Isla Bastimentos, Part III

Red Frog Beach

Today, like my other days here, I hopped off to the beach in the morning where I stayed until late in the afternoon (about 4pm I suppose).

I decided yesterday that I was going to hike to the beach in the other direction (west this time I think).  I was enjoying "my spot" so much that I failed to set out on my adventure at a reasonable time.  Since the sun sets early (in Panama, around 6.30 I think), 4pm really was too late to start an adventure.  I was not interested in struggling through the jungle at night without light.

The trail.

I still managed to see the next beach over, Wizard Beach, but I was only able to stay a few minutes.  The beach was very nice and I wish I could have spent more time there, but of course there's nothing I can do about that now.

This hike west was a bit harder than the hike east I went on yesterday.  My flip flops really weren't cut out for the short steep inclines, but I managed.

Along the way, I saw a number of red frogs.  The jungle is
rather dark, even at 4pm, so I had a bit of trouble
photographing them.

When I was very near Wizard Beach (the hike from the hostel to Wizard Beach is something like 45 minutes) I heard a sound and thought someone was going to meet me on the trail.  I was nervous until a cow stepped forward and surprised me.  I didn't know there were any cows on the island.

In fact, there was a whole heard of cows that had come to the ocean to drink.  I snapped a number of photographs, but the cows were skittish and retreated if I stepped forward.

I walked past the cows to arrive at Wizard Beach around 5 pm, too late to do anything other than sit on my towel a few minutes and watch the waves. When I arrived, there were a couple of small groups of people, but they soon left via water taxi and I had the beach to myself for a few minutes before I had to leave.

Tomorrow, the 31st, I fly back to San Jose and then take the bus to Montezuma.  Originally I was going to go to Quepos and visit Manuel Antonio National Park, but I decided that was too difficult.  And besides, I want to see monkeys and Montezuma has monkeys.  The only difference is that at Manuel Antonio I have to pay $10 entrance fee and in Montezuma I don't!

I love this picture!  It's such a juxtaposition with the cow at the
beach and the tiny islands in the background complete with
palm trees!

Heard of Cows

Wizard Beach on Isla Bastimentos

Bastimentos, Part II

The next day, I did spend almost the whole day at the beach, despite being burned.  Again, I lathered up and hung out in "my spot" in the shade.  Late in the afternoon, I decided to explore the island a bit.  A bit became a lot.  I initially was just going to get to the next beach over, but I soon changed my mind.  

The view from "my spot."

I actually saw my first red frog on the way to Turtle Beach.  A young boy had one trapped in a leaf.  He asked for money for me to take a picture of it, and I was slightly tempted, but I wanted to find my own (and no matter, I had no money with me).  Only a couple minutes later, I spotted one of these frogs on the side of the road.  I ended up seeing quite a few of these frogs.  Apparently, they come out with the rain and it hadn’t rained in a few days, that is until this particular day that I saw the frogs.  

I hung out on Turtle Beach reading and playing sudoku for awhile.  Turtle Beach was even more deserted than Red Frog Beach.  There was only one other couple on Turtle Beach and I outstayed them by quite a while.  

Turtle Beach

Turtle Beach

It started sprinkling, so I got up and decided I’d try to explore further and try to find the next beach.  

I walked and walked, partially on the overgrown trail located right behind the beach and partially on the beach itself.  

I think I managed to find both North Beach and Long Beach, but I'm not %100.  (Seeing as there were no signs or people).  I seriously did not see a single person between Turtle Beach and when I finally turned around.  

I believe this is North Beach.  However, I can be wrong, in which case this is Long Beach.

I was actually quite nervous forging through the sometimes barely there path.  Anything could have happened to me and no one would have known for days.  

My goal of the day was to get as close as possible to this tiny island I had seen from Red Frog Beach.

View from Red Frog Beach.  The tiny island I'm referring to is the bit 3rd from the left.

The land juts out into a point directly across from this tiny island.  I made my way there and took some awesome pictures.  

How awesome is this island?  I wanted to swim over so badly (although I'm positive that would have been a bad idea so far from civilization).  

