I hadn’t thoroughly checked it. I turned the backpack upside down onto the bed and out dropped the key. It was incredibly embarrassing for two reasons - first, that I had not thoroughly checked my backpack, although it was an obvious place where it could have been, and second, that I had tried to convince the manager that he hadn’t given us the key, when he had. Dash was so embarrassed, especially since I was so insistent that the manager hadn’t given the key to us. So he went up to the manager and informed him that we had found the key in the grass between the hotel front desk and our door. We spent some time that afternoon on the beach. It was a beautiful beach, but nothing eventful happened. We went back to the hotel to have some dinner, which was terrible in addition to being expensive. It was still early in the evening, probably around 7 PM, but we didn’t have anything to do, so we went to sleep.
We woke up early the next morning, around 6 AM. We had breakfast at Costa Linda, where I had stayed during my last visit. The breakfast was very nice. The coffee was delicious, although we had to wait for someone to go buy milk so we could have it con leche. We decided to stay another night in Manuel Antonio and visit the national park that day. We walked to the park, which was on the edge of town. The park has a bunch of hiking trails, and there are beaches interspersed throughout the park, so you can stop and go swimming at a lot of different places.
 |
 |
The beaches were beautiful, like you would see in the movies, so it was great to spend time there. At the start of the hike, we saw a bunch of coconuts on the ground underneath a coconut tree. They were still inside their husks so they didn’t look like coconuts that you could buy at the store. Dash grabbed one of the coconuts and started smashing it against rocks and trees in an effort to open it.
 |
 |
He used all his strength to open this nut, but it still took a while. We needed to smash it with rocks to get it open. Dash ate some of it and it was delicious.
We were sweaty from the exertion, but we continued on the hike. We reached another beach and decided to stop for a moment. It was at this point that we met two girls from Colorado, Melissa and Amity, who were also hiking. I started conversing with them and within 5 minutes asked if they wanted to go skinny-dipping with us. They agreed to go later that day. Melissa was pretty good looking, and in good shape, but married. Amity was ok looking, but she was a big girl. We all went into the water. Melissa, Amity and I wanted to get some exercise, so we swam for about ¼ mile down the beach. Dash didn’t think he could swim that far, and he didn’t really even care to try, so he just treaded water the entire time. Melissa’s bathing suit was a g-string and she looked great. Melissa claimed that she knew what stock options were (that’s the type of work we do), but she really didn’t. I’m not sure why people fake knowing something like that.
We continued hiking with them, stopping to swim one more time. I mentioned skinny-dipping about 10 more times, and that’s not an exaggeration at all. We saw monkeys in the park about 4 times. The monkeys were very funny, and not afraid of humans, because people feed them even though they’re not supposed to. At the end of the day, Melissa was starving and really wanted to leave the park.
We saw some monkeys as we were leaving, but she didn’t care. Why would anyone want to see monkeys anyway? We stopped at our hotel for no reason except to give the starving Melissa some pear juice. We then went to their hotel so that they could change, which took forever. We walked to Quepos to buy bus tickets for our trip back to San Jose. We walked really slowly and ended up arriving too late to buy the tickets. It was 5:30 and the office had closed at 5, so I told the girls that it was 5:05 so that they would feel guilty for taking so long. Unfortunately though, they didn’t feel guilty at all. Dash looked frantically for the guy who sold fresh oranges, but couldn’t find him.
We ended up going to an Italian restaurant for dinner. We had never seen girls who could eat so much food. They just kept eating and saying how good the food was, when it was actually terrible. Amity ate an entire calzone like it was her last day on earth. They wanted to go to the disco before skinny-dipping, but that didn’t sound good to us. I was kind of pissed off about this, so we decided to leave them and return to Manuel Antonio. We went to the beach and did some night swimming, which felt a little dangerous, but we weren’t sure if it actually was. One interesting thing I noted about Melissa and Amity was that they thought my “Cheap Jew” jokes were really funny - perhaps they were anti-Semites.
