Hey ho,
How are things with you? I continue to get sunburnt, a recent trend that shows no sign of letting up. This time, it wasn't basketball, but beach life that is burning me up, so to speak. This is a long msg, BTW.
The big thing with me in these last couple of weeks has been the visit of a group of friends from Canada, US and England. Actually, two of the six were ex-workmates and the other four were friends of these friends. It was all very complicated.
I arranged for my friend Juan Carlos to act as a guide for them, since they had been interested in one, so I set all that up. The plan was arranged by email between them for several weeks beforehand, so it was an interesting night when they arrived and had their first face-to-face meeting to discuss the itinerary (which started at 7am the next day, a scant 9 hours away). Juanca and I picked them up at the airport and piled them all into a taxi to my house. Both my roommates were sleeping, or perhaps trying to, when a loud bunch of excited vacationing foreigners arrived. An hour and a half debate over the itinerary, transport and hotels ensued. I think my roommates breathed a sigh of relief when we finally went out for a bite and dancing at 11:30ish. We partied up a storm until 2 or 3am and then got back so they could sleep a bit before their 7am pick up to get to Tortuguero.
Unfortunately, my roommates were definitely asleep by this point and the group was a little drunk and happy, so it was not a quiet entry into the house. Finally, I got everyone settled with blankets and beds/floor space and I crashed. I was sound asleep and perhaps, fortunately, did not get to hear one of my roommates get up 30 minutes later to say to the still chatting group that enough was enough at 3:45am.
They left sheepishly in the morning, a little quieter, for Tortuguero. I had a lot of work to do and so worked on Mon and Tues (of course, playing basketball on Sunday), trying to finalise some plans for our trip to Nicaragua (we are leaving Sat/tomorrow). On Wed morning, I took a bus to meet the group in La Fortuna, site of Costa Rica's most active and cloudy volcano. I got there at noon, but they were still on a mountain bike tour to the waterfall, so I showered, played guitar and snoozed in the hotel room, it was great.
They got back and then we went to the Volcano. We were in a hurry, so someone decided that eating pastries that the boys had bought would be enough. Upon arrival at the park, and discovering that the bag of pastries was a scant 6 or 7 in total, everyone was very hungry - especially me! :) We hiked a bit and Juanca explained the vegetation and history of the area. A quick lunch/dinner before heading to the hot springs of Tabacon - a ritzy, but nice set of hot springs. I think we all enjoyed the mini-waterfalls of hot water and relaxing atmosphere.
That night was Kam's birthday (as it would be every night) so we went out to a local bar, La Cascada with some other tourists that they had invited. We stayed until 1 or 2, in spite of the lack of music to dance to - the owner lives next door, so he does not allow loud music after 12. We got salsa lessons from a local named Robert - very well-named.
The next day, we got a semi-early start at 8:30 to get a speedboat across Lake Arenal and then a 4 hour horse ride to Monteverde/Santa Elena. There were many sore butts after and much sympathy for the poor horses who had to carry us up steep hills.
In Santa Elena, we ate lunch, found a hotel, bargaining for the best deal at the Hotel Quetzal, and chilled for a bit before dinner. After some more chilling, including some locally purchased mota/marijuana, and guitar playing, we went out to a local pub and had a great time dancing until 2am. (This is becoming a bit repetitive, but we went out every night!)
On Friday, we went on a tour of Santa Elena reserve, which YCI/RJI had a had in developing back in 1991, and then a canopy tour, a set of 12 zip lines through the jungle. One of the group was very afraid at the beginning and had to be helped across some of them, but in the end she had a great time too. On my first one, I almost took out the tour operator as I didn't brake enough. It is quite the adrenalin rush.
Next lunch/dinner, and more chilling. There was more tours that could have been done, but as a group, we were a bit slow, and also, why rush on a vacation anyway?
That night, we went out to a disco and danced until it closed at 2 or 3am. After some quick haggling, we got a taxi back to the hotel - thankfully, as we were worried we'd have to walk about an hour in the dark.
The next day, we started back towards San Jose, stopping in Sarchi to do some craft shopping. Due to a late start, we arrived late in San Jose, around 8 or so, later by the time we changed some money and shopped for coffee and alcohol. We got to a restaurant for dinner just as it was closing at 9:30. Just in time though, thankfully.