I walked slightly further on the see the next beach, but the time was getting late and I wasn't sure how long it would take me to get back to the hostel.  I knew I had walked quite some distance.

It was an awesome adventure.  I was really nervous being so alone out there, but reflecting back on that part of the trip, I think that it was made better by the lack of people.  Part of the island's awesomeness was that I felt like I had it all to myself.  And I knew that I was taking a path so many other people had taken before me (as evidenced by the insane number of single, broken flip-flops), but I still felt like I was the first person to discover those things - the wilderness beaches and the dot of an island I very much wanted to visit.

Costa Rica isn't like that.  I have yet to be in any part of Costa Rica (not that I've seen much) that I feel like I'm seeing anything new.  But I still have some of my trip left, so who knows?

Isla Bastimentos 5.27.2011 - 5.30.2011

Monday, May 30th, 2011

It’s my last morning on Isla Bastimentos and it’s raining. I had planned an early morning trip to the beach one last time, but it doesn’t look like that’s going to happen unfortunately.

~~~~~

The rain has stopped and I’ve checked out of the hostel. I’ve gone back down to the beach one last time. Because of the rain, the ocean is overflowing. The tide is coming up much more than it usually does at this time of day. And I’m left, sitting on a fallen, bleached tree, feeling very sad. I’m sad to be leaving; the beaches here are probably the best I’ve experienced. I’m sad I’m all alone and lonely; I have no one to share this experience with. No one I show pictures to later will understand.

I have so much to tell of my experience here on Isla Bastimentos that I don’t even know where to start - I suppose I will write chronologically, starting with the water taxi gone wrong.

From Isla Colon, I hopped on a water taxi to Red Frog Marina on Isla Bastimentos. Sadly, I was confused. Pretty much everything on this island is named for a small red frog with black spots on its back. For example, I am now sitting on Red Frog Beach. The hostel I’m staying in is owned by Red Frog Resort. So of course when the guy asked if I wanted to go to Red Frog Marina, it sounded right.

I arrived in the tiny village, called Old Bank, expecting to see a sign directing me to the hostel. Unable to figure out where to go, I asked a woman passing by. I was on the wrong part of the island and would have to take another water taxi to where I wanted to go. She pointed to a red boat a short distance away. A man on the porch of his stilted house intercepted me and said he could take me on his boat for $8. He said $8 was the best he could do for 1 person, gas being as expensive as it is. He wouldn’t be able to take anyone back on the return trip. Realizing I had little choice, I agreed.

The man readied his boat (which meant he emptied the bottom of water). I got in and he started the boat. After about 30 seconds, the man stopped at a stilted building a few doors down to get gas from a man sitting in a foldup chair. Most buildings are on stilts on these islands. The man zipped through the mangroves and to the correct dock. 
 
From there I easily found my hostel - there isn't much on that side of the island.
 

~~~~~

 

I settled in and then put on my swimsuit.  I didn't want to waste any time getting to the beach.  I put on sunscreen and then set off down the path through the jungle to Red Frog Beach.

The beach is quite amazing.  I wasn't sure what to think at first.  I went down to the beach around 10.30, but there was no one else there.  It felt strange to be the only person on the beach at a completely reasonable hour.  Rather than turning right (which would have taken me to the beach lounge), I turned left.  Still  sunburned from Playa Estrella, I wanted shade.  I found myself a little nook between some trees and settled in.

"My" spot on the beach.

Despite applying sunscreen and spending the day in the shade (and moving with the shade), I became even more sunburned.  Painfully so.  I am over being sunburned, I really am, especially since I've been making an effort to NOT become sunburned.

As soon as I noticed I was burned, I went ahead and packed up to go back to the hostel and take a shower. I had planned on spending the whole day at the beach, but I only made it until about 3pm.

Playa Estrella

Thursday, May 26th, 2011

I’ve been here a couple of days now, internet-free except for about 3 minutes that I borrowed the hostel office computer.  So all of these Bocas del Toro posts will be a bit on the late side.  I hope at least that I will be able to get interenet at my next hostel on Isla Bastimento.  *NOTE* This post was posted May 27th.