The next morning we went on a horseback riding tour. The tour guide was a woman who originally was from New Hampshire but had been living for many years in Costa Rica. She was wearing a bikini, and she was pretty ugly, so that was gross. The plan was to ride horses up a small mountain to a nice waterfall. The riding itself was fine, but not too much fun. Dash didn’t like the saddle because it chafed his legs.
 |
 |
My horse kept biting Dash’s horse. I enjoyed it when the horses galloped, but Dash didn’t like it because it hurt his legs even more. The ride was interesting because we saw banana trees, homes with no electricity and people who just used horses and donkeys to travel. When we arrived at the waterfall, it was a little disappointing. It was nice, but did not compare to the one in La Fortuna. Also, the guide had told us that under the waterfall there was a pool that was like a Jacuzzi. I’m not sure why, but we were expecting something with warm water. Nothing could have been further from the reality, because the water was freezing - almost too cold to even enter.
 |
 |
We rode back down the mountain and had some lunch at the lodge base. The lunch was very basic, fish and chicken, and not very tasty.
That night we took the bus back to San Jose. We had made arrangements to stay at a hotel in the center of town, but, when we arrived, they raised the price without having informed us before, because the owner realized that we were “gringos.” Dash wanted to stay at the place anyway, but I didn’t want to stay there based on principle, although it wasn’t very expensive. Due to this bad decision, we had to look around San Jose for a place to stay. We found a place in a seedy part of town near a bus station. It was cheap, so we decided to try it. It ended up being a terrible decision. The place was dirty, and we saw a roach the size of a cat in the shower. The place was also very loud, and we didn’t sleep at all. The next morning, a van picked us up to take us to the Paquare River for some white-water rafting.
While we were waiting, we met a Costa Rican girl, Vanessa, who was also going rafting. She was very nice, and was from Quepos, where we had just come from. We tried to get to know her on the bus ride, and Dash thought that she liked him, but she didn’t. The bus ride was fairly long, probably about 2 hours. When we arrived at the lodge, I asked to use the phone. The man in charge would not let me use it, which was amazing because we had paid a lot of money to go rafting. We had some breakfast at the lodge, and it was pretty good. It included fresh fruit, which was the tastiest part. We took another van ride to the river. Once we got to the river, we arranged for Vanessa to be in our raft. There were about 4 rafts in our group, with 7 people on each raft. Dash and I stayed in the front of the raft since it is the most dangerous and exciting position. The rafting was great, although I apparently completely disregarded the rowing instructions. I rowed at the wrong time most of the trip, even though the rowing didn’t matter very much. The current pretty much takes the raft where it needs to go. We were going through very scenic areas, with amazing waterfalls, and there were a couple of spots where we jumped into the river and floated for about ¼ mile in calm moving water. You really noticed the strength of the current in those situations. Our boat included a newlywed Indian couple, and the girl was really scared of the rapids. She kept asking when the trip was going to be over, so that was a bit annoying. But nobody in our boat fell off throughout the entire trip. When we got to the end of the run, we had to lift the raft up a steep, rocky incline. Dash almost had a hernia because the raft was extremely heavy. We got back to the lodge and had some lunch. It wasn’t that good, but it was satisfying because we were hungry. We had lunch with Vanessa, and Dash wanted to ask her to do something with us later that night, but he was too shy. We had an uneventful ride back to San Jose, or as uneventful as a bus ride trip in Costa Rica can be. These drivers are the craziest and pass at the worst spots in the road. The best thing to do is to just ignore it; otherwise, you will be too scared.
That night we found a nice, cheap inn near Costa Rican Backpackers, where we had stayed the first night. We met a couple of weird people there. One was an American woman who had accomplished nothing the day before and was just complaining and whining about it. And there was an Indian guy who seemed to come to Costa Rica to just stay at this really cheap and boring hotel all the time. We didn’t understand him at all. We had some chicken to eat that night, which satisfied Dash because that is what he eats in New York with amazing regularity. That night, he clogged the toilet in the community bathroom and then blamed it on somebody else when he informed the manager. The manager was pretty freaked out about it, and it didn’t get fixed for a while.