Back home for showers and some people wanted to go out - go out with a bang so to speak, since 5 of the 6 were leaving the next day. I showered, started my laundry and suddenly discovered that almost everyone was asleep. I finished my laundry and then people started to wake up again. By 1am, we left to go for "one drink". We went to a bar called Key Largo, which turned out to be a popular prostitute hangout. Oops. Still, we stayed for our drink and then a live band, singing North American songs started. So, we started dancing, and one thing led to another, and suddenly Kam was on stage playing the bongos. The band was leaving at 3am, so we decided to go elsewhere. After an unsuccessful attempt, we found a disco that was open till 6am and danced till the dawn - literally.
At dawn, we went to the fruit market, bought some pineapple and mangoes and headed home. Mike was leaving first at 10:30, so he got ready and then we walked him to the airport bus at 8:30. Then breakfast and back, and most everyone else was get ready to go, so we got them a cab, said our tearful goodbyes and then it was just Roshy and me.
I had a long nap, then we caught a 6pm bus to Quepos, planning to spend a couple of RELAXING days in Manuel Antonio beach. However, it was not to be. As we neared Quepos, there was a traffic stoppage. We waited for a while, then finally got the news that a bridge ahead of us had washed out in the heavy rain. Oops. So, we headed back to the nearest town, which turned out to be Parrita, again, the site of another stranding I experienced not too long ago with Clare and James. Eventually after a long mystery wait, our uncommunicative bus driver parked the bus at a gas station and kicked us out of the bus. We looked for a hotel, but they were all full, so we slept in a neighbouring bus with other stranding, snoring passengers. Nothing was open, or so it seemed, but eventually, Roshy and another foreigner found an open bar with some food and brought some back for our late dinner.
The next morning, we got up and waited for the bus drivers to come, which they did eventually and found out that we could get to Quepos, but would have to walk through the river and meet a bus on the other side. We were not too keen to do that, so we discussed going to Jaco, 30 minutes away, or Montezuma, which was maybe 4-5 hours away. Roshy had heard a lot about Montezuma, and I had never been there, so we decided to continue our trek...
We caught a bus that was more than an hour late and just missed the 11am launch in Puntarenas. We caught one at 12:30 though and after 1.5 hours getting sunburnt on the deck of the ferry and a two hour bus ride, we got to Montezuma, exhausted but relieved. We looked at a couple of hotels, and finally took a cheap one, threw our stuff down, and went for a walk on the beach in our remaining hour of daylight...
We were a bit disappointed with how rocky the beach was - not a great place for swimming. However, eating at the Sano Banano (Healthy Banana) made up for it - a healthy food restaurant on the beach, what a great idea. We had a great meal, but the place was really busy and we had several adventures with getting our food. In the end, after I convinced the manager that the special really did include garlic bread according to their menu and waiting for 30 minutes for our dessert, we got our dessert for free. In spite of the problems, I was impressed with how the owner and staff dealt with us - service is not generally good in Latin America, so it was enough to make us want to return for breakfast the next day.
We turned in early, trying to catch up on our sleep... A great breakfast with only a minor mishap of the waiter not knowing what tofu was, even though it is on their menu...
We tried to walk to the nearby waterfall, but the rain had made the path impassable, so we walked on the beach, swam a bit and relaxed. Eventually, discovering that the bus schedules were not well set up for connections, we had to leave at 2pm since I had a lot of work and meetings the next day. We had spent more time travelling to Montezuma than we actually spent there... So another long ride back to San Jose and we eventually got there at 9pm or so. A late dinner and sleep.
Roshy and I managed to track down Marcelo, another friend that had worked at Nortel and I took a break from work to have lunch with them. Marcelo took Roshy to the airport after another tearful goodbye.
At work, things are pretty exciting, we are off to do the feasibility trip in Nicaragua tomorrow. I have set up the meetings - about 14 from Sunday to Thursday in Managua, Matagalpa and Ometepe with big organizations like UNDP to small community organisations. Andrea from work and I are going. It should be fun. More on that later, I guess.
In other news, I received a job offer for Assistant Project Director in Costa Rica. It is sort of a temporary position in the meantime until the Nicaragua project starts. That is looking to be more like March 2002 now. The only problem is that this job starts around the beginning of August, leaving little time to visit home in July and August as I had planned. I am still mulling it over. As Heather said to me, they took a long time getting to me about the job, I guess I am allowed to take a bit of time to think about it too. Actually, the timing is not the only problem, but I just need to take some time and think it all through - what I really want to do now...
Anyway, that's enough about me. What about you? Are you really reading all the way to the end? Or did you jump to the end? Please respond to the survey questions.
Un abrazo,
Rob