From where I’m sitting on the balcony in front of my hostel dorm room, I can hear someone hammering in the tarped up house next door.  I think the people must be living in the house while construction is going on.  The roof and supports seem to be finished, but not the walls.  In the window of the house next to that one, I can see a woman in a blue T-shirt making pasta for her family and using the ledge outside her window as extra counter space.

At this point, the woman has just poured her  pasta into the strainer.  

The tarped up house.

It is insanely hot and humid here.  I can feel myself literally melting.  I figured there would be more breeze because I’m practically on the ocean, but that is most definitely not the case.  It hasn’t rained since I got here, and I’m not sure if that’s a good thing or not.  The air is so still; I sweat every second of every day, even when I sleep.  The air does not seem to cool, even at night.  At least in Costa Rica, the clouds come in in the afternoon, as does the breeze which cools everything down.  (It must be mentioned that with the clouds comes torrential rain).

Yesterday, I went to the beach and got a pretty bad sunburn.  I didn’t realize it until after the fact though.  It never occurred to me I would burn; I had put on sunscreen and spent the day in the shade of palm trees.  But I suppose it was washed off by the ocean or by the bug spray I liberally sprayed on after the first tiny dot bugs started stinging me.  There are these tiny flying bugs here, about the size of a period at the end of a sentence, that sting.  I haven’t noticed that they leave a bump, but it still hurts while they are stinging.  Afterwards, I can’t tell where they stung and can’t feel the pain.

So now I’m in quite a lot of pain from the burn, and worse still, I was bitten by some sort of a bug last night that left smallish itchy welts all over my right leg and arm (hardly any welts on left arm and leg oddly enough).  So I itch, but if I scratch my sunburn pains me.

The beach itself was quite nice.  There was a long, narrow stretch of land.  Extraordinarily calm water was on one side of the strip of sand, palm trees and jungle on the other.

The sign says not to touch the starfish.

It was fairly easy to find a spot distant enough from anyone else underneath the palms.

I camped out underneath the center palm. The beach was narrow, but still quite nice.

The water was quite nice as well.  Swimming was easy in the calm sea and the temperature was nice in the morning.  Later in the afternoon, the water, especially the most shallow water, became hot.  The beach is called Playa Estrella for the starfish.  Especially when I arrived, there were starfish littering the shallow water of the sea.  I was directed by signage not to touch, and I didn’t, but I wanted to.  I got very close to some of them.  I think at the temperature of the water increased, they retreated deeper into the sea where it was a bit cooler.

I rode home on the same bus I went there on.  Elvis and Manuel (I don’t actually remember the 2nd guy’s name, only the first’s was memorable, so I made up a new name for him) were the driver and doorman.  I’m not sure which was which, but at the end of the journey there, we were all asked to pay the return fare ($5) and given a little yellow laminated card that had Elvis and Manuel’s telephone numbers and the bus schedule (to give back to them as proof of payment).

That bus ride to the beach has been one of the most interesting experiences of my trip.  They squished as many people on that bus as possible.  Just when I thought the bus was full, Elvis (or Manuel) would direct someone up to the front to sit down in a nonexistent seat.  That bus had 4 or 5 (more?) fold out seats.

I was seated next to a local woman who happened to know all the words to the vibrantly colorful Caribbean (but not exactly calypso) sounding songs.  I find it very difficult to describe the music I heard on that 40 or 45 minute ride.  Basically, each musical artist would take a catchy (or not) phrase and repeat it over and over using different notes set to upbeat music.  The song I distinctly remember is “Hay Doctores.”  I never figured out if it was a question, “Are there any doctors?” or if it was a statement, “There are doctors.”  Since the singers’ intonation went up at the end, I’m voting for a question.  Seriously, I don’t think there were any other lyrics to the song.  These guys just really cared about these doctors.  Many of the other songs I heard were similar.  I suppose that’s why the woman next to me knew all of the words to the songs blasting through the bus.

Back to Elvis and Manuel.  These guys have the hookups.  Every few minutes they would stop the bus.  The driver and doorman would get out and do something (that I couldn’t see from my poor vantage point).  Then they would hop back in and drive on for a few more minutes.  I imagine Elvis was the doorman.  The driver just didn’t look like an Elvis.