The next day we went on a bus tour to Tortuguero, which is a city on a series of canals. We were doing a one-day trip to Tortuguero, which is ambitious because it takes about four hours to get there from San Jose. So it’s four hours there, have lunch, and then four hours back. On the bus, there was an American woman in her low fifties. She was telling the Costa Rican guide about her mother and her bad driving. After that, in a completely different context, she told the guide, “She drives me crazy!” as if he could ever understand that phraseology. Dash and I started coming up with other crazy statements that a beginner in English would never understand but that this woman might use in the future, but I can’t think of them now. Dash came up with most of the funny ones. On the way, we stopped at a banana plantation for a little while. It was interesting, but we felt bad for the workers because some of them were missing fingers from working with the sharp knives that cut the banana bunches. Dash took a green banana from the plant and started peeling it, but he ended up getting sticky stuff all over his hands. We arrived at a dock and boarded a boat to traverse the canals. The boat ride was fun. We were traveling fast and we saw various animals, including a sloth, monkeys, crocodiles and iguanas. We saw some crocodiles that everyone in the boat could see except for Dash, so Dash just lied and said that he say them too.
We approached a split in the canal and saw a sign for Tortuguero National Park. Next to the sign was a fake crocodile with its mouth open. The guide pointed at the crocodile like it was real and tried to fool us. Dash and I were making fun of people who thought it was real. We went up close to the crocodile and it closed its mouth and slid back into the water, so that made us look foolish. We ate a mediocre lunch at a hotel in Tortuguero, and then we headed back because it started to rain. We didn’t get to see Tortuguero village, but Dash didn’t think that it would be that interesting anyway, although perhaps it would kill some time! The boat ride back was uneventful, as was the bus ride back to San Jose. The next morning, Dash was scheduled to leave. Prior to his departure, we explored San Jose some more. It is actually a scenic city with some interesting historical sites. Dash split a cap to the airport with the Indian guy, who seemed really cheap because he didn’t want to spend $5 on the cab. Dash and I embraced in an emotional moment before he left, and that was the conclusion of Dash’s trip. According to Dash, “Jon went on to have much more fun on the rest of his trip with some Australians that he met.”
December 23-28 (M-Sa)
With Dash gone, I was pretty bummed and decided to do almost nothing the next day. I caught up on email, wrote a few postcards, got sunburned without realizing it, and chilled out by the pool. The next day, Christmas Eve, I ended up chatting with a Mexican guy staying at Backpackers. He told me all about his trip to Corcovado National Park and his description was convincing. I even liked the name of the place he recommended, Poor Man’s Paradise. I phoned the number in Lonely Planet and spoke with a man. I told him I’d call back later to finalize the reservation. I decided to walk around town for a little while. While walking around town, I swear there were people waiting at every pay phone. I finally made it back to Backpackers, where there was an unoccupied pay phone, and I called back. But nobody answered. I never ended up reaching anybody, and the next morning I just figured that I would go there and take my chances. It turned out to be quite a long trip, and I hadn’t realized quite how much time it would take.
On Christmas morning, I woke up very early to journey to Corcovado. The trip involved a long bus ride, a taxi and a boat. The towns weren’t that big, and the boat journey had many constraints that are normally sorted out in advance. The taxi driver said he knew the owners of the paradise where I would supposedly be staying and he called, but I think phone use is extremely sporadic in the middle of this park, so he never actually reached anybody. When we got to the dock, I found out that there was a boat to the area in which I would be staying leaving in a few minutes. It felt really random and lucky, but hey, it worked out. One of the owners’ sisters was on the boat and I chatted with her for a while. The boat ride was well over an hour, but the views were gorgeous and I was very happy just staring at the trees and cruising on the water. We finally arrived and the family was there, although they clearly had no idea who I was or what I was doing there. Whatever, there was space available and they immediately gave me a very late lunch. My cabina (cabin) was great. It was about 10 to 20 feet from where the waves were breaking onto the shore. In fact, there were so many waves, and I was so close to the water, that the sound of the waves crashing made me think I might not be able to fall asleep. It was also extremely humid. After lunch, I just sat on a little chair in front of my cabin, slightly in the shade and on the sand, reading to the sound of the waves and watching the night approach while I was in a completely relaxed mood. Perhaps I ventured for an hour to walk along the beach, but that was about it. Dinner was great, and afterwards I made my way to bed. It was relatively early but, after writing in my journal via flashlight for a little bit, and looking up at the stars, I fell asleep.