I was able to see some of Elvis’ actions from where I sat.  For example, at one stop, he picked up a large bucket full of ice.  He dropped it off at the side of the road a couple of minutes later.  At one point, he had a large bottle of gasoline (I think).  He held it out the door for the 100 yards the bus drove with it.  He then left it of the side of the road, seemingly in the middle of nowhere.  At another stop, he ran across the street to drop a small plastic bag on the doorstep of a woman’s house (he did not wait for her to come get it; she was in the yard at the time).  Not far from Bocas Town, the driver stopped at a convenience store.  Later in the trip, he stopped in the middle of a road construction site to exchange a bottle of water for a dollar with one of the workers.

The bus finally arrived at the beach; it was one of the more interesting bus rides of my life.

Because of the sunburn and my reluctance to get back out in the sun (pretty much anything to do here requires much intake of sun), I only left the hostel this morning to get food and even that was fairly painful.  Fortunately the hostel is big and there are multiple places to hang out.  I’ve read, played sudoku, written, watched local children throw paper over their front porch rail, half-listened to several Spanish lessons (I’m staying at a Spanish language school), and have seen several different kinds of birds (including what I swear is a hummingbird).

I haven’t learned much of anything new, but I have heard some words and phrases I haven’t heard in some time, thus reigniting a small part of my atrophied brain.  The only thing I thought was rather curious was a guy who was (if I understood correctly) trying to teach his class to pronounce Mexico and Oaxaca with an X sound instead of an H sound.  I didn’t quite catch everything he said, so I think some of my confusion would have been explained away if I could have heard the entire lecture, rather than just a few snippets.

Tomorrow, I will take a water taxi to Isla Bastimentos.  That island is supposed to be less peopled, have fewer businesses, and more wilderness.  The beaches are supposed to be even nicer than the one I saw yesterday as well.

Wild and Crazy No Internet Day

Tuesday, May 24th, 2011


I can’t get the internet to work for anything.  Google keeps telling me it’s a problem with my DNS servers, but since I’ve tried all the other options it gives me, the only thing left is to restart the modem, and of course I can’t do that.  So it looks like I may not have internet for the next 3 or 4 days, maybe more as I’m not sure if I will have it or not at my next stop.  


So anyway, I am now on Isla Colon in Bocas del Toro, Panama.  I had so looked forward to this place, especially since the parts of Costa Rica I’ve seen have been so disappointing.  It’s okay, but not at all what I expected.  First of all, even though I’m surrounded by ocean, I can’t get there very easily and can only see a snippet at a time.  My hostel is about a block from the ocean, but I can only see it if I go to the 2nd floor and crane my neck over the balcony.  Businesses and hotels are lining the oceanfront, but none of it is beachy.  

Apparently, I have to take a bus to the beach, or maybe a water taxi.  And even then, it’s not supposed to be the best beach.  I’ll probably go tomorrow though - I’ve been looking forward to beach time since I got here.  I am also really interested in going to La Gruta, a cave where you can see lots of bats, but I’m not interested in taking a very expensive taxi there and back (the 4 year old guidebook says it should cost $10).  Even my 2 year old Costa Rica guidebook says everything costs several dollars less than it actually does.  


Again, lack of efficient public transportation fails me.  That was a big problem I had in Alueja and San Jose.  I couldn’t go to La Paz waterfalls or Poas Volcano because of a lack of public transportation options.  


I booked 3 nights here thinking the beach was right there (meaning walking distance).  I guess I also thought there would be more to see than there is.  I’ve pretty much walked the town.  Two or three times.  


This traveling alone thing isn’t working out very well.  If I was with someone else, the taxi ride to La Gruta would only be half as bad.  Food would be easier too.  It’s really too hot to cook.  In Europe my go to was bread and cheese, but here… the bread isn’t that great and 8 ounces of cheese is $5.00 (imported, I haven’t seen any local cheeses, here in Panama or in Costa Rica).  My go to here is juice and cookies.  It was bananas until I had 3 in one morning and I can’t do that again.  So I eat what I can find for breakfast unless the hostel serves it (I’ve had hostel  breakfast once out of 5 mornings).  I sometimes eat lunch out if I can find a place that serves vegetarian.  And afternoon snack/dinner is juice (or orange soda) and cookies.  So healthy I know, but I don’t have very many options here.  And even the “cook easily” options are limited to spaghetti.  


It’s so insanely hot here.  I don’t know what the temperature is, but I was literally melting when I returned from my hour long walk/sit in the tiny municipal park.  I’m not sure if it’s hotter or more humid than Texas, but here, there is no such thing as air conditioning.  You’re lucky if you get a fan.  I’m outside in the shade right now and I’m sweating.  


The place I’m staying is pretty interesting.  It’s called Spanish by the Sea.  It’s actually a language school.  I knew it when I booked the place and it would have been cool to take a class (I’m actually watching a class right now).  I didn’t book any classes though.  Additionally, I think they start classes every Sunday (and seeing as I won’t be here on a Sunday, I suppose it wouldn’t have worked out anyway).  

The hostel.  Not a terribly good picture, but nonetheless...

Actually, I can’t figure out the language here.  Every once in awhile I catch a distinctively Spanish word on the street, but often the language doesn’t even sound like Spanish.  I listened to a guy sitting next to me and couldn’t figure out what he was speaking, but he threw in an English word every now and then.  People here seem to know each other (which makes sense, this place isn’t very big).  NOTE*I have since read in the Panama Lonely Planet Guidebook that “Gali-Gali is a distinct Creole language of the Bocas del Toro Province that combines Afro-Antillean English, Spanish, and Ngobe-Bugle.”*


The airplane trip from San Jose to Bocas was an other worldly experience.  I arrived at the airport very early by taxi.  My flight was at 6.30.  The airport is tiny.  This one domestic commercial airline, NatureAir flies out of the airport.  As far as I can tell, all other aircraft were personal or perhaps for cargo.


I checked in for the flight and was required to weigh my bag (14.86 lbs of the 15 lbs limit).  And then I was required to step on the scale myself (with my carryon).  My passport was kept. (I’m not sure why and it freaked me out, but they took everyone’s.)  By everyone, I mean all 7 of us.  Four were German, 2 were… Swedish?  All were in their 20s I’d guess.  After our baggage was hand inspected, we waited and waited.  Finally, we were ushered through the security area.  I wish I knew they didn’t care about liquids before I bothered zip locking them.  Nobody cared about the extremely dangerous weapons in my shoes either.  That was a joke.  


The 7 of us, led by the pilot, walked out to the plane.  It was tiny from the outside and even tinier on the inside.  There were exactly 7 seats, including the 1 next to the pilot. The guy seated next to the pilot took advantage of the situation and filmed the takeoff and landing, and I’m pretty sure he took photos of himself seated next to the pilot.  


I was expecting this to be the scariest flight of my life - I’d been dreading it since before I bought the ticket.  But I also knew I wasn’t interested in sitting on a series of buses and water taxis by myself on a trek that would span 8 hours.  The flight itself was nice actually, and I wasn’t scared like I was expecting. I even saw a volcano smoking fairly clearly from my larger than normal window.  

The "baggage guy" unloading the 7 "checked" backpacks.  

The flight lasted all of 35 minutes and I was in Panama.  By the way, I didn’t mention that our “checked” luggage was actually packed into the main cabin with us.  I could see my bag if I turned around in my seat.


The best part about the whole experience was that I could walk to my hostel from the airport.  Airports are usually so far from everything, but this one is right there.  People live all around it and there is a ball field at the south end separated only by a chain link fence.  

The airport was under construction, but operations were as usual, which meant that we passengers simply walked through the construction to enter the airport.  I was the first called into the immigration office.  Yes, there was an office with one man sitting behind one desk.  He asked me some questions.  I answered and he carefully entered my answers into his ledger.  He stamped my passport and I was back into the holding room where my luggage was hand inspected again, but this time both carry on and checked bags.  