Because nobody else had signed up, I got a one-on-one tour of the National Park. The guide was young and really cool. We took a boat to the park entrance and decided to walk back in the evening. I spoke Spanish with him the entire day and learned many new words. In addition, he was able to smell what animals had been present and how long ago. We observed three types of monkeys in the first 30 minutes. Soon, the monkeys were howling and screaming. I learned that it was because of a dangerous snake on the ground. I wondered why the monkeys didn’t just get out of the area, but they didn’t - they just screeched. I didn’t bring much water with me, but it didn’t end up making a difference since every time we were thirsty, we just drank coconut milk or coconut water. We also ate fresh star fruit directly from a tree. We eventually visited a waterfall. Of course, I jumped in, and I noticed two very familiar faces on the shore of the mini lake. It was Elias and Kameel from my high school. We spent a little while chatting, and they should have a digital photo of me somewhere. We then continued with the tour, eventually walking back. The evening was a bit more interesting. I met 3 other travelers, 2 who attend grad school at Penn, in a special program requiring studying in a specific country for the first year. I told a couple of stories, using much hyperbole, but I couldn’t quite tell if they knew that I was kidding. But it didn’t matter. We built a small fire (bonfire) on the beach after dinner and just sat around chatting on this starry night.
At 7 AM the next day, I started my journey back to San Jose. The trip was extremely long. The bus stopped in a town named San Isidrio de General, and I walked around town for an hour or two. Upon arriving at Backpackers in the afternoon, I arranged to go Bungee jumping the next morning. I was psyched, antsy, scared, excited and nervous. The van picked me up in the morning. Since I arrived before anyone had gotten there, they wanted me to go first. I said, “I don’t think so” and asked that one of the instructors go first. After he accommodated me, it was my turn. The instructor said he would count down, and before I knew it the count was on. My heart rate rapidly increased, and as the count went from 5 to 1, I just decided to jump and end it all. As I glided in the fresh air among the gorgeous greenery, I felt that I was going to die, but at the same time sort of knew that I wouldn’t! Then I bounced… yikes... I was dizzy and disoriented, but happy that it was over and that I would never “have” to do this again. It was unreal. Seriously, I was terrified, but it was amazing and beautiful, giving me a high unlike any other. I was superman, if only for a few seconds.
I returned to Backpackers by noon and quickly packed and caught the bus to Puntarenas, where I then took a ferry to Paquera, and then a much longer than expected bus ride to Montezuma. It was dark when we arrived, but I met a future roommate on the bus. At the place at which we were staying, there was this great looking local girl who was psyched to chat, but I was too exhausted to actually make the necessary moves and, although we did go out and have some beers in the street, I just couldn’t stay out past 1, especially with the early wake up to go and meet Geoff in Tambor. Montezuma was really not an interesting cultural spot, but it was a big party scene. I didn’t need to hang out there another minute. The crowd was also a wee bit young for me.
December 29-January 2
I woke up very early in order to catch the first bus to the hotel where Geoff and his family would be staying. I arrived before they did and relaxed in a hammock and read until they came. When I saw their van arriving from the airport, I made a sound that only Geoff would have recognized (ooo-ueee) but he did not pick up the sound waves. It was nice to see all these familiar people in an unfamiliar place. They had the presidential suite with a private pool, a barbecue and a separate kitchen, with air-conditioning in the bedrooms. It was nicer than any place I had stayed, and I still heard numerous complaints that amused me, and only me!