And finally, I was free, released into the wilds of Panama to explore and discover new things.  

Beware of Falling Water

"Para la agua! Para la agua!" I found it funny the hawkers said "For the water" instead of "For the rain."  Additionally, I'm pretty sure the other word they used was "sombrilla," which is an umbrella for the sun.  "Paraguas" would have suited the situation better.  


I had packed a rain jacket, but a garbage bag probably would have been more useful.  I got caught in the rain (which later became torrential rain) a mile or more from the hostel on the complete opposite side of town.  I didn't think it would be a big deal (it rained the other days I was here... but usually not for long).  It's been raining for over 2 hours now.  I waited around for awhile for the rain to stop under an awning, but the rain didn't let up.  I finally decided I had to just go ahead and go to the hostel.  By the time I arrived, I was completely soaked through and frozen.  


I've been here about an hour now, and I have yet to be able to get warm or dry.  There are 3 Swedish girls in the room who have completely taken over the room, even the bathroom.  I couldn't take being squeezed around the room anymore, so I am sitting outside the room on a bench using the internet hoping fervently that they will leave so I can go take a hot shower (probably no hot water left by the time I get there though, if there ever was any.  Costa Rica isn't known for it's hot water.  So I am still cold and still wet and my lungs are full of poo stink and smog (the entire city smells like feces, urine, and smog) and I've had a pretty awful day overall.  


One of the Swedish girls just came out of the room to get toilet paper.  They are going to spend the rest of the night in the bathroom!  I want to shower and then get in bed.  It's 5.40, but the day is over.  It's raining, I'm a good 8 blocks from the start of anything, and my shoes are holding water (the water drainage system isn't sufficient enough to control all that water). So I can't go anywhere.  I doubt my shoes will even be dry by tomorrow when I need them.  


So that's it.  That was my day.  I traveled from Alajuela to San Jose on the hottest bus ever, I ventured into San Jose because my hostel bed wasn't ready, and I got rained on.  Gallons.

Buses and Butterflies

The internet is spotty here. What I mean is that the internet only works if I go out on the balcony, balance the computer on the ledge, and stand.  It’s not quite as scary as it sounds; the ledge is a good 8 inches wide, I own a baby computer, and the entire opening is caged. Pretty much every house and every business has every window and the entrance to every door barred.  Many have their entire front patio area barred and locked at all times.  As if an 8 foot iron barrier isn’t enough, many homes have scary spikes or barbed wire looping over the top edge.

I have been trying to get email to load since I got back at 5 - 2 1/2 hours ago.  I finally found the bus to the butterfly farm.  I didn‘t go to Poas Volcano like I had wanted - it‘s mostly impossible on public transportation.  I read that if you go on the public bus, you don‘t get there until after the fog has started and it‘s not really worth it. So I did some research and came up with a couple of alternatives.  I decided to go to the Butterfly Farm in Guacima.  Again, public transportation was an issue.  I didn’t think it would be; I looked up the schedule and the location of the bus in 2 books and online.  I went with the times given online (thinking they’d be more up-to-date and accurate).  I wasn’t so sure about the location though.  All 3 locations were close to each other - and there were actually buses at all 3 locations.  I knew the company I was looking for, but not all buses are labeled with the company.  I thought that in a smaller town like Alajuela (30,000 pop.) I wouldn’t have that much trouble.  But I did.  I kept walking around the 3 bus stops looking for the correct bus.   I missed the 9am bus, but tried again at 11am and made it!

The whole thing was very complicated and it was a miracle I even made it.  AND there really wasn't even anyone to ask for help (Ticos are notorious for telling you to go to a random place if they don't know the answer rather than telling you they don't know).

By the way, the butterflies were awesome.  Imagine walking into this jungle-like area and being surrounded by vibrant yellows, oranges, and blues flittering around your body.

It’s also seriously weird how I seem to be the only tourist.  I was the only person at the butterfly farm today with the exception of about 15 minutes when a mom, gramma, and kid were there.  I paid for the tour - and got a private tour!

Additionally, I am still the only one in this dorm room, and I really think the only one in the hostel.