I played some tennis with Geoff and his cousin, and we took a brief dip in the pool. Since the food wasn’t top notch, I suggested that we have a barbecue for dinner the following night. The barbecue had the potential to be nightmarish, but luckily was not. We went to a tiny supermarket in town and could not find charcoal or the foods that we wanted. Luckily, the man driving us knew of some really obscure tiny out of the way place, to which we subsequently went. On the way, a car was stopped, apparently stuck, in front of us. Our driver left his car and, appearing angry, opened his trunk, pulled out his machete and approached the man standing outside his car. We were terrified. We closed our eyes, and as our driver raised his arm, we heard the loud crashing of a tree branch that he had just severed to allow the other car to make it through. Phew. We then proceeded to the shop that sold charcoal. They also had fish, and we decided to buy some. Upon exiting, another man was selling veggies from the back of a big truck. I pounced and purchased some beautiful tomatoes and other stuff. The shopping really took up a good portion of the afternoon, but as soon as we arrived back at the presidential suite, everybody pitched in and the meal ended up extremely tasty. We sautéed the chicken in barbecue sauce and this special Costa Rican sauce (lizano – which apparently tastes similar to English Worcestershire Sauce). I think everybody was pleased with dinner. After drinking much wine, Geoff, Darryl and I decided to do a bunch of pushups. We did 150 or so in various sets before eventually going to bed.
The next day we went to Caro Reserve, where we went through an ordeal, let me just call it the monkey fiasco, which you can read by clicking on the following link:
After touring the reserve, we visited one of the waterfalls in Montezuma. On the way there, we saw some trees on the side of the road (what are these called?). I thought they were amazing and asked the van to stop so I could observe them up close. I was the only one to leave the van and everybody looked at me like I was smoking crack. At the waterfall, Geoff and I attempted to dive from some rocks perched underneath the falls, but as we dove out and touched the cascading water, it smacked us with its tremendous power and forced us straight down into the water. It was fun and I dove a few more times. I generally love sitting underneath waterfalls, and this was not an exception. I could have sat there for hours. Being New Years Eve, we went out to dinner. On the way, I described some woman as handsome and some in our party thought this was improper English. While perhaps unusual, I did not think it improper, so I said so. Nobody agreed with me. Oh well. Dinner was nice, and afterwards we went to a party with live music and fireworks on the beach. We didn’t stay out too late.
I woke up very early on New Year’s Day. I didn’t wake up a soul, and snuck out of my room and started the endless walk out of the resort. I had decided to hitch a ride or try to catch a bus back to the ferry from Paquera to Puntarenas. I had not thought ahead sufficiently, and was told that buses were not operating that day, though I’m not really sure this was true. There was much uncertainty as I began my journey back to San Jose. I quickly hitched a ride with someone, actually a worker from the resort, and he took me for about 30 minutes, dropping me off on the road, about 10 km from the ferry. I got out of his car and began walking, figuring that in a worst-case scenario I would just walk all the way to the ferry. Eventually, a jeep full of wild Ticos (local Costa Ricans), who we had actually passed earlier, was coming down the road. I waved at them and they picked me up. They were still partying from the night before. Fortunately, the driver was not drinking so I figured I was safe! I was coerced, well not really, into doing a couple of shots and drinking a couple of beers, which is generally not my cup of tea this early in the morning. They were on their way to San Jose and were taking their jeep onto the ferry. I had fun hanging out with them, but only stayed with them going to and on the ferry. Arriving in Puntarenas, I took a taxi to the bus station where I had anticipated a long line, but there was none and I made it back to San Jose by midday, much early than I had anticipated. Everything really couldn’t have worked out better. The next morning I took the cheap bus to the airport to fly to Quito, Ecuador. I was very excited about finally going to South America and I was also happy to be leaving Costa Rica, as beautiful as it was, because I wanted some more culture and authenticity.