Actually, I did see other tourists today... I had found out about a vegetarian restaurant, but then it wasn't where the map said it would be, so I went to this other place, Jalapeno's, that was supposed to be serving texmex.  I was sooooo tired and soooo hungry (I had a package of cookies and juice for dinner last night because I couldn't find vegetarian food and the major grocery stores (I have visited all 3 chains) are 1. all owned by walmart and 2. do not have anything prepared (no sammiches or anything).

Anyways, I walk into Jalapeno's and once sitting (by myself so very lonely) I notice that everyone in the restaurant is white.  The food was pretty good, but not at all an authentic experience (I may as well have gone to pizza hut or mcdonald's) - they would have been cheaper and I could have found them more easily.  The prices were unclear (I thought I'd be paying about 6 dollars because that's what it said next to the burrito).  But my bill was 9 (not a good deal in Costa Rica).  The others (all white Southern people were cool with the prices and even left tips - I did not because service was included in the bill).

Beware of Falling Mangoes

Plonk! Plonk! A mango lands next to my left foot.  A few minutes later I pick it up and stash it in my bag for later.  Every once in awhile I see an older man pick one up and eat it.  I am sitting on a dirty, uncomfortable bench in the mango tree-lined Central Park.

I arrived in Alajuela, Costa Rica last night.  I chose to stay here rather than San Jose because the taxi was shorter and cheaper, and since I was transferring from the airport to my hostel at night.

I woke up very early this morning and kept waking up every 30 minutes or so.  There was one other girl staying in the room that left for the airport at 7, so no real issue with other people. The bed and pillow weren’t terrible comfortable, but it was also very light even at 5am.

Almost everything takes place very early here - most tours leave insanely early, buses too, as do planes.  I have a flight later in my trip that leaves at 5.30 in the morning.  Apparently, sights must be seen in the morning because the afternoon often brings clouds over volcanoes (I think I read that somewhere) and torrential rain.  (I actually made it back to the hostel exactly (no kidding) as the torrential part of the rainstorm came through.  Twenty or thirty minutes later, the storm has passed leaving behind water in the streets and on sidewalks.  The clouds started making me nervous at about 2.30pm (I had only been out of the hostel for about 4 hours and I’m sure I was the last to leave, but I wasn’t in a hurry.

Today is a lazy day.  There is not much in Alajuela itself to do or see, but that’s okay with me.  This day has actually lasted so incredibly long already, and it’s only 3.40pm.  My day has consisted of trying to find food (so hard as a vegetarian - I would have my pick of cheap fare as a carnivore) and buying a book from a little used bookstore.  I also spent quite a bit of time sitting in the park watching people.

I’m actually here a couple more nights.  Tomorrow I will probably go see Poas Volcano.  The next day I will take the bus into San Jose.  I will spend 1 full day in San Jose (probably the only full day devoted to the city).  It’s not worth a day even according to some.  On the 24th, I fly to Bocas del Toro, Panama (I am pretty excited about that part of my trip).

Now if only I can get internet long enough to post this blog (internet is pretty spotty right here).

Today's the Day

Today's the day I fly to SJO - San Jose, Costa Rica.  It's 4.08 AM - I got less than 4 hours of sleep and am feeling it completely.  But I've barely booked anything and I want to get some more hostels decided on before I go.  Better get moving!

See you in Costa Rica!

Uggghh

So with all other parts of life flying past me, I have yet to do any real planning for my trip.  I have a couple of sticky notes on my desktop telling me things I need to do before I leave and things I need to pack, but I have accomplished almost none of it.  And even today - it's 10am and I have to go to work in a few hours.  I'm not sure I'll get much of anything done today either.  And this weekend G and I are going to a wedding.  I'm leaving in a week!  Aaaack!

It's that time of year again

It's almost summer.  And of course, summer = travel for many people.  In the past, most of my traveling has been between January and April during the off-peak season.  However, this year, I am traveling mid-May to mid-June.  In 13 days, I will embark on an impressive, sometimes difficult, rewarding journey to Costa Rica and Panama.  As I have the past couple of years, I will keep this blog updated with pictures and information about my adventures.